Vowel Harmony
Hacker, Randi
Hacker, Randi
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
Broadcast Transcript: Many world languages contain masculine and feminine words with all that pesky adjective and article agreement that goes along with it. Some languages bypass gender altogether: English, for example, and Chinese. And then there's Mongolian. Mongolian takes the concept of gender to an entirely different level by assigning gender to vowels. Fraternization among vowels of different genders in a single word is not done: there is no such thing as a co-ed word. Thus if the first vowel in a word is masculine, every other vowel in that word must also be masculine. Ditto with feminine vowels. This is called vowel harmony. Oh, by the way, there are two neutral vowels with no gender loyalty whatsoever: You might say that they play for both teams. #ceas #hacker #mongolia
Description
This is one of hundreds of 60-second radio spots created by the Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) for Kansas Public Radio (KPR). The purpose of this outreach program is to introduce the people of Kansas to the culture and current issues of East Asia.
Date
2010-10-13
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Center for East Asian Studies, University of Kansas
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Mongolia, Mongolian Language, Vowel Harmony