Vowel harmony

Yes, you won't get far without knowledge of vowel harmony. Luckily, the more you speak the language the more it seems to come naturally because, well, it just sounds better!

Here's how it works. Azeri uses suffixes to create cases and to change the meaning of words. Whenever a suffix is added to a word, the vowel in the suffix has to agree or harmonize with the last vowel in the original word - that is, the last vowel in the word must agree with the first vowel in the suffix.

If the suffix contains only two first vowels, they will be ə and a. For example -lar and -lər to make a word plural. This type of suffix is represented in Azeri grammar as ə squared. These are the vowels that harmonize:

If the suffix contains four first vowels, they will be i, ü, ı, and u. For example, -si, -sı, -sü, -su. This type of suffix is represented as i to the power of 4. These are the vowels that harmonize: