This article describes the phonology of the Oromo language.
Consonants[]
The Oromo language has 24 to 28 consonant phonemes depending on the dialect.
| Bilabial/ Labiodental |
Alveolar/ Retroflex |
Palato-alveolar/ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Voiceless | p | t | ch /tʃ/ | k | ' /ʔ/ |
| Voiced | b | d | j /dʒ/ | g /ɡ/ | ||
| Ejective | ph /pʼ/ | x /tʼ/ | c /tʃʼ/ | q /kʼ/ | ||
| Implosive | bh /ɓ/ | dh /ɗ/ | gh /ɠ/ | |||
| Fricative | Voiceless | f | s | sh /ʃ/ | kh /x/ | h |
| Voiced | v | z | zh /ʒ/ | ɣ | ||
| Nasal | m | n | ny /ɲ/ | ŋ | ||
| Approximant | w | l | y /j/ | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
/ɗ/ is a voiced retroflex plosive. It may have an implosive quality for some speakers.
The voiceless stops /t/ and /k/ are always aspirated.
/d/ and /t/ are dental
The velar fricative [x] is mainly used in the eastern dialect (Harar) as a phoneme. It is represented as ⟨kh⟩ in the Oromo script (Qubee) though it is pronounced as a ⟨k⟩ in most other dialects.
Vowels[]
Oromo has five vowels which all contrast long and short vowels. Sometimes there is a change in vowel quality when the vowel is short. Short vowels tend to be more centralized than their counterparts.
Though sometimes diphthongs may occur, there are none that occur in a word's unaltered form.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i /ɪ/, ii /iː/ | ɨ | u /ʊ/, uu /uː/ |
| Mid | e /ɛ/, ee /eː/ | ə | o /ɔ/, oo /oː/ |
| Open | æ | a /ɐ/ | aa /ɑː/ |