Meadow Mari language

Meadow–Eastern Mari
олык марий, olyk marij
Native to	Russia
Region	Mari El
Ethnicity	Meadow Mari, Eastern Mari
Native speakers	470,000 (2012)
Language family	Uralic Mari Meadow–Eastern Mari
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Official language in	Russia Mari El
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mhr
Glottolog	east2328
ELP	Eastern Mari
Meadow Mari
Eastern Mari is classified as Definitely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Meadow Mari, also known as Meadow-Eastern Mari, or Eastern Mari, is a standardised dialect of the Mari language used by about half a million people mostly in European Russia. Meadow Mari, Hill Mari, and Russian are official languages in the republic of Mari El in the Russian Federation.

Meadow Mari and Eastern Mari are distinct language varieties, which both use the Meadow Mari literary standard. The main differences between Meadow Mari and Hill Mari are phonological, and to a lesser extent, morphological.

Alphabet

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Д д	Е е	Ё ё	Ж ж
З з	И и	Й й	К к	Л л	М м	Н н	Ҥ ҥ
О о	Ӧ ӧ	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ӱ ӱ
Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы
Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

Phonology

Consonants

Consonant Phonemes of Meadow Mari

		Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Stop	Voiceless	p		t			k
	Voiced	b		d			g
Fricative	Voiceless		(f)				(x)
	Voiced		v
Sibilant	Voiceless			s	ʃ
	Voiced			z	ʒ
Affricate				(t͡s)		t͡ɕ
Nasal		m		n		ɲ
Lateral				l		ʎ
Trill				r
Approximate						j

/f, x, ts/ primarily occur in Russian loanwords.

Vowels

Vowel Phonemes of Meadow Mari

	Front		Central		Back
	Rounded	Unrounded	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i	y				u
Mid	e	ø	ə			o
Open					ɑ

Meadow Mari has no diphthongs.

Grammar

Meadow Mari is primarily a suffixing, agglutinating language. It displays vowel harmony between rounded and unrounded vowels. Nouns decline for case, number, and possession.

Nouns

Nouns can decline for case, number, and possession. The order of the suffixes is not fixed, and can change depending on context.

Number

Nouns in Meadow Mari have singular and plural forms, with the singular being unmarked. However, the plural form is not used when it is clear from context. There are four potential plural suffixes: -vlak, -šaməč, -la, and -mət. They are partially interchangeable, but not completely. -vlak is the most common suffix. In contrast to the other suffixes, -mət denotes the associative plural.

Possession

There are three ways to show possession in Meadow Mari: through a dedicated suffix attached to the noun, and a personal pronoun preceding the possessed noun, which may or may not have a possessive suffix.

joča "child"
Suffix Only	joča-m	"(my) child-poss"
Pronoun and Suffix	məjən joča-m	"1sg.gen child-poss
Pronoun without suffix	məjən joča	"1sg.gen child"

There are 6 possessive suffixes, which agree with person and number.

lüm "name"
1SG	lüm-em
2SG	lüm-et
3SG	lüm-žö
1PL	lüm-na
2PL	lüm-da
3PL	lüm-əšt

Possessive suffixes are typically only combined with the plural suffixes -vlak and -šaməč. The suffixes can be appended to the noun in any order, however it is most common for the possessive suffix to come first. Example: təlat joltaš-et-vlak jəηgərtenət "your friends called you."

References

Works cited

• Bradley, Jeremy Moss; Pischlöger, Christian (2021-12-16). "Converb constructions in Mari and Udmurt: Russian loanwords as a metric of productivity". Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen (66): 5–50. doi:10.33339/fuf.97527. ISSN 0355-1253.
• Saarinen, Sirkka (2022). "Mari". In Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-876766-4.

External links

• Media related to Meadow Mari language at Wikimedia Commons
• Meadow & Eastern Mari – Finnish dictionary (robust finite-state, open-source)