Finnish: Vocal harmony / Vokaaliharmonia = Vokaalisointu
In my Finnish classes vocal harmony is usually among the things I teach first. For me it is important that a student gets a strong basis of vocal harmony as this is the topic a person will need all the time. What does the vocal harmony mean? The easiest explanation is that the vowels need to be in harmony.🙂 However, there are certain rules for vocal harmony. There is a certain way how vowels perform with each other. Before we go to the rules, let's see how vowels are divided in the Finnish language. There are three groups: front vowels (etuvokaalit), back vowels (takavokaalit) and neutral vowels (neutraalit vokaalit). Front vowels are ä , ö , y . Middle vowels are i and e . Back vowels are a , o , u . 🟣If there are front vowels ä , ö or y in the first syllable of the word, the rule is that front vowels also need to be perform in the other syllable(s) of the word. For example : tämä (it/this) ➢ tä/mä It cannot be täma ( täma) because there is letter ä in the first syl