We sincerely hope, that among Erzyans, exactly as well as among other supporters of Erzyan national movements, there are those people, who wish not just to use our site but also to improve it. First of all we aim on increased use of Erzya language, its development and popularization.
Erźań val society considers that development of Erzya language, as well as preservation of whole Erzya people, is possible at following conditions:
1. Linguistic firmness. Those languages are studied, which people speak and use. Surely, even dead languages are avialable to study, however it rather exception than rule. Thus, future of Erzya language and Erzya people depends on linguistic firmness of Erzya (on resilience against russification processes). Use every chance to practice Erzya language. If you live beyond Erzyano-Mokshania or areas with sizeable Erzya populations – then make your contribution into development of Erzya language by means of Wikipedia, creating Erzyan audio or video-content, writing texts or translating from other languages.
2. Erzyan language conversion to Latin alphabet. Linguists deliver enormous amount of arguments, why Latin graphic system is more comfortable for written transmission of Erzyan language. Not for nothing even during soviet times Erzya, as well as many other languages, was transferred to Roman alphabet. However we can consider other arguments, not related to linguistics.
Prohibition to transfer official languages of national republics of Russian Federation into Latin graphics, prescribed in Russian laws in 2002, hit Erzyans very hard. First of all, this prohibition closes all doors to civilized world before Erzyans. Education, science, high-tech and innovations are created by nations, which mostly use Latin graphic. Estonians, Finns and Hungarians study and communicate in much easier manner exactly with those people, who use Roman alphabet. Abandonment of Latin graphics is just another attempt of Moscow to cut Erzyans off from common space of Finno-Ugric nations. Erzyan culture will be able to resist to Russification, when it will be attractive and competitive. It’s simply impossible to do the same using Cyrillic alphabet.
3. Creation of unique content. A language is studied when some unique content is being created and popularized in this language. It can be Erzyan literature, analytic geometry, news, vlogs and other like that. Even if you are not a professional writer, journalist or poet, very much depends on you. Surely you have some hobby or interest - for example, fishing. Make attempt to start the first Erzya-language videochannel, dedicated to fishing. Yes, Erzya language has much lesser speakers, and similar videochannel in Russian has potentially larger audience, but your niche is not simply unique – it is free to work with. You will be able to form your own audience, and moreover, you will make a contribution into development of Erzya language.
4. Translation of world literary classics. Translations of classic works also serves for enriching of Erzyan language, expanding its lexical base. For example, Erzyan texts in political science are rare enough. Thus, translation of classic works of Edmund Burke, John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, Benjamin Constant will need serious work of translators to enrich lexical base of our language.
If you are an amateur translator – start to translate simple and small texts into Erzya.
Erźań val needs volunteers who will help us with:
- Creation of Erzya keyboard layout for smartphones and other mobile devices.
- Creation of first on-line Erzya-Russian / Russian-Erzya translator.
- Developing a transliterator, which will convert Erzyan text from Cyrillic alphabet into Erzyan Roman alphabet.
- Scanning books in Erzyan language. Converting these texts in popular electronic formats, transliterating them into Erzyan Roman alphabet.
- Translation from English, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Russian in Erzyan (we have a lot of important texts which need to be translated and publicly available).
- We expect your ideas and suggestions!