Vowel harmony

Following a phonetic law called vowel harmony, the vowel contained in the first syllable of a native Tatar stem determines the quality of the vowels in the succeeding syllables. That means that, as a rule, all vowels in a native Tatar word are either back vowels or front vowels. With a few exceptions, the rule of vowel harmony applies also to Tatar suffixes.

⚡️ The vowel phonemes o, ö in the first syllable of a word affect the quality of the vowels ı and e respectively in succeeding syllables, causing them to be rounded towards o or ö. However, the labialization (rounding) of these phonemes is increasingly weakened (particularly in suffixes) the farther they are positioned from the first syllable until it ceases entirely: ▶️ bötenebez (all of us)

💡 The vowel phonemes u, ü do not usually occur in non-first syllables or the final position of native Tatar words, but they do in the Tatar infinitive verb and its derivations. For example: 

bulu – to be, to become

kölü – to laugh

💡 The vowel phoneme i usually occurs only in the first syllables of native Tatar stems. A few exceptions are: 

əti – father

əni – mother

əbi – grandmother

ipi – bread

💡The vowel i does not appear in suffixes, but it does in verb inflection. For example: 

eşləw (to work) - ul eşli (he works)

⚡️ Thus, with the above exceptions, the following rules of vowel harmony are applied:

· Any of the back vowels a, ı, u, o in the first syllable may be followed by either a or ı:

barabız – we go

pıçaq – knife

borın – nose

· Any of the front vowels ə, e, i, ü, ö in the first syllable may be followed by either ə or e:

tübətəy

sötle – with milk

bülək – gift

⚡️ In native Turkic words there are very few exceptions to the principle of vowel harmony. Words in which such exceptions occur are for example:

miña – to me

siña – to you

içmasa – at least

zəñgərsu – bluish

· Compound words components of which belong to different vowel harmony groups: 

könçığış (east) = kön (day) + çığış (rising)

öçpoçmaq (triangle) = öç (three) + poçmaq (corner, angle)

⚡️ With a few exceptions, the principle of vowel harmony does not apply to Arabic and Persian loanwords, nor does it apply to words borrowed more recently from Russian or from other European languages. In these words back and front vowels may occur together in the same word. 

⚡️ With Arabic and Persian loanwords, the vowels in the Tatar suffixes tend to correspond to the vowel of the last syllable of the loanword: 

kitap (book) – kitabım (my book)

xatirə (recollection) – xatirələr (recollections)

şəhər (city) – şəhərlərebez (our cities)

💡 Some loanwords deviate from the above rule (more often than not these are bisyllabic words with the pattern a-i):

tarix (history) – tarixnıñ (of the history) 

səlam (hi) – səlamnər (greetings)