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List of publications on a keyword: «Mari language»

  • In these (end) times: Sh. Idiatullin's Volgaic fantasy fiction

    Review Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 5 No 4
    Authors:
    Maria S. Savelyeva, Alexander V. Savelyev
    Work direction:
    World languages and literature
    Abstract:
    The paper discusses the development of ethnic fiction in the modern Russian literature, focusing on Shamil Idiatullin's 2020 novel “Poslednee vremja”. We show that the tendency towards switching from ethnic to regionalist agenda can be observed in the works by both Russian authors, such as Denis Osokin and Alexei Ivanov, and authors having a non-Russian ethnic identity, such as the Tatar novelists Guzel Yakhina and Shamil Idiatullin. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together techniques from literary studies (analysis of the genre and the literary situation as well as the historical and cultural context) and linguistics (an etymological analysis of proper names, in the first place). Our commentary on various linguistic, historical and cultural aspects puts Idiatullin»s novel into the discourse of the contemporary ethnic fiction as a text that expresses the positions of both the Conquerors and the Conquered. The analysis of personal names and other words of non-Russian origin that are used in the Russian text allows to identify the fictional ethnic groups with the actual peoples of the Volga-Kama region and places the novel within a present-day context. One of the key themes of “Poslednee vremja” is language loss, and some scenes, such as the self-immolation of the pagan priest Arβuj-Kuγə̑za, make a clear reference to the contemporary history of the region. The novel»s title can be translated as both “End times” and “These times”; thus, it includes simultaneously an apocalyptic allusion and a hint to the events of the recent past.
    Keywords:
    Idiatullin, Yakhina, ethnic fiction, regionalism, the Mari language, the Turkic languages
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  • “The song helps us to build and to live”: the role and functions of the ethnic song in Moscow Chuvash and Mari diasporic groups

    Research Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 5 No 4
    Author:
    Marina V. Kutsaeva
    Work direction:
    World languages and literature
    Abstract:
    The paper studies the role and functions of songs in an ethnic language in the life of representatives of the internal diaspora. The article is based on the results of sociolinguistic surveys conducted in Chuvash and Mari diasporas of the Moscow region in 2014–2017 and 2019–2021, respectively. The researcher employed the following sociolinguistic methods: direct observation, participant observation, structured interviews of respondents, documentary recording of responses, statistical data analysis. One of the blocks in the sociolinguistic questionnaire included such aspects as the language – in – culture and ethnic culture maintenance in the context of the vitality of ethnic language. Ethnic culture, along with the ethnic language, is one of the key markers of ethnic identity in both samples. As the results of the survey demonstrate, songs in Mari or Chuvash occupy a significant place in the respondents’ life. Several functions of the ethnic song were identified: adaptation to new living conditions; co-optation of new members (i. e., through cultural ethnic events); creative self-realization; language learning (i. e., ethnic songs used for educational purposes in language courses); initiation into language and culture for new speakers of Chuvash and Mari. The role of ethnic song in the revitalization of the language has been equally determined.
    Keywords:
    Chuvash language, ethnic culture, ethnic identity, Mari language, ethnic language, internal diaspora, sociolinguistic survey
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  • «In Dreams the Soul Travels Everywhere, and Sometimes Back to Our Small Native Land»: the Language of Dreams of Representatives of the Chuvash and Mari Diasporas of the Moscow Region

    Research Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 4 No 4
    Author:
    Marina V. Kutsaeva
    Work direction:
    World languages and literature
    Abstract:
    The article deals with one of the most interesting and fairly unstudied functions of the ethnic language in the conditions of the internal diaspora – the language of dreams. Based on the data of her own field research, the author’s goal is to identify the topics and situations in which the representatives fix their dreams in their ethnic languages. In the present article the author uses the data obtained as a result of the sociolinguistic surveys conducted in two diasporas of the Moscow region: the Chuvash diaspora (the sample was 100 people) in 2014–2017, and in the Mari diaspora (the sample included 106 people) in 2019–2021. Both surveys were devoted to identifying and describing the functioning of the ethnic language, its interaction with the Russian language in the context of the multilingual and multicultural space of the Moscow region. The results, obtained in the surveys, reveal that 27% of respondents in the Chuvash sample and 49% in the Mari in the first generation have dreams in their respective ethnic languages. These dreams are closely correlated, according to the respondents, fluent speakers, with the subject of dreams and are associated with relatives and friends in their small homeland (often with deceased ancestors), with a certain place or event in the small homeland. In addition, dreams in «their» language also come in emotionally loaded situations, for example, in a state of stress. Respondents with a poor command of an ethnic language (natives of urban settings, as well as the majority of second-generation representatives in the sample) practically do not record dreams in their ethnic language. The author concludes that this particular function is deeply connected with some other functions, such as a communicative or a sacred one in addition, it reflects certain linguistic ideologies that are discretely dominant in these linguistic communities.
    Keywords:
    Chuvash language, Moscow region, Mari language, ethnic language, internal diaspora, functions of the language, language of dreams
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  • Moscow Mari: Ethnic Culture in the Internal Diaspora

    Research Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 3 No 4
    Author:
    Marina V. Kutsaeva
    Work direction:
    Special Theme of the Issue: Languages and Culture of Finno-Ugric people
    Abstract:
    The article deals with the problem of maintaining and preserving Mari ethnic culture in the conditions of an internal diaspora. The purpose of the article is to identify the conditions for maintaining and to determine the prospects for preserving Moscow Maris’ ethnic culture in Moscow’s multicultural urban space. Methods. In 2019–2021, the author of the article conducted a sociolinguistic survey in the Mari diaspora of the Moscow region; the selective sample includes 106 respondents (100 respondents belong to the first generation of the Mari diaspora, six to the second). One of the aspects of the survey was to study markers of ethnic identity in two generations of the diaspora. Results. The results, obtained in the interviews, reveal that Mari culture (knowledge and observance of Mari traditions and customs) is one of the key markers of ethnic identity in the first generation (coming only third after the small homeland and the Mari language markers). Respondents in the second generation demonstrate remnant knowledge of ethnic cultural practices due to a weak intergenerational transmission of the Mari language. The author concludes that in order to preserve ethnic traditions and customs in the diaspora, it is extremely important to maintain an ethnic language; at the same time, as the world practice of revitalizing minority languages shows, ethnic culture can be viewed as a source of initiation into an ethnic language, and later become a channel for its maintenance.
    Keywords:
    Moscow region, ethnic culture, ethnic identity, Mari language, ethnic language, internal diaspora, revitalization of minority languages
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  • Persons in Linguistics of the Ural-Volga Region: Halil Açıköz

    Research Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 3 No 3
    Author:
    Feride I. Tagirova
    Work direction:
    Languages of the Nations of the World
    Abstract:
    The work is devoted to the description of the life of the Turkish linguist H. Çıkgöz. For the first time in the history of Turkish science his scientific interests were directed to the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Ural-Volga region of Russia – the Mari and Udmurts. Methods. The work is written in the genre of an essay, many episodes of which are due to the author’s memories of the scientist. Results. The presented material can be used in the compilation of bio-bibliographic indexes and databases in the field of the study of the Turkic and Finno-Ugric languages of the Ural-Volga region. Discussion. As a scientist H. Açıkgöz had a wide range of scientific interests and systemic knowledge in various fields: in the field of modern linguistics and written monuments, medieval classical poetry and art in general. In Turkey he was a lecturer at Istanbul University, known as a philologist in his true sense. In Tatarstan he was known as a Türkologist, but few had any idea of the true scope of his scientific interests. In Mari El and Udmurtia they did not have time to recognize him, with the exception of a narrow circle of scientists. This work is useful in that it sheds light on his activities in the field of Finno-Ugric studies, which still remain in the shadows. A wide circle of scholars, both in Russia and abroad, still do not know that H. Açıkgöz was engaged in theoretical and practical study of the Finno-Ugric languages, compilation of the Mari-Turkish dictionary and translation of the dictionary of Tatar and Bashkir borrowings in the Mari language of N.I. Isanbaev.
    Keywords:
    Mari language, Turkic studies, Finno-Ugric studies, Udmurt language, lexicography
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  • Chuvash Chăshtăr-Chashtăr vs. Mari Chyshtyr-Choshtyr

    Research Article
    Ethnic Culture Volume 3 No 1
    Author:
    Valentina Y. Kirillova
    Work direction:
    Special Theme of the Issue: Research of Chuvash Language and Culture of Chuvashia
    Abstract:
    This work is devoted to the study of onomatopoeic paired words of the languages of the central zone of the Volga-Kama language union – Chuvash and Mari. These languages belong to different families (Altai and Uralic), however, for many centuries they have been in close relations, as a result of which they were subjected to significant contamination. The purpose of this work is to establish general and particular parameters of paired words in the languages being compared. The material for the study was the Chuvash and Mari onomatopoeic words, phonetically close to each other. The conclusions of the work are based on the methods of comparative linguistics. On the basis of academic dictionaries, the author establishes a common layer of onomatopoeic paired words of the Chuvash and Mari languages. Studies have shown that, in a derivatological sense, paired words in both languages are built on the basis of the same model and represent onomatopoeia with an incomplete divergent reduplicative component in the final part of the word. At the same time, pairs practically do not reveal semantic convergences. It seems that the discovered feature of phonetically consonant paired words can be explained only by drawing on the genetic differences of languages that are implicitly preserved to the present and only make themselves felt with special scientific analysis.
    Keywords:
    Chuvash language, language contacts, onomatopoeic words, paired words, reduplication, Mari language
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