Temne is a tonal language, with four tones. Among consonants, Temne distinguishes dental and alveolar, but, unusually, the dental consonants are apical and the alveolar consonants are laminal (and slightly affricated), the opposite of the general pattern, though one found also in the nearby language Limba.
Consonants[]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Labio- velar |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | t | c | k | kp | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d̪ | d | ɟ | ɡ | ɡb | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | θ | s | ʃ | x | h | |
| voiced | v | ð | z | ʒ | ɣ | ɦ | ||
| Affricate | voiceless | tθ | ts | tʃ | ||||
| voiceless | dð | dz | dʒ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n̪ | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Trill | ʙ | r | ||||||
| Lateral | l̪ | l | ʎ | ʟ | ||||
| Approximant | ʋ | ɹ | j | ɰ | w | |||
Vowels[]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unr. | rnd. | |||
| Close | i | ɨ | u | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ʊ | ||
| Close-mid | e | ə | o | |
| Open-mid | ɛ | ʌ | ɔ | |
| Open | æ | a | ɑ | ɒ |