| Meshchera | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Oka |
| Ethnicity | Meshchera |
| Era | 13th–16th century |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
0tx | |
 Map of Volga Finns in the 9th century | |
Meshchera is an extinctUralic language. It was spoken around the left bank of the MiddleOka. Meshchera was either aMordvinic or aPermic language.[1][2] Pauli Rahkonen has suggested on the basis oftoponymic evidence that it was aPermic or closely related language.[3] Rahkonen's speculation has been criticized byVladimir Napolskikh.[4] Some Meshchera speaking people possibly assimilated intoMishar Tatars (Meshcheryaki).[3] However this theory is disputed.[5]
The first Russian written source which mentions them is theTolkovaya Paleya, from the 13th century. They are also mentioned in several later Russian chronicles from the period before the 16th century, and even later, in one of the letters byAndrey Kurbsky written in the second half of the 16th century, where he claimed the language spoken in the Meshchera region to be Mordvinic.[6]
Some words have been reconstructed from Meshchera based ontoponymic data, for example: Meshcherahydronymic stems un-, ič-, vil- and ul, which can be compared toUdmurt uno 'big', ič́i 'little', vi̮l 'upper' and ulo 'lower'.[7]
| Finnic | .png) | ||||||
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| Sámi |
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| Mordvinic | |||||||
| Mari | |||||||
| Permic | |||||||
| Ugric |
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| Samoyedic | |||||||
| Others | |||||||
| Reconstructed | |||||||
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