Mari phonology

Vowels

 * 1) Only in Hill Mari

Word prosody and vowel harmony
Stress is not phonemic in Mari, but a dynamic stress system is exhibited phonetically, the stressed syllable being higher in pitch and amplitude and greater in length than an unstressed syllable. Generally, there is one prominent syllable per word and prominence may be found in any syllable of the word. Post- and prefixes behave as clitics, i.e. they do not have their own stress. For example, (pört, "house") гыч (gəč, "out of") ; or му́ро (muro, "song") дене (dene, "with").

Consonants
Consonants are shown in Cyrillic, Latin, and the IPA:
 * 1) Only in Russian loanwords, in Hill Mari also onomatopoeia and Chuvashian loanwords.
 * 2) Palatalisation is marked in different ways. A $\langleу\rangle$ following a palatalised consonant is written as $\langleю\rangle$, and $\langleа\rangle$ following a palatalised consonant is written as $\langleя\rangle$. If the vowel following a palatalised consonant is an е or an и, palatalisation is not marked at all. In other cases, the soft sign ь is used to mark palatalisation.
 * 3) In Russian loanwords and after nasals,  are voiced stops. Word-finally and before a consonant, there is free variation between voiced fricatives  and voiceless stops.
 * 4) The modified Cyrillic letter for the velar nasal  combines the Cyrillic letter $\langleН н\rangle$ with and $\langleГ г\rangle$, where the rightmost post of Н is conflated with the vertical post of $\langleГ\rangle$: $\langle\rangle$. Although Hill Mari has this sound too, this character is only used in Meadow Mari.

Phonological processes
Like several other Uralic languages, Mari has vowel harmony. In addition to front/back harmony, Mari also features round/unround harmony. If the stressed vowel in the word is rounded, then the suffix will contain a rounded vowel: for example, (kütü, "herd") becomes  (kütüštö, "in the herd"); if the stressed vowel is unrounded, then the suffix will contain an unrounded vowel: ки́д (kid, "hand") becomes ки́дыште (kidəšte, "in the hand"). If the stressed vowel is back, then the suffix will end in a back vowel: агу́р (agur, "whirlpool") becomes агу́рышто (agurəšto, "in the whirlpool") (Зорина, Крылова, Якимова 1990: 9).