Kriol shares phonological similarities with many Caribbean English Creoles as well as to English, its superstrate language. Pidgin languages have a general tendency to simplify the phonology of a language in order to ensure successful communication. Many Creoles keep this tendency after creolization. Kriol is no exception in this point.
Kriol uses a high number of nasalized vowels, palatalizes non-labial stops and prenasalizes voiced stops. Consonant clusters are reduced at the end of words and many sylables are reduced to only a consonant and vowel.
1. Like most creole languages, Kriol has a tendency to an open syllabic structure, meaning there are many words ending in vowels. This feature is strengthened by its tendency to delete consonants at the end of words, especially when the preceding vowel is unstressed.
2. Nasalization is phonemic in Kriol, caused by the deletion of final nasal consonants. The nasal feature is kept, even if the consonant has been dropped.
3. Many Kriol speakers tend to palatalize the velar consonants /ɡ/ and /k/ preceding /ɑː/. Sometimes they also palatalize alveolar consonants, such as /t/, /d/, and /n/.[in which context?]
4. Like all other creoles, Kriol also has a tendency to reduce consonant clusters no matter where they occur. Final consonant clusters are almost always reduced by dropping the second consonant. Initial and medial occurrences are reduced much less consistently.
5. When /r/ occurs finally, it is always deleted. When it occurs in the middle of a word, it is often deleted leaving a residual vowel length.
6. Although its superstrate language, English, makes extensive use of dental fricatives (/θ/ /ð/), Belizean Kriol does not use them. It rather employs the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/. However, due to the ongoing process of decreolization, some speakers include such dental fricatives in their speech.
7. Unstressed initial vowels are often deleted in Kriol. Sometimes this can lead to a glottal stop instead.
8. Vowels tend to be alternated for the ones used in English, f.i. /bwɑi/ or /bwoi/ (boy) becomes /boi/, /ɑnɡri/ (angry) becomes /ænɡri/ and so on.
9. Stress is evenly distributed across syllables, meaning that the prosody of Kriol is different than its lexifier. It is reserved mainly for content words an appears to only have High and Low tones
Vowel Chart[]
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | long | iː | ɪː | ʊː | uː | ||
| short | i | ɪ | ʊ | u | |||
| Mid | long | eː | øː | ɜː | ɞː | oː | |
| short | e | ø | ɜ | ɞ | o | ||
| Low | long | æː | ɑː | ɒː | ʌː | ɔː | |
| short | æ | ɑ | ɒ | ʌ | ɔ | ||
| Diphthongs | ɑi | ou | |||||
Consonant Chart[]
| Bilabial | Labio-dental | Alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | p̪ | b̪ | t | d | t̠ | d̠ | c | ɟ | k | ɡ | ʔ | ||
| Nasal | m | ɱ | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||||||
| Trill | ʙ | r | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | Central | ɸ | β | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | ç | ʝ | x | ɣ | h | ɦ |
| Lateral | ɬ | ɮ | ʎ̝̊ | ʎ̝ | ʟ̝̊ | ʟ̝ | |||||||||
| Affricate | tʃ | dʒ | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | Central | w | ʋ | ɹ | j | ɰ | |||||||||
| Lateral | l | ʎ | ʟ | ||||||||||||
Some of these sounds only appear as allophones of phonemes.
Consonants and vowels[]
Kriol uses three voiced plosives (/b/ /d/ /ɡ/) and three voiceless plosives(/p/ /t/ /k/). The voiceless stops can also be aspirated. However, aspiration is not a constant feature, therefore the aspirated and non-aspirated forms are allophonic. The language employs three nasal consonants, (/m/ /n/ /ŋ/). It makes extensive use of fricatives and, both unvoiced (/f/ /s/ /ʂ/) and voiced (/v/ /z/ /ʐ/. Its two liquids, /l/ and /r/, are articulated alveo-palatally. The tongue is more lax here than in American English, its position is more similar to British English. Kriol's glides /w/, /j/, and /h/ are used extensively. Glottal stops occur rarely and inconsistently. Kriol makes use of eleven vowels; nine monophthongs, three diphthongs and schwa [ə]. The most frequently occurring diphthong, /ai/ is used in all regional varieties. Both /au/ and /oi/ can occur, but they are new additions and are viewed as a sign of decreolization. The same is perceived of four of the less productive monophthongs.