The first syllable of a word may contain any of these vowels. The formation of the remaining syllables is determined by the following rules:—
(1) If the first syllable contains a hard vowel, the vowels in the other syllables must be either hard or neutral, but not soft, Kala, a fish: ablative, kalalta. Ansaita, to deserve, ansaitsevat, they deserve.
(2) If the vowel in the first syllable is soft, then the vowels of all the other syllables must be soft or neutral, but not hard. Tölli, a cottage, töllissä, in the cottage; kätkein, käkeittäköön.
(3) If the vowel in the first syllable is neutral, two cases occur.
(a) If the vowel of the second syllable is hard, as in the word vieras, the succeeding vowels must be either hard or neutral: vierahaksi (transitive case).
(b) If the vowel of the second syllable is either soft or neutral, all the other vowels must be soft or neutral, but not hard. Retki, a journey, partitive case, retki-ä; sirppi, sickle, sirppiä.
It will thus be seen that there are two forms of every termination in Finnish, one containing hard and the other a soft vowel. Thus the ablative ends in -lta or -ltä: maa, maalta, but työ, työltä.
The hard and soft vowels are never found coexisting in any simple Finnish word, but there is no objection to such a compound as kirkko-väki, kirkko-isä.
This principle of vowel harmony is really extremely natural, and facilitates pronunciation, as will be seen by the example of French. An Englishman pronouncing such combinations as voulu, or du tout has, if not accustomed to the language, a tendency to say voulou, du tut, making the two vowels the same, because the sudden change in the position of the pronouncing organs required to say u or ou, or vice versa, is a matter of some difficulty. It is the consciousness of this difficulty which has led Finnish and other languages to adopt the rule that the vowels of a word must be of the same character, so that no rude change may be necessary for their pronunciation.
This vowel harmony is not found in all the Finno-Ugric languages. In its fully developed form it exists (v. Dr. Donner, die gegenseitige Verwandschaft der Finnish-ugrischen Sprachen, p. 9) only in Finnish, the Dorpat dialect of Esthonian, Hungarian, one dialect of Tcheremissian and one of Vogulian. In many others of these languages it is found in an incomplete form, whence some think that it is an original characteristic of the Finno-Ugric group, which has been lost by some tribes whose phonetic sense was not keen. Some authorities hold that in the Finno-Ugric language there are two kinds of vowel harmony: firstly, that prevailing between the different syllables of a stem, which is characteristic of all the tongues included in this group, and secondly that which assimilates the vowels of suffixes to those of the stem—i.e. that which obliges us to say repinyt and not repinut. This latter species of vowel harmony is not primitive, but has been gradually developed, perfectly in Finnish and Hungarian, and imperfectly in the other languages. This view seems very reasonable.