Mari language

Mari (or Cheremis) is a language of the Uralic or Finno-Ugric family, which currently has more than half a million speakers. It is an official language (together with Russian) of the Mari El republic of the Russian Federation (capital Yoshkar Ola), with speakers also in Tatarstan, Udmurtia and Perm region. It is a literary language, using Cyrillic alphabet.