“The native language is Tatar.” Mordovian-Karatai Culture as an Example of Interethnic Interaction

The Karatai are an ethnographic group of Mordvins, historically living in the KamskoUstinsky district of Tatarstan, whose native language is Tatar. The centuries-old history of this local group is an example of active interethnic interaction in the Volga region. Various aspects of history, material and spiritual culture, and the Karatai language are considered in ethnographic and dialectological literature. Among them are those analyzing hypotheses of the origin of the Karatai, taking into account the obvious Mishar vocabulary of their language; studying the modern area of settlement; features of self-identification. Special attention is paid to the materials of the Mordovian ethnographic expedition, which studied the life and traditions of the Karatai in the 1950s under the guidance of the famous scientist V.N. Belitzer.