Transcribe.mari-language.com: Automatic transcriptions and transliterations for ten languages of Russia

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to introduce my efforts to create server-sided (i.e., platform independent web-based, from a user’s perspective) automatic transcription and transliteration software for Uralic and non-Uralic languages of Russia. For ten literary standards — Meadow Mari, Hill Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Erzya, Moksha, Russian, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash — an operational interface can be found at transcribe.mari-language.com and the source code at source.mari-language.com, published under a Creative Commons license. This paper details many of the fine aspects of writing systems used for (Meadow) Mari that I had to take into consideration when creating transcription mechanisms for that language.