Marathi phrasebook
Photo: Maratha Confederacy, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
Marathi (मराठी) is one of the official languages of India, the main language of the state of Maharashtra and a secondary language in Goa. Marathi is written in the Devanagari script, like Hindi and some other Indian languages. It is the 4th most widely-spoken language in India, after Hindi, Bengali and Telugu. Regional literature in Marathi dates back to around 1000 AD.
Marathi grammar is largely based on Sanskrit and Pali. Around 60% or more of the nouns in Marathi are derived directly from Sanskrit. Also, Marathi shares many words with Hindi. Unlike Hindi but like Sanskrit, Marathi has not 2 but 3 genders: masculine, feminine and neutral. Figuring out the gender of a word can sometimes be difficult, especially for English speakers.
Goa was a Portuguese colony from the 16th to the 20th century, as a result of which Marathi has had influence from the Portuguese language. बटाटा (ba-tA-tA, potato) is a common example used in everyday speech.
Pronunciation guideSee Learning Devanagari for detailed information on the subject. Marathi is nearly 100% phonetic, so pronunciation is not as much of a problem as it may seem at first glance.
Basics
Conversation11 aka-raa 12 baa-raa 13 te-raa 14 chav-daa 15 pan-dha-raa 16 so-laa 17 sa-ta-raa 18 atha-raa 19 ako-nis 20 vees 21 ek-vees 22 ba-vees 23 tee-vees 24 cho-vees 25 panch-vees 26 sav-vees 27 sata-vees 28 aatha-vees 29…
Sources and licences
- Guide text adapted from the Wikivoyage article "Marathi phrasebook" by its contributors, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read on Wikivoyage · Contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo: Maratha Confederacy, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons