The vowel harmony rules are fairly clear and apply to most Finnish words. However, there are certain groups of words that do not follow these rules. The confusion is mainly caused by loanwords that have been adopted into Finnish without being adjusted to follow the vowel harmony rules. In this article, we will look at the different groups of vowel harmony exceptions.

1. Meri ja veri in the partitive

Meri and veri are two small exceptions, perfect to start this list about vowel harmony exceptions off with! The singular partitive of these two words will be different from their other inflective forms:

• meri (sea): merta, meressä, merellä
• veri (blood): verta, veressä, verestä

I don’t know why these two words behave that way!

2. Mixed vowel words

2.1. Mixed vowels within derivations

There is a fairly large group of Finnish words that will follow the vowel harmony rules in their root form, but will be an exception when derivated. These words have the neutral vowels E and I in their first syllable, and in their root form, the second syllable will abide the vowel harmony rule. However, when you derive a word from them, the rules are broken. For example:

• heittää > heitto
• siirtää > siirto
• kiittää > kiitos
• itkeä > itku
• kerää– > keruu
• lepää– > lepo

2.2. Mixed vowels within loanwords

When words get adopted from other languages, they sometimes retain the vowel sounds of the original language, despite the fact that they break the vowel harmony rules. In these words A, O and U mix with Ä, Ö and Y.

• ana-lyysi – analysis
• hy–a-sintti – hyacinth
• o-lym-pialaiset – olympics
• pa-py-rus – papyrus
  
• po-lyyp-pi – polyp
  
• sym-metria – symmetry
• föö-nata – hair-drying
• pas-tö-roida – pasteurize
• konduk-töö-ri – conductor
  

3. The Inflection of Mixed Vowel Words

Words with mixed vowels can be real head-scratchers when you want to inflect them in the Finnish cases or add a suffix. Often there is no strict rule as to which vowels should be used in the suffixes. Both options can be allowed, and the way people pronounce the words can differ.

3.1. Kilometri-type words

Loanwords where you can clearly tell that they consist of two words will follow the vowel harmony rules, and have the suffix use the vowel that is in harmony with the second part of the compound word. When it’s not as clear, both vowels are usually possible. That’s what kilometri (kilo+metri) will always be kilometrejä, but hypoteesi can be either hypoteeseja or hypoteesejä.

3.2. Appelsiini-type words

There is a fairly large amount of loanwords with four syllables or more which often have A, O or U in their first syllable, and will always get A, O or U when they are inflected (e.g. appelsiini, appelsiineja). This is true for most words ending in: ‑eeni, ‑beeni, ‑neesi, ‑teetti, ‑letti, -nelli, -mentti, ‑tentti, ‑kiini, -liini, ‑miini, -riini, -siini, -tiivi, -veri, ‑risti.

 3.3. Words with two options

3.4. Words with a mixed spelling and pronunciation

There are words that have retained their original spelling, and in which the vowels can be pronounced in two ways.

For these, in spoken language, you’re more likely to hear the Finnish pronounciation with the suffix that follows the vowel harmony rules. For example the word “jet lag” will be pronounced “jet läg”. When adding the partitive marker, in spoken language, you will hear “jet lägiä“.

In contrast, in writing, it’s more likely for these words to follow vowel harmony based on how the words are written. For “jet lag” that means “jet lagia“.

Hopefully this article helped you understand what the vowel harmony exceptions in Finnish look like and when they occur.