Quote Originally Posted by Heart Of A Lion View Post
One issue I've already run into is that the endings -ya and -iya can be confused with each other. For example take the name Maria, in Russian it's spelled Mariya. You'd then think that the ending is -iya right? But I've been told it isn't -iya, but just -ya. Which means that the name Mariya follows the declination pattern of -ya and not -iya. That can be confusing.
In fact it doesn't:
s: Мария - Марии - Марии - Марию - Марией - Марии
p: Марии - Марий - Мариям - Марий - Мариями - Мариях
s: демократия - демократии - демократии - демократию - демократией - демократии
p: демократии - демократий - демократиям - демократий - демократиями - демократиях
As you can see, declension is the same.


Suffix -иj- is used in abstract nouns:
биография
демократия
концепция
and so on.

The -j- part of -я belongs to the suffix here, so the actual structure of these words is:
биограф + иj + а
демократ + иj + а
концепц + иj + а

Declension:

s: биография (иj + а) - биографии (иj + и, j dropped) - биографии (иj + и, j dropped) - биографию (иj + у) - биографией (иj + ей) - биографии (иj + и, j dropped)
p: биографии (иj + и, j dropped) - биографий (иj + null) - биографиям (иj + ам) - биографий (иj + null) - биографиями (иj + ами) - биографиях (иj + ах)



I don't know why Wiktionary says Мария has the root Мари- and the ending -я. IMHO, it looks more like that Мария consists of Мариj + а.
We cannot say -иj- is a suffix here, since Мария is just a name, not something abstract, and since Мар- without -иj is meaningless. But all -иj- words follow the same declension pattern, no matter if -иj- is a real suffix or just a part of the root.

In fact, there are lots of -ия female names:

s: Анастасия - Анастасии - Анастасии - Анастасию - Анастасией - Анастасии
p: Анастасии - Анастасий - Анастасиям - Анастасий - Анастасиями - Анастасиях

s: Валерия - Валерии - Валерии - Валерию - Валерией - Валерии
p: Валерии - Валерий - Валериям - Валерий - Валериями - Валериях

s: Евгения - Евгении - Евгении - Евгению - Евгенией - Евгении
p: Евгении - Евгений - Евгениям - Евгений - Евгениями - Евгениях

and so on.

They all decline in this way.