An Indo-European language and a member of the Indo-Aryan group of languages, spoken by c. 50 million people mainly in the state of Maharashtra in north-western India, where it has official status, as well as in neighbouring areas.
The language was attested from around AD 1000 and written documents in Marathi date from the 13th century. There is a significant influence by the Dravidian languages, most notably in the structure of the verbal system. Today the language is spoken in three main dialects: Desi, which is the base for the modern standard literary language, Konkani, which is spoken in the region of Goa, and Eastern Marathi, very close to Oriya and Eastern Hindi.
It is written in a form of the Devanagari script, called the Bal Bodh, 'understood by children'.
CLASSIFICATION = Indo-European family, SCRIPT = Devanagari
Grammar |
The student's Marathi grammar |
MAR GRAM 1 |