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Ahyes forgot about that. Just to continue the explainer, vowel harmony means that “in the house” is “talossa” but “in the forest” is “metsässä”. Notice that i

Ahyes forgot about that. Just to continue the explainer, vowel harmony means that “in the house” is “talossa” but “in the forest” is “metsässä”. Notice that it’s “-ssä” and not “-ssa”. This depends on which vowels are in the root. There’s two groups of vowels and Finnish words helpfully never mix the two in a single (non compound) word. In other words, “vowel harmony” sounds fancy, but it’s a single if root.match(/a|u|o/) then “ssa” else “ssä”

Aeolun 4y ago
That sounds like a pointless rule that can be dropped immediately to make the language easier.
- skrebbel 4y ago
  That would make it easier to grammar, but harder to pronounce.
- hypertele-Xii 4y ago
  AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Mixing vowels from both groups makes tonque movements very awkward and slows down speech.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Quite the opposite; /u/ is a high vowel, /o/ is mid-high, and /a/ is low. AOU vowels, assuming the Finnish orthography is anything like the rest of Europe, are made with your tongue pulled back, while ÄÖY are made with your tongue thrust forward.
    - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
      That's what I mean, tonque movement. Tonque stays still inside the group. High/forward low/back.
- int_19h 4y ago
  Vowel harmony is something that arises frequently in languages as they evolve.
ggrrhh_ta 4y ago
If you are a non native English speaker you will notice shifts in how things are pronounced when put together, some of whiicht are just not written down, like pronouncing "a" as "ei" or "a" or "an" (this one written down )
- stavros 4y ago
  English or Finnish? English pronunciation is insane, you have to memorize spelling and pronunciation independently because how a word is written is just a vague approximation at best, or an intentional attempt to mislead at worst, of how the word actually sounds. It's not only not a 1:1 mapping, and not only can wildly different spellings sound the same, but wildly different pronunciations can be written the same. It's crazy.

Aeolun 4y ago

That sounds like a pointless rule that can be dropped immediately to make the language easier.

skrebbel 4y ago
That would make it easier to grammar, but harder to pronounce.
hypertele-Xii 4y ago
AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Mixing vowels from both groups makes tonque movements very awkward and slows down speech.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > AOU vowels are made with your tonque low. ÄÖY vowels are made with your tonque high. Quite the opposite; /u/ is a high vowel, /o/ is mid-high, and /a/ is low. AOU vowels, assuming the Finnish orthography is anything like the rest of Europe, are made with your tongue pulled back, while ÄÖY are made with your tongue thrust forward.
  - hypertele-Xii 4y ago
    That's what I mean, tonque movement. Tonque stays still inside the group. High/forward low/back.
int_19h 4y ago
Vowel harmony is something that arises frequently in languages as they evolve.

ggrrhh_ta 4y ago

If you are a non native English speaker you will notice shifts in how things are pronounced when put together, some of whiicht are just not written down, like pronouncing "a" as "ei" or "a" or "an" (this one written down )

stavros 4y ago
English or Finnish? English pronunciation is insane, you have to memorize spelling and pronunciation independently because how a word is written is just a vague approximation at best, or an intentional attempt to mislead at worst, of how the word actually sounds. It's not only not a 1:1 mapping, and not only can wildly different spellings sound the same, but wildly different pronunciations can be written the same. It's crazy.