Editing Manchu language (section)

===Vowel harmony===
A crucial feature of the Manchu language is [[vowel harmony]]. It is described as based on the opposition between [[Back vowel|back]] and [[front vowel]]s, but these phonological [[natural class]]es differ from the actual phonetic realization. The vowels ''a, o, ū'' function as back, as expected, but the only ''phonologically'' front vowel is ''e'' (even though it is ''phonetically'' central). Finally, the vowels ''i'' and ''u'' function as "neutral" vowels for the purposes of vowel harmony. As a rule, back and front vowels cannot co-occur in a word: in other words, the lone front vowel never occurs in a word with any the regular back vowels (''a, o, ū''). (An exception is the diphthong ''eo'', which does occur in some words, i.e. ''deo'', "younger brother", ''geo'', "a mare", ''jeo'', "department", ''leole'', "to discuss", ''leose'', "building", and ''šeole'', "to embroider", "to collect".<ref name="Gorelova2002">{{cite book |author=Liliya M. Gorelova |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KHwPAAAAYAAJ |title=Manchu Grammar |date=1 January 2002 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-12307-6}}</ref>) In contrast, the neutral vowels ''i'' and ''u'' are free to occur in a word with any other vowel or vowels.

The form of suffixes often varies depending on the rules of vowel harmony. Certain suffixes have only one form and are not affected by vowel harmony (e.g. ''de''); these include the suffixes of the accusative, dative-locative and alternate ablative cases (''be'', ''de'', ''deri''), the suffix for the imperfect converb (-''me'') and the nominalizers (''-ngge'', ''-ningge'' and ''ba'').<ref>Gorelova (2002: 94)</ref> Others have two forms (''giyan/giyen'', ''hiyan/hiyen'', ''kiyan/kiyen''), one of which is added to front-vowel stems and the other to back-vowel stems. Finally, there are also suffixes with three forms, either ''a/e/o'' (e.g. ''han/hen/hon'') or ''o/ū/u'' (e.g. ''hon/hūn/hun''). These are used in accordance with the following scheme:<ref>Haenisch 1986, 33f.</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
!Stem
!Suffix
!Example
|-
|a – a
| rowspan="6" |a
|''waka'''lan'''''  "guilt"
|-
|i – a
|''ciha'''lan'''''  "will"
|-
|u – a
|''tusa'''ngga'''''  "useful"
|-
|a – i
|''faksi'''kan'''''  "work of art"
|-
|a – u
|''kura'''lan'''''  "reciprocation"
|-
|o – i
|''mori'''ngga'''''  "horseman"
|-
|e – e
| rowspan="5" |e
|''helme'''hen'''''  "spider"
|-
|i – e
|''ilde'''he'''''  "tree bast"
|-
|u – e
|''tube'''he'''''  "salmon"
|-
|e – i
|esi'''he'''  "fish soup"
|-
|e – u
|''eru'''len'''''  "punishment"
|-
|o – o
| rowspan="2" |o
|''dolo'''ron'''''  "rite"
|-
|o – i
|''hoji'''hon'''''  "stepson"
|-
|a – i
|ū
|''wasi'''hūn'''''  "downwards"
|-
|e – i
|u
|''wesi'''hun'''''  "upwards"
|}
The vowel harmony was traditionally described in terms of the philosophy of the ''[[I Ching]]''. Syllables with front vowels were described as being as "[[Yin and yang|yin]]" syllables whereas syllables with back vowels were called "[[Yin and yang|yang]]" syllables. The reasoning behind this was that the language had a kind of sound symbolism where front vowels represented feminine objects or ideas and the back vowels represented masculine objects or ideas. As a result, there were a number of word pairs in the language in which changing the vowels also changed the gender of the word. For example, the difference between the words ''hehe'' (woman) and ''haha'' (man) or ''eme'' (mother) and ''ama'' (father) was essentially a contrast between the front vowel, [e], of the feminine and the back vowel, [a], of the masculine counterpart.