Hill Mari language
| Hill Mari | |
|---|---|
| Western Mari | |
| кырык мары | |
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Mari El (Gornomariysky, Yurinsky, Kilemarsky districts), Nizhny Novgorod Oblast |
| Ethnicity | Hill Mari people |
Native speakers | 30,000 (2012) |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Russia |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mrj |
| Glottolog | kozy1238 |
| ELP | Western Mari |
Hill Mari | |
Western Mari is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Hill Mari or Western Mari (кырык мары, kyryk mary) is a Uralic language closely related to Northwestern Mari and Meadow Mari, in which Hill Mari forms a Western Mari group with the former.
Hill Mari is spoken in the Gornomariysky, Yurinsky and Kilemarsky districts of Mari El, as well as in Voskresensky District of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia. In the northern part of its distribution area, it borders the Northwestern Mari language, with which it together occupies the western regions of Mari language distribution. The main differences between Hill Mari and Meadow Mari are phonological, and to a lesser extent, morphological.
It is written using the Hill Mari Cyrillic script and is co-official with Russian as well as Meadow Mari in the Mari El Republic. Media in Hill Mari includes the newspapers Zhera and Yamdy li!, the literary journal U sem, and broadcasts on Gornomariysky Radio.