Northwestern Mari language


Northwestern Mari is a Uralic language variety closely related to Hill Mari and Meadow Mari. With the first of them Northwestern Mari joins as a dialect group of Western Mari language. Northwestern Mari is the language of Northwestern Mari people, who live in Russia in the Yaransky, Tuzhinsky, Kiknursky, Sanchursky districts of Kirov Oblast, Tonshayevsky, Sharangsky and Tonkinsky districts of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and partly in Kilemarsky and Medvedevsky districts of Mari El. It is written using the Northwestern Mari Cyrillic script, but doesn't have an official status in any subjects of Russian Federation.
Northwestern Mari people have difficulties with both other literary languages. The first book in Northwestern Mari, Маре букварь was printed in 1995, and the dialect thereby became the third literary standard.

Dialects