Mansi
/ˈmæn.si/noun
A member of an Indigenous Uralic people of western Siberia, or the language spoken by them.
Did you know?Mansi is an endonym or closely related native designation, while the older name Vogul—once common in English—was an external name rather than the people’s preferred self-designation.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Uralic
PU
*mańćə
“Person or human being; a reconstructed ancestral form associated with the Mansi self-designation”
Proto-Mansi
PM
*māńsi
“Person or member of the community”
18th Century
Russian
манси
“Mansi people; a borrowing used in Russian descriptions of the Indigenous population”
19th Century
English
Mansi
“An English ethnonym and language name, increasingly used alongside Vogul”
Modern English
English
Mansi
“The Mansi people, their language, or something relating to them”