etuvokaaleja

Etuvokaaleja are front vowels in Finnish phonology. The term describes vowels that are articulated with the tongue positioned toward the front of the mouth. The standard front vowels are i, e, y, ä, and ö. In contrast, takavokaaleja, or back vowels, are a, o, u, along with their long forms aa, oo, uu.

Finnish features vowel harmony, a central phonological rule in which suffix vowels harmonize with the stem’s vowels. If a word contains at least one etuvokaali, its suffix vowels typically take front forms; if the word contains only takavokaaleja, suffix vowels take back forms. This harmony affects a wide range of inflectional endings and derivational suffixes, contributing to phonological harmony across the language.

Among the front vowels, some are rounded (ö and y) and influence the rounding of surrounding vowels in affixes, while others (i, e, ä) are unrounded. The system thus combines front/back and rounding dimensions to determine vowel selection in word forms.

In linguistic descriptions, etuvokaaleja is a standard category used to explain how Finnish words adapt their endings to match the vowels of the stem. It is a fundamental concept in phonology and morphology studies of Finnish and is commonly taught in language instruction and academic works on the language.