page_title: Mordvins
section_title: Appearance
hierarchical_section_title: Mordvins / Appearance
caption_attribution_description: English: Erzya women from Penza Oblast dressed on their traditional clothes. Русский: Эрзянки Пензенской области
context_page_description: The Mordvins, also Mordva, Mordvinians, Mordovians, are a people who speak the Mordvinic languages of the Uralic language family and live mainly in the Republic of Mordovia and other parts of the middle Volga River region of Russia.
  The Mordvins comprise one of the more numerous indigenous peoples of Russia. They identify themselves as separate ethnic groups:
  Erzya
  Moksha
  Teryukhan
  Tengushev Mordvins who became fully Russified or Turkified during the 19th to 20th centuries
  Less than one third of Mordvins live in the autonomous republic of Mordovia; the rest are scattered over the Russian oblasts of Samara, Penza, Orenburg and Nizhny Novgorod, while others live in Tatarstan, Chuvashia, Bashkortostan, Central Asia, Siberia, the Russian Far East, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the United States.
  The Erzya Mordvins, who speak Erzya, and the Moksha Mordvins, who speak Moksha, are the two major groups. The Qaratay Mordvins live in the Kama Tamağı District of Tatarstan and speak a Tatar language - albeit with a large proportion of Mordvin vocabulary. The Teryukhan, living in the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast of Russia, switched to using Russian in the 19th century.
context_section_description: The 1911 Britannica noted that the Mordvins, although they had largely abandoned their language, had "maintained a good deal of their old national dress, especially the women, whose profusely embroidered skirts, original hair-dress large ear-rings which sometimes are merely hare-tails, and numerous necklaces covering all the chest and consisting of all possible ornaments, easily distinguish them from Russian women."
  Britannica described the Mordvins as having mostly dark hair and blue eyes, with a rather small and narrow build. The Moksha were described as having a darker skin and darker eyes than the Erzya, while the Qaratays were described as "mixed with Tatars".
  Latham described the Mordvins as taller than the Mari, with thin beards, flat faces and brown or red hair, red hair being more frequent among the Ersad than the Mokshad.
  James Bryce described "the peculiar Finnish physiognomy" of the Mordvin diaspora in Armenia, "transplanted hither from the Middle Volga at their own wish", as characterised by "broad and smooth faces, long eyes, a rather flattish nose".
caption: Erzya women of Penza Oblast dressed in traditional costumes
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