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Yoruba Vowel Harmony

Yoruba exhibits a limited form of vowel harmony primarily among mid vowels, where vowels can only co-occur within specific sets. The language features tongue root harmony, distinguishing between advanced (+ATR) and retracted (-ATR) vowels, with certain vowels able to mix across sets. Examples illustrate the distinct vowel sets and their corresponding words in Yoruba.

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66 views1 page

Yoruba Vowel Harmony

Yoruba exhibits a limited form of vowel harmony primarily among mid vowels, where vowels can only co-occur within specific sets. The language features tongue root harmony, distinguishing between advanced (+ATR) and retracted (-ATR) vowels, with certain vowels able to mix across sets. Examples illustrate the distinct vowel sets and their corresponding words in Yoruba.

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sholatwin22
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Yoruba Vowel Harmony

Yoruba has a limited vowel harmony compared to other languages such as English. It is
primarily the mid vowels (o, ọ, e, ẹ) that exhibit complete harmony. By "harmony," we refer to
how segments of a language can co-occur (Abisoye Elesin, 2018). In the Yoruba language,
harmony exists only among vowels. Specifically, members of one set can only co-occur with
each other; a set cannot co-occur with another set.

Yoruba exhibits a type of vowel harmony known as tongue root harmony, where vowels
within a word tend to agree in their tongue root specification (either advanced or retracted).
A vowel produced when the root of the tongue is advanced is called (+ATR) and when the
vowel is produced when the root of the tongue is retracted is called (-ATR).

The (+ATR) vowels are ‘e, i, o and u’’ and the [-ATR] are ‘ẹ, ọ and a’. However Yoruba
does not operate a perfect harmony as ‘u and i’ which are [+ATR] and ‘a’ can co-occur with
other sets while the others cannot.

Examples are
SET 1 [+ATR]
e, i, o ,u
● ètò (preparations)
● erò (thoughts)
● etí (ear)
● olú (name)
● òwe (proverb)
● èso (fruit)

SET 2 [-ATR]
ẹ, ọ, a
● ọ̀ wẹ (food)
● ọṣẹ (soap)
● ẹbọ (sacrifice)
● ẹ̀ fọ́ (vegetable)
● ẹwà (beans)

SET 3: [MIXED]
i, u, a
● ìwà (attitude)
● omi(water)
● adé (crown)
● ẹwù (clothes)
● eku(rat)
● iṣé(work)
● ọ̀ la (tomorrow)

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