# Votian/Vowel Harmony
## Vowel harmony

| Back | Front |
| i̮ | i |
| u | ü |
| o | ö |
| e̮ | e |
| a | ä |

### Rules

* Every back vowel has it's counterpart among front vowels.
* Originally a word and it's suffixes could have either back vowels or front vowels only and never both of them.
* In practical terms, we might say that, if a word stem has any back vowel, then every suffix added to it may have back vowels only and vice versa e.g. levvettägō vs. ve̮te̮ttagō.
** i is an exception, because it's counterpart occurres only in very recent Russian loanwords.
E.g. levvettī vs. ve̮te̮ttī.

### Exceptions

* CERTAIN SUFFIXES DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
* ö is found in the first syllable only, excluding some Ingrian and Finnish loanwords and derivation suffixes. Thus the following suffixes have no front vowel alternative:
** pesi-ko ('Did he wash?')
** elkō jättägō ('Let him not leave (it)!')
** tüttär-ikko ('girl')
** pette-likko ('cheatful')
** petä-zikko ('pine forest')
** pǟ-tō ('headless')
* Votian Imperative endings have back and front alternatives only in Lüganuse (and Kodavere) dialects
** sȫ-kā ('Eat!')
* The following suffixes have no front vowel alternative either:
** leivǟ-kā ('with bread')
** vere-kaz ('bloody')
** päivü-kke̮in ('sun')
** venä-лain ('a Russian')
** ȫ-nikka ('the one who spends a night (in a dorm etc.)')
** tšülǟ-ssā ('to the village (edge)')
** viďďe-ttomā ('the fifth's' <= genitive of viďďe-tō)
* CERTAIN ONOMATOPOETIC WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
** E.g. rǟkkumā ('shout')
* CERTAIN LOANWORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
** E.g. rǟtua mȫ ('in lines' ~ Russian: ряд)
* SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS DO NOT FOLLOW VOWEL HARMONY RULES.
** E.g. kasta ('this' (partitive of ka-ze))
** E.g. kaneita ('these ~ them' (partitive of ka-ne))
* SOME OLD COMPOUND WORDS REPRESENT REGRESSIVE VOWEL HARMONY.
** E.g. ähüppǟlē ('onto an oven' < *ahjon pǟllen)

### Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects

* Vowel harmony has almost disappeared in Vaiga and Alutaguse dialects (excluding Lüganuse and Kodavere) (influenced by Mid Estonian dialect).
* Front vowels were finally preserved only in the second syllables before they were completely replaced with their back counterparts e.g. käsku ('order, demand' in Lüganuse dialect < *käskü ) or süö-Du ('eaten' in Lüganuse dialect < *süö-Dü ).
* Nevertheless e̮ was replaced with e like in Mid Estonian dialect).
* e may have substituted ä in some words e.g. lüpseDä ('to milk (a cow)' in Lüganuse dialect < lüpsäDä).
* ä may have falsely substituted a following a syllable, which includes e or i, even though the stem could have back vowels e.g. ammasteGä ('with teeth' in Lüganuse dialect), e̮liväD ('they were').
* ä may have substituted even e of the second syllable, if the first syllable includes ä or ü e.g. üläs ('upwards' in Lüganuse dialect < üles) or pǟlä ('onto' in Lüganuse dialect < *pǟlle ).
* ü may have been substituted by i in the second syllable of a stem, if the first syllable includes a short ü e.g. tüli ('quarrel' in Lüganuse dialect) or püssiD ('guns' in Lüganuse dialect < *püssüD ).
** In Lüganuse dialect only the a | ä opposition remained active e.g. jättäGä ('Leave (it)!') vs. tuoGa ('Bring (it)!') or tüöGä ('with work') vs. maaGa ('with earth').
*** The u | ü opposition has left only rudiments e.g. küsütti ('it was asked') or kinniDettüD ('fixed').
*** There are traces of late o | ö opposition like in Eastern Vaivara dialects e.g. örsöttämä ('to boast').