Mari Morphology Generator

To use this applet, enter a nominal in its nominative form or a verb in its infinitive form in the input field of the appropriate tab, choose the parameters of the inflection, and click on the button. Please note that only correct input will result in legitimate output.

The following table contains all the letters that can legitimately appear in Mari words. Many of these letters only appear in loan words.

If you are using a Russian keyboard layout (or any other Cyrillic layout), you can copy/paste the following three characters not used in Russian – Ҥ Ö Ӱ.

If you are not using a Cyrillic layout, enter words in the Latin alphabet. The program will then automatically transcribe them into Cyrillic. You can choose from five different transcription schemes, which are optimized for different languages, on the "Settings" tab.

The following are some general rules for input that are applicable to all five schemes:

• The Mari alphabet has more letters than the Latin alphbet. Thus, a one-to-one representational system is not possible. Often, several Latin letters are used to represent one letter in Mari. For example, under the English input scheme, SH is used to represent the Mari letter Ш.
• This can lead to some conflicts. For example, the Cyrillic letter combination CX is a direct transliteration of SH. However, by default SH is read to mean Ш. In order to specify that letters are meant to be separate, insert a vertical bar | between them. The bars themselves will disappear in the transcription, but will prevent letters from being seen as clusters.
• Word accentuation is usually regular in Mari. However, many nouns – especially newer Russian loan words – have not been adapted and do not follow Mari accentuation rules. In declinations, it can make a difference if the last syllable of a word is stressed or not. In the lower right corner of the “Nominals” tab, it is possible to specify whether the last syllable is stressed or not. If this is not done, it will be assumed that the word follows standard Mari accentuation rules.
• Use the asterisk * to get the hard sign Ъ.
• Use the apostrophe ' to get the soft sign Ь. Also, a J or a Y (depending on the transcription system) after an L or an N – the two consonants that can be palatalized in Mari – will be interpretated as a soft sign, if this is not explicitly ruled out.
• Palatalization of consonants, although usually marked, is not explicitly denoted before Е and И. This is a minor orthographical flaw in Mari, as there is no way to know whether or not an Л or an Н is palatalized in such a situation. In some cases, this might make a difference in the inflection of a word. In such situations, the program will assume that there is no palatalization, unless a dollar sign $ is inserted between the palatalized consonant and the following vowel.
• The Russian letter Ё is not used in Mari at all and is relatively rare in loan words. The letter combination ЙО, however, is very common in Mari (Йошкар-Ола). Thus, by default the letter combinations JO/YO are read as ЙО. If you actually want an Ё, put single quotes on both sides of the letter combination ('JO'/'YO').
• In some cases, there are several legitimate forms of a particular inflection of a word; sometimes particles can be arranged in more than one way; and some words and particles can have parallel forms. In these cases, the software will return the most regular form. This does not mean that there are no other possibilities.

For complete tables of the transcription systems used, see:

• Expanded Latin
• German
• English
• Finnish
• Hungarian

© 2008, Jeremy Bradley University of Vienna Department of Finno-Ugric Studies PRIVATE PROJECT - DISCLAIMER