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Vowel Harmony Made with love.
Vowel harmony is the single biggest challenge to new Turkish learners.
Join us today as we chat in detail about this part of the language and
learn to harmonize like a barber shop quartet.
Dialog
3 | Tuğçe Peki bu kek neli? Çilekli mi? Çikolatalı mı? Havuçlu mu?
Dialog Translation
2 | Selen This has sugar, honey, and nuts. Also, it doesn't have salt, milk, or eggs.
Language Points
Vowel Harmony
One of the most important concepts central to the Turkish language is that of vowel harmony: the matching of
vowels in words and suffixes. Turkish vowel harmony rules work to make words as easy to say as possible - that is,
to minimize the movement of the mouth and tongue while pronouncing them. To understand vowel harmony fully,
it's important to understand that there are two main variables that affect how a vowel is pronounced: whether the
mouth is rounded or unrounded, and whether the sound is formed in the front or back of the mouth.
Rounded vowels are those that are made by putting your mouth into a round shape. The rounded vowels in
Turkish are u, ü, o, and ö. When you make these sounds, you'll notice that your lips naturally assume a round
shape, a bit like the fish face children make. The unrounded vowels, then, are those in which your mouth doesn't
round: i,ı,a, and e.
The vowels can similarly be grouped by another characteristic: whether they're voiced from the back or front of the
mouth. The back vowels in Turkish are ı, a, o, and u. To speak with a convincing Turkish accent, you want to be
sure that these sounds are coming from your throat. The front vowels, then, are e, i, ö, and ü. A useful trick for
remembering the two groups are the phrases back a-undotted vowels and front e-dotted vowels, referring to the
dots above the three letters in the front group.
This might all seem like a lot but, fortunately, memorizing the technicalities of vowel harmony won't help your
Turkish as much as simply listening, speaking, and reading. After awhile, gülın (your rose) will look as wrong to you
as something like speshal (misspelled "special").
Some common suffixes that use this type of vowel harmony are -ler (-lar), -ebil (-abil), and -le (-la). Below we've
using the plural suffix -ler to show how the suffix is harmonized with the last vowel in the suffixed word.
Ev. Evler.
House. Houses.
Kedi. Kediler.
Cat. Cats.
Öpücük. Öpücükler.
Kiss. Kisses.
Gül. Güller.
Roses
Adam. Adamlar.
Man. Men.
Kız. Kızlar.
Woman. Women.
Yol. Yollar.
Road. Roads.
Bu. Bunlar.
This. These
Whereas e-type vowel harmony just concerns itself with matching front and back vowels, i-type vowel harmony
(also known as four-fold harmony) demands that the vowel match in both back/front position and roundness.
Instead of two options then, i-type harmony offers four different version of the same suffix. The i version follows i
and e (both front, unrounded), the ı version follows ı and a (back, unrounded), the u version follows u and o (back,
unrounded), and the ü version follows ü and ö (back, rounded).
Some common i-type suffixes are the present tense -iyor (-ıyor, -uyor, üyor) and the possessive -in (-ın, un, ün).
Below, we've used the present tense suffix as an illustration.
Gel-iyor.
He is coming.
İç-iyor.
He is drinking.
At-ıyor.
He is throwing.
Isır-ıyor
He is biting.
Koş-uyor
He is running.
Bul-uyor
He is finding.
Gör-üyor
He is looking.
Yüz-üyor
He is swimming.
Whenever you learn a new suffix, you should be sure note which of these two rules it follows, since that will
determine whether there are two version or four versions of the suffix. It's not hard to remember since e-type
suffixes are most often referred to by their e-form (-ecek, -le, -ebil), while i-type suffixes are referred to by their i-
form (-iyor, -meli, -in).
Vocabulary
şeker sugar
ayrıca also
başkaları others
şoför driver
kuzen cousin
havuç carrot
çikolata chocolate
çilek strawberry
bal honey
Review
a. sucukli
b. sucuklı
c. sucuklu
d. sucuklü
a. defterlar
b. üzümler
c. otobüslar
d. koltukler
a. Taksim'da
b. yumurtasız
c. zeytinsiz
d. acısiz
e. güçlu
f. sandalyelar
a. koşıyorum
b. gelecek
c. gidacak
d. yazayorsun
e. çalışıyorler
f. uyuyoruz
Answer Key
1. c
2. b
3. b c
4. b f
5. Bilgisayarım , Benim bilgisayarım
More. . .