Wolof orthography and phonology

Note: Phonetic transcriptions are printed between square brackets [] following the rules of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

The Latin orthography of Wolof in Senegal was set by government decrees between 1971 and 1985. The language institute "Centre de linguistique appliquée de Dakar" (CLAD) is widely acknowledged as an authority when it comes to spelling rules for Wolof. The complete alphabet is A, À, B, C, D, E, É, Ë, F, G, I, J, K, L, M, N, Ñ, Ŋ, O, Ó, P, Q, R, S, T, U, W, X, Y.

Wolof is most often written in this orthography, in which phonemes have a clear one-to-one correspondence to graphemes.

Additionally, two other scripts exist: a traditional Arabic-based transcription of Wolof called Wolofal, which dates back to the pre-colonial period and is still used by many people, and the Garay script, dating to 1961, which has been adopted by a small number of Wolof-speakers

The first syllable of words is stressed; long vowels are pronounced with more time, but are not automatically stressed, as they are in English.

Vowels

The vowels are as follows:

Vowels

		Front		Central		Back
		short	long	short	long	short	long
Close		i ⟨i⟩	iː			u ⟨u⟩	uː
Close-mid		e ⟨é⟩	eː	ɵ ⟨ɵ⟩	ɵː	o ⟨ó⟩	oː
mid				ə ⟨ë⟩
Open-mid	unrounded	ɛ ⟨e⟩	ɛː	ɜ ⟨ɛ⟩		ʌ ⟨ʌ⟩	ʌː
	rounded	œ ⟨œ⟩	œː	ɞ ⟨ɔ⟩		ɔ ⟨o⟩	ɔː
Open	unrounded	æ ⟨æ⟩		a ⟨a⟩	aː	ɑ ⟨á⟩
	rounded					ɒ ⟨ä⟩

There may be an additional low vowel, or this may be confusion with orthographic à.

All vowels may be long (written double) or short. /aː/ is written ⟨à⟩ before a long (prenasalized or geminate) consonant. When é and ó are written double, the accent mark is often only on the first letter.

Vowels fall into two harmonizing sets according to ATR: i u é ó ë are +ATR, e o a are the −ATR analogues of é ó ë. For example,

Lekk-oon-ngeen /lɛkːɔːnŋɡɛːn/

[eat-PAST-FIN.2pl]

'You (plural) ate.'

Dóór-óón-ngéén /doːroːnŋɡeːn/

[hit-PAST-FIN.2pl]

'You (plural) hit.'

There are no −ATR analogues of the high vowels i u. They trigger +ATR harmony in suffixes when they occur in a root, but in a suffix they may be transparent to vowel harmony.

The vowels of some suffixes or enclitics do not harmonize with preceding vowels. In most cases following vowels harmonize with them. That is, they reset the harmony, as if they were a separate word. However, when a suffix/clitic contains a high vowel (+ATR) occurs after a −ATR root, any further suffixes harmonize with the root. That is, the +ATR suffix/clitic is "transparent" to vowel harmony. An example is the negative -u- in,

Door-u-ma-leen-fa /dɔːrumalɛːnfa/

[begin-NEG-1sg-3pl-LOC]

'I did not begin them there'

where harmony would predict *door-u-më-léén-fë. That is, i u behave as if they are their own −ATR analogues.

Authors differ in whether they indicate vowel harmony in writing, as well as whether they write clitics as separate words.

Consonants

Consonants in word-initial position are as follows:

Wolof consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩	ɲ ⟨ñ⟩	ŋ ⟨ŋ⟩
Prenasalized stop		mb ⟨mb⟩	nd ⟨nd⟩	ɲɟ ⟨nj⟩	ŋɡ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d ⟨d⟩	ɟ ⟨j⟩	ɡ ⟨g⟩	ɢ ⟨h⟩
	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩	c ⟨c⟩	k ⟨k⟩	qː ⟨q⟩	ʔ
Fricative	voiced	v ⟨v⟩	z ⟨z⟩		ɣ~ʁ ⟨ɣ⟩
	voiceless	f ⟨f⟩	s ⟨s⟩		x~χ ⟨x⟩
Trill		ʙ ⟨ʋ⟩	r ⟨r⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩	l ⟨l⟩	j ⟨y⟩

All simple nasals, oral stops apart from q and glottal, and the sonorants l r y w may be geminated (doubled), though geminate r only occurs in ideophones. (Geminate consonants are written double.) Q is inherently geminate and may occur in initial position; otherwise geminate consonants and consonant clusters, including nt, nc, nk, nq ([ɴq]), are restricted to word-medial and -final position. Of the consonants in the chart above, p d c k do not occur in medial or final position, being replaced by f r s and zero, though geminate pp dd cc kk are common. Phonetic p c k do occur finally, but only as allophones of b j g due to final devoicing.

Minimal pairs:

bët ("eye") - bëtt ("to find")

boy ("to catch fire") - boyy ("to be glimmering")

dag ("a royal servant") - dagg ("to cut")

dëj ("funeral") - dëjj ("cunt")

fen ("to (tell a) lie") - fenn ("somewhere, nowhere")

gal ("white gold") - gall ("to regurgitate")

goŋ ("baboon") - goŋŋ (a kind of bed)

gëm ("to believe") - gëmm ("to close one's eyes")

Jaw (a family name) - jaww ("heaven")

nëb ("rotten") - nëbb ("to hide")

woñ ("thread") - woññ ("to count")

Tones

Unlike most sub-Saharan African languages, Wolof has no tone. Other non-tonal languages of Africa include Amharic, Swahili and Fula.

External links

• Wolof language