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The Merya language was the Uralic language^[1] spoken by the Merya tribe, which lived in what is today the Yaroslavl region north-east of Moscow (near Rostov Veliky and Pereslavl-Zalessky). Very little is known about the language except for a few lexical and toponymic items identified as possibly being of Merya origin. It probably became extinct during the Middle Ages around 1000 AD ^[2] , as the Meryas were assimilated by the Slavs.

Merya language was probably related to the other Volga-Finnic languages of the adjacent region, although its exact position within the Finno-Ugric language group remains debatable. Originally it was believed that Merya was closely related to Mari, but this view has recently been challenged and an affiliation with the Northwestern Finnic languages, including Balto-Finnic and Saamic, has been explained as more likely ^[3], with the similarities to Mari arising from contacts.

References

1. ^ Wieczynski, Joseph (1976). The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. Academic International Press,. ISBN 9780875690643. http://books.google.com/books?q=%22Merian+and+Muromian%2C+belong+to+the+so-called+Volga+branch+of+the+Finno-Ugric+languages%22&btnG=Search+Books.  
2. ^ Janse, Mark; Sijmen Tol, Vincent Hendriks (2000). Language Death and Language Maintenance. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. A108. ISBN 9789027247520. http://books.google.com/books?id=JdzVePSApMgC&pg=PA108.  
3. ^ Nuorluoto, Juhani (2006). The Slavicization of the Russian North. Department of Slavonic and Baltic Languages and Literatures. ISBN 9789521028526. http://www.slav.helsinki.fi/nwrussia/eng/Conference/pdf/Helimski.pdf.