Welcome to the lesson. In this lesson, I´m going to talk you about the Consonant Mutuation and Major Vowel Harmony, which are two fundemental structures of Turkish language.

Let´s talk about Major Vowel Harmony:

Major Vowel Harmony (Büyük Ünlü Uyumu) seperates the vowels to two branches according to the position of tongue inside the mouth. When you pronounce a vowel, if your tongue is at the FRONT side of your mouth, I mean if your tongue is closer to the teeth, they are FRONT vowels. When you pronounce a vowel, if you push your tongue back, and take it closer to the throat, then it is a BACK vowel. Let´s see these vowel with a table:

Let´s try to pronounce "ö". When you pronounce that vowel, you roll your mouth, pull your tongue front and you tongue takes a position closer to the teeth and then you pronounce "ö". When you wish to pronounce "o" vowel, you roll your mouth again but this time you push your tongue bakc it becomes closer to the throat.

Now, let´s try to pronounce "i". You are going to pronounce this vowel just like the "i" at "Jim" word. Have you realized that? Unfortunately, "ı" and "i" are supposed to be same vowels and learners generally have difficulties at pronunciation of "ı" vowel. The same rule is valid here, when you pronounce "i" vowel, push you tongue back and free your tongue.

Pronounce "Ö" and push your tongue back, then you are going to be pronouncing "O" vowel.

Pronounce "Ü" and push your tongue back, then you are going to be pronouncing "U" vowel.

Pronounce "İ" and push your tongue back, the you are going to be pronouncing "ı" voice.

If you are pronouncing "ı" vowel correctly, you should hear a vowel like "e" voice at "open" word.

Major Vowel Harmony works according to the cooperation of these vowel families, back-to-back and front-to-front principle must have a place somewhere in your mind. Major Vowel Harmony is commonly used when we add suffixes nearby a word; suffix changes its form according to the last vowel of word. Let´s explain this rule with a simple word-suffix harmony example:

"ev" means home in Turkish. We say "at home" by adding a little suffix nearby the "ev" word. This suffix is "-de, -da, -te, -ta" suffixes.

The question is, which one are you going to use of these four suffixes?

Consonant Mutuation tell us that if one of p,ç,t,k,s,ş and h consonants come together with "c" is goint to turn to "ç" and "d" is going to turn to "t"

And now, do we remember what did Major Vowel Harmony tell us? It tells that if last vowel of a word is one of a,ı,o,u then you are goint to put a suffix with a,ı,o or u. If it ends with one of e,i,ö or ü, the you are goint to put e,i,ü,ö suffix.

Let´s look at these words below and let´s choose suffixes according to these two main principles. Locative Mode suffix is mainly "-de" suffix but it changes form accroding to CM and MVH.

"ev" word has got only one vowel and it is "e", its only consonant is also "soft consonant." So, which suffix are we going to choose from "-de, -da, -te, -da" ?

As you realize, we are going to select "-de" suffix. "evde"

Let´s do the same thing for word "araba (car)." Araba ends with "a", it is a back vowel. If a word ends with a vowel, it is always accepted as soft-ended. So, -da suffix is going to come: "arabada". (at the car).

"Araç" basicly means "vehicle." So, how can we say "at/in vehicle?". Araç ends with a hard consonant "ç". And its last vowel is a back vowel, "a".

Araç + ta > Araçta.

So easy. You are going to understand that principle better as unites go forward. I am also going to tell about suffixes with more detail at coming unites, I told you Locative Mode suffix in order to tell CM and MajorVH. Next unit is Personal Pronouns and Personal Endings.

Thx

turkishcobra //