Editing Mari language (section)

=== Vowels ===
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"
|-
! rowspan="2" |
! colspan="2" | [[Front vowel|Front]]
! rowspan="2" | [[Central vowel|Central]]
! colspan="2" | [[Back vowel|Back]]
|-
! <small>unrounded</small>
! <small>[[roundedness|rounded]]</small>
! <small>unrounded</small>
! <small>rounded</small>
|-
! [[Close vowel|Close]]
| /{{IPAlink|i}}/<br>'''и/i'''
| /{{IPAlink|y}}/<br>'''ӱ/ü'''
|
|
| /{{IPAlink|u}}/<br>'''у/u'''
|-
! [[Mid vowel|Mid]]
| /{{IPAlink|e}}/<br>'''е/e'''
| /{{IPAlink|ø}}/<br>'''ӧ/ö'''
| /{{IPAlink|ə}}/, /{{IPAlink|ə|ə̟}}/<sup>1</sup><br>'''ы/y, ӹ/ÿ'''
|
| /{{IPAlink|o}}/<br>'''о/o'''
|-
! [[Open vowel|Open]]
| /{{IPAlink|æ}}/<sup>1</sup><br>'''ӓ/ä'''
|
|
| /{{IPAlink|ɑ}}/<br>'''а/a'''
|
|}
# Only in Hill Mari
The schwa {{IPA|/ə/}} and its fronted counterpart are usually transcribed in [[Finno-Ugric transcription]] as ''ə̑'' (reduced mid unrounded vowel) and ''ə'' (reduced front unrounded vowel) respectively. The former has sometimes been transcribed in IPA as {{IPAslink|ɤ}}, but phonetically the vowel is most strongly distinguished by its short duration and reduced quality. Descriptions vary on the degree of backness and labialization.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Dennis|last=Estill|year=2012|title=Revising the Meadow Mari vocalism|journal=Linguistica Uralica|volume=XLVIII/3|url=http://www.kirj.ee/20975/?tpl=1061&c_tpl=1064}}</ref>

The mid vowels {{IPA|/e/}}, {{IPA|/ø/}}, {{IPA|/o/}} have more reduced allophones {{IPA|[e̽]}}, {{IPA|[ø̽]}}, {{IPA|[o̽]}} at the end of a word.

==== Word prosody ====
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 [[clitic]]s, i.e., they do not have their own stress. For example, пӧ́рт (''pört'', "house") гыч (''gəč'', "out of") ({{IPA|[ˈpørt ɣɤt͡ʃ]}}); or му́ро (''muro'', "song") дене (''dene'', "with") ({{IPA|[ˈmuro ðene]}}).