This article describes the phonology of the Somali language.
Common Somali has 23 consonant phonemes. Its consonants cover every place of articulation on the IPA chart, though not all of these distinctions are phonemic.
Bilabial | Coronal | Post- alveolar | Velar | Uvular | Pharyn- geal | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | ||||||
Plosive | voiceless | t̪ ⟨t⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | q ⟨q⟩ | ʔ ⟨'⟩ | |||
voiced | b ⟨b⟩ | d̪ ⟨d⟩ | ɖ ⟨dh⟩ | ɡ ⟨g⟩ | ||||
Affricate | d͡ʒ ⟨j⟩ | |||||||
Fricative | voiceless | f ⟨f⟩ | s ⟨s⟩ | ʃ ⟨sh⟩ | x ⟨kh⟩ | χ ⟨kh⟩ | ħ ⟨x⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ |
voiced | z ⟨s/z⟩* | ʕ ⟨c⟩ | ||||||
Trill | r ⟨r⟩ | ɽ ⟨dh⟩ | ||||||
Approximant | l ⟨l⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | w ⟨w⟩ |
/b/ is often realized as [β̞] when in a stressed intervocalic position. As in “toban” [toβ̞an], 'ten'. [4]
/d/ is often realized as [ð] when in a stressed intervocalic position. As in “madow” [maðow], 'black'.
/ɖ/ is a voiced retroflex stop. Some phoneticians say that it has an implosive quality for some speakers. It is sometimes realized as a flap [ɾ] between vowels.
Somali does not possess the phoneme /z/, but when it comes from Arabic, the phone is retained in loanwords, as in (Arabic pronunciation: [zamzam] ) and (Arabic pronunciation: [ʕabdulʕaziːz] ).
The voiceless stops /t/ and /k/ are always aspirated.
/ʕ/, the voiced pharyngeal fricative, may have creaky voice.
/r/ is often pronounced with breathy voice and may be partially devoiced. Between vowels, it may be a single tap.
/q/ can, in some dialects, be realized as [x].
/q/ is sometimes epiglottalized.
/ʍ/ is often realized as [ʍᶹ] in the Somali alluvial-plain dialects. /ʍ/ is realized as [w] in word-final positions like qaboow.
Somali has five basic vowels, and each of them can be short or long; the latter are represented orthographically as double vowels.
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
High | i ⟨i⟩ iː ⟨ii⟩ | u ⟨u⟩ uː ⟨uu⟩ | |
Mid | e ⟨e⟩ eː ⟨ee⟩ | o ⟨o⟩ oː ⟨oo⟩ | |
Low | a ⟨a⟩ aː ⟨aa⟩ |
Lexical prominence in Somali can be classified under a pitch accent system, in which there is one high-tone mora per word.
The tone system distinguishes both grammatical and lexical differences. Differences include numbers singular and plural (a grammatical distinction), and masculine and feminine genders (a grammatical and sometimes also lexical distinction). One example is inán ('girl') versus ínan ('boy'). This reflects a tonal pattern that codes grammatical gender, such as dameér ('female donkey') versus daméer ('male donkey').
The question of the tone system in Somali has been debated for decades. The modern consensus is as follows.
In Somali, the tone-bearing unit is the mora rather than the vowel of the syllable. A long vowel or a diphthong consists of two morae and can bear two tones. Each mora is defined as being of high or low tone. Only one high tone occurs per word and this must be on the final or penultimate mora. Particles do not have a high tone. (These include prepositions, clitic pronouns for subject and object, impersonal subject pronouns and focus markers.) There are therefore three possible "accentual patterns" in word roots.
Phonetically there are three tones on long vowels: high, low and falling:
This use of tone may be characterized as pitch accent. It is similar to that in Oromo.
Stress is connected with tone. The high tone has strong stress; the falling tone has less stress and the low tone has no stress.
When needed, the conventions for marking tone on written Somali are as follows:
Tones on long vowels are marked on the first vowel symbol.[ dubious – discuss ]
The syllable structure of Somali is (C)V(C).
Root morphemes usually have a mono- or di-syllabic structure.
Clusters of two consonants do not occur word-initially or word-finally, i.e., they only occur at syllable boundaries. The following consonants can be geminate: /b/, /d/, /ɖ/, /ɡ/, /ɢ/, /m/, /n/, /r/ and /l/. The following cannot be geminate: /t/, /k/ and the fricatives.
Two vowels cannot occur together at syllable boundaries. Epenthetic consonants, e.g. [j] and [ʔ], are therefore inserted.
This section appears to contradict itself.(November 2015) |
When a vowel occurs in word-initial position, a glottal stop ([ʔ]) is inserted before it.
Phonological changes occur at morpheme boundaries (sandhi) for specific grammatical morphemes. There may be assimilation or elision. One unusual change which can occur is /lt/ to [ʃ] (compare Spanish mucho from Latin multus).
Coalescence also occurs. This is a kind of external sandhi in which words join, undergoing phonological processes such as elision. In Somali it is sometimes obligatory and sometimes it is dependent on the speech style.
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (January 2025) |
Roots have front-back vowel harmony. There is also a process of vowel harmony in strings longer than a word, known as "harmonic groups".
Intonation (as opposed to tone, see above) does not carry grammatical information, although it may convey the speaker's attitude or emotion.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation for the sounds of speech. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.
Unless otherwise noted, statements in this article refer to Standard Finnish, which is based on the dialect spoken in the former Häme Province in central south Finland. Standard Finnish is used by professional speakers, such as reporters and news presenters on television.
Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native speakers of any language tend to transfer the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules of their first language into their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations not found in the speaker's native language.
English phonology is the system of speech sounds used in spoken English. Like many other languages, English has wide variation in pronunciation, both historically and from dialect to dialect. In general, however, the regional dialects of English share a largely similar phonological system. Among other things, most dialects have vowel reduction in unstressed syllables and a complex set of phonological features that distinguish fortis and lenis consonants.
In the phonology of the Romanian language, the phoneme inventory consists of seven vowels, two or four semivowels, and twenty consonants. In addition, as with other languages, other phonemes can occur occasionally in interjections or recent borrowings.
Swedish has a large vowel inventory, with nine vowels distinguished in quality and to some degree in quantity, making 18 vowel phonemes in most dialects. Another notable feature is the pitch accent, a development which it shares with Norwegian. Swedish pronunciation of most consonants is similar to that of other Germanic languages.
The sound system of Norwegian resembles that of Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, and all pronunciations are considered by official policy to be equally correct – there is no official spoken standard, although it can be said that Eastern Norwegian Bokmål speech has an unofficial spoken standard, called Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian, loosely based on the speech of the literate classes of the Oslo area. This variant is the most common one taught to foreign students.
The phonology of Italian describes the sound system—the phonology and phonetics—of standard Italian and its geographical variants.
Japanese phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. Unless otherwise noted, this article describes the standard variety of Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect.
The phonology of Bengali, like that of its neighbouring Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, is characterised by a wide variety of diphthongs and inherent back vowels.
This article discusses the phonological system of the Czech language.
The phonology of Turkish deals with current phonology and phonetics, particularly of Istanbul Turkish. A notable feature of the phonology of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that causes vowels in most words to be either front or back and either rounded or unrounded. Velar stop consonants have palatal allophones before front vowels.
Taos is a Tanoan language spoken by several hundred people in New Mexico, in the United States. The main description of its phonology was contributed by George L. Trager in a (pre-generative) structuralist framework. Earlier considerations of the phonetics-phonology were by John P. Harrington and Jaime de Angulo. Trager's first account was in Trager (1946) based on fieldwork 1935-1937, which was then substantially revised in Trager (1948). The description below takes Trager (1946) as the main point of departure and notes where this differs from the analysis of Trager (1948). Harrington's description is more similar to Trager (1946). Certain comments from a generative perspective are noted in a comparative work Hale (1967).
The most thorough treatment of the Kiowa sound system is by Laurel Watkins in a generative framework. A consideration of prosodic phenomena with acoustic analysis is in Sivertsen (1956). Earlier discussions of phonemics are Trager (1960), Merrifield (1959), Wonderly et al. (1954), and Harrington (1928).
The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative and several voiceless sonorants, some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable.
Lithuanian has 11 vowels and 45 consonants, including 22 pairs of consonants distinguished by the presence or absence of palatalization. Most vowels come in pairs which are differentiated through length and degree of centralization.
This article aims to describe the phonology and phonetics of central Luxembourgish, which is regarded as the emerging standard.
This article describes the phonology of the Oromo language.
This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the West Frisian language.
This article covers the phonology of the Kerkrade dialect, a West Ripuarian language variety spoken in parts of the Kerkrade municipality in the Netherlands and Herzogenrath in Germany.