phonology and the rules of writing Turkmen to reflect this phonology correctly. Vowels In Turkmen Arabic alphabet, 9 vowels are defined. Vowel Harmony Like other Turkic languages, Turkmen has a system of vowel harmony. Turkmen's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system. This means that all vowels in a word must be ones that are pronounced either at the front or at the back of the mouth. In Turkmen there are two suffixes that make a plural. It's either ـلِر / ler and ـلار / lar, front and back vowels respectfully. Same variety of options for suffixes exist across the board in Turkmen. Here is how vowel harmony works, in an example of a word in which the vowels are all frontal: The word for dog is ایت / it. The word for dogs will be ایتلِر / itler (ایتلار / itlar is incorrect) The word for four is دؤرت / dört, thus the word for all four of us will be دؤردیمیز / dördimiz And below are examples for back vowels: The word for mountain is داغ / dag, thus the word for mountains will be داغلار / daglar Another sort of vowel harmony that exists in Turkmen, is the system in which each syllable is required to have one, and only one vowel. This rule even applies to loanwords, who have their pronunciation altered in order to match this rule. Roundness of vowels In Turkmen, there's a rule that words do not end in rounded vowels (unlike Azerbaijani Language). The round vowels o / اوْ and ö / اؤ can only exist in the first syllable. Even if they are heard in pronunciation in other syllables, they should be written as a / ـا or e / ــِـ ە respectively. The round vowels u / اوُ and ü / اۆ can only exist in the first and second syllable. Compound words as well as loanwords, are exceptions to these rules. Vowel Orthography Of the two forms of the vowels above, some of them happen to have the letter ا in one of their forms, but not the other. These vowels, if at the beginning of the word, will universally be accompanied with ا, but if they happen to be in the middle or end of a word, then the ا will be dropped. The vowel corresponding to the Latin letter u is shown as اوُ /