Swahili phonology

Unlike the majority of Niger-Congo languages, Swahili lacks contrastive tone (pitch contour). As a result of that and the language's shallow orthography, Swahili is said to be the easiest African language for an English speaker to learn.

Vowels

Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. Vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress, but they are pronounced in full as follows:

• /ɑ/ is pronounced like the "a" in father.
• /ɛ/ is pronounced like the "e" in get.
• /i/ is pronounced like the "ee" in see.
• /ɔ/ is pronounced somewhat like the "o" in ford.
• /u/ is pronounced like the "u" in zulu or "oo" in loop.

Consonants

Swahili consonant phonemes

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar / Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩		n ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ng'⟩
Stop	prenasalized	ᵐb ⟨mb⟩		ⁿd ⟨nd⟩	ⁿdʒ ⟨nj⟩	ᵑɡ ⟨ng⟩
	implosive / voiced	ɓ ~ b ⟨b⟩		ɗ ~ d ⟨d⟩	ʄ ~ dʒ ⟨j⟩	ɠ ~ ɡ ⟨g⟩
	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩		t ⟨t⟩	tʃ ⟨ch⟩	k ⟨k⟩
Fricative	prenasalized	ᶬv ⟨mv⟩		ⁿz ⟨nz⟩
	voiced	v ⟨v⟩	(ð ⟨dh⟩)	z ⟨z⟩	ʒ ⟨c⟩	(ɣ ⟨gh⟩)
	voiceless	f ⟨f⟩	(θ ⟨th⟩)	s ⟨s⟩	ʃ ⟨sh⟩	(x ⟨kh⟩)	h ⟨h⟩
Approximant				l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩	w ⟨w⟩
Trill		ʙ ⟨x⟩		r ⟨r⟩

Some dialects of Swahili may also have the aspirated phonemes /pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʰ bʰ dʰ dʒʰ ɡʰ/ though they are unmarked in Swahili's Orthography. "[I]n some Arabic loans (nouns, verbs, adjectives) emphasis or intensity is expressed by reproducing the original emphatic consonants /dˤ, sˤ, tˤ, zˤ/ and the uvular /q/, or lengthening a vowel, where aspiration would be used in inherited Bantu words."

External links

• Swahili language