The progressive form of this phonological feature is contrasted with the regressive umlaut. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this “long-distance” assimilatory process found in several Asian languages such as Korean, Mongolian, and Turkish.
ANSWER: vowel harmony [accept metaphony; prompt on harmony with “of what phonemes?”]
[10m] Together with its cousin Hungarian, this Uralic language exhibits a prototypical example of vowel harmony. This language divides vowels into front, back, and neutral classes, and prohibits front and back vowels from appearing in the same word.
ANSWER: Finnish [or suomi or suomen kieli]
[10e] This linguist used Finnish—minus its vowel harmony—as a model for his constructed language of Quenya, which along with Sindarin is spoken by elves in this author’s Middle Earth universe.
ANSWER: J.R.R. Tolkien [or John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
<JC, Social Science>