MARI-LANGUAGE PRAYER BOOK TO COME OUT

NIZHNI NOVGOROD, March 23 (RIA Novosti) - A prayer book in the Lowland Mari language will soon come out of print in Yoshkar Ola, capital of Mari El, Russia's constituent republic in the middle reaches of the Volga, reports the Yoshkar Ola diocesan press service.

The written Mari language, of the Finno-Ugrian family, has two varieties-the Lowland and the Highland. Written Mari appeared slightly more than ninety years ago. Before the 1917 Revolution, Mari was sheer vernacular, and came up in written form only in missionaries' sermons.

Lowland Mari is spoken along the lower, meadow Volga bank, in the vicinity of Yoshkar Ola and Krasnokokshaisk.

"The publication of this prayer book will sum up many years' dedicated efforts by the diocesan translation commission. The book will comprise the best of available Holy Writ translations into Lowland Mari, all thoroughly edited and improved," say diocesan PR.

Designed and illustrated by icon-painters, the prayer book will come out in a mass-circulation hard cover edition.