Vowel harmony in Turkish
In Turkish grammar, it is expected that all the sentences and words apply vowel harmony. That’s why ı decided to make a lesson only about the vowel harmony. When you are confused with the rules of vowel harmony, you can visit this page to study.
At the end of the lessons, there is grammar exercises about vowel harmony in Turkish.
From the previous exercises, you remember that in Turkish we add some suffixes to the words. It is expected that all originally Turkish words are in harmony with vowels. Because of this reason, while we build sentences, we add suffixes to the words. These added suffixes must also be in harmony with the words
Vowels in Turkish
There are eight vowels in Turkish language.
| Vowels : a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü |
| Hard Vowels : a, ı, o, u |
| Soft Vowels: e, i, ö, ü |
Lets have a look at how hard vowel are and soft vowels are used in Turkish.
| Türkçe | Turkish |
| Öğrenci | Student |
| Güzel | Beatiful |
| Araba | Car |
İf you carefully examined the given Turkish words, it is clear that words only contain soft vowels or hard vowels.
From this rule, we can understand why vowel harmony is important in Turkish.
But, we add suffixes to the words to build sentences. When these suffixes are added , they also have to follow vowel harmony. Exactly for this reason, there are some rules.
One of them is -i type of vowel harmony. In the verb to be lesson, there are lots of examples related with this. Later you can have a look at for more examples.
There are eight vowels in Turkish language.
-İ type of vowel harmony in Turkish
It is explained above that Vowel harmony must be applied in Turkish. When some suffixes are added to the words, they also needs to follow this rule.
If the rule is related with vowels, By looking at the last vowel of the words, we can know that How coming suffix should be in harmony.
Only thing you need to do is to look at the last vowel of the word and choose the right vowel for the added suffix. Look at the below examples to understand better.
| if Last vowel of the word | Appropriate vowel |
|---|---|
| a, ı | -ı (,-dır, -sın,- sınız … ) |
| o, u | -u (,-dur, -sun,- sunuz … ) |
| e, i | -i (,-dir, -sin,- siniz … ) |
| ö, ü | -ü (,-dür, -sün,- sünüz … ) |
Look at the below examples to see how it works. The suffixes are added to the words written in red and appropriate vowel in suffix and last vowel of the word is in green color.
| Türkçe kolaydır. | Turkish is easy. |
| Ben evde değilim | I am not at home. |
| Sen güzelsin. | You are beautiful |
| Siz doktorsunuz. | You are doctors. |
| Biz okuldayız. | We are at school. |
| Aç mısınız? | Are you hungry? |
I hope it was clear for you to have an some idea about Turkish vowel harmony.
Vowel Harmony : Grammar Exercises
[qsm quiz=21]
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