Culture and language of ancient Mordvinians (Moksha and Erzya ancestors)

The article is devoted to the culture, economic activity and language of the ancient Mor-dvinian people which was an ancestor of Moksha and Erzya peoples and lived between the Volga and the Oka rivers in I-VIIth centuries. Worshipping to dead ancestors was a typical cult for Mordvinians. They didn't have churches. Mordvinians believed in god named Shkay-Pavaz. This article is an attempt to restore the sound system, morphology, vocabulary of the ancient Mordvinian language, the authors analyze a number of issues related to establish-ment of structural features of the grammatical system of the language, study the processes occurring in Mordvinian languages and further tendencies of their development. Contacts of ancient Mordvinians to other nations are described on the basis of materials of written artifacts of the Mordvinian people.