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YORUBA SOUNDS part I

Yoruba's phonemes can be categorized into three major classes: Consonant-Vowel syllables, Vowels, and Nasal Vowels. The Nasal consonant 'n' will be covered separately.

Consonant-Vowel Syllables

linguistically, a consonant cannot 'stand alone' as a syllable in Yoruba. Therefore, all consonants must be followed by a vowel. This is most obviously demonstrated in recent loanwords from English: the Yoruba "tẹlífíṣọ́ọ̀nù", "telivision," is very obviously and simply divided into 6 syllables: tẹ-lí-fí-ṣọ́-ọ̀-nù.

The Consonantal sounds in Yoruba are listed below, with their phonetic articulatory descriptions and their nearest English equivalents given afterward.

B b bilabial plosive, very much as in English "b".

GB gb voiced bilabiovelar plosive, like saying English "g" and "b" at once; try mashing big boy as close together as possible.

D d voiced alveolar plosive, very much as in English "d".

J j alveopalatal affricate, as in English "adjourn", NEVER as in English "garage".

F f voiced/unvoiced labiodental fricative, as in English "v" and "f", depending on the word and dialect.

K k velar plosive, exactly like English "k".

L l lateral liquid, approximately as in English "l".

M m bilabial plosive, while nasal in form this is more accurately somewhere between English "m" and English "b".

N* n* usually a nasal alveolar stop, this sound is sometimes like English "n," sometimes like English "sing," and more commonly a sound that is in between these two extremes. More description on the versatitility of Yoruba "n" will be covered below.

P p voiceless bilabiovelar plosive, like saying English "k" and "p" together at once; try mashing "kick pin" as close together as possible. This sound is never like English "p", as that sound does not exist in Yoruba.

R r rounded retroflex liquid flap, like combining English "r" and English "tt" in "butter" together at once; try mashing the last two sounds of the word "butter" as close together as possible.

S s alveolar fricative, much like English "s".

Ṣ ṣ alveopalatal sibilant, much like English "sh" in "English."

T t voicless alveolar plosive, much like the "t" in English "until".

W w labiovelar glide, very much like English "w".

Y y palatal glide, very much like English "y" in "yes", but NEVER like English "why" or "smartly".

*the letter "n" in Yoruba serves many functions depending on its placement in a word and whether it is marked with a tone (ǹ, ń). If "n" begins a word, it is pronounced orally as in "Nile." If "n" comes after a vowel, it is nasalizes the vowel (see following posts). If "n" comes after another "n" in a word, it is again pronounced hard, as in "Nile." If "n" stands alone, it is pronounced nasally, kind of like pronouncing "n" in English but while closing your mouth.

YORUBA SOUNDS part III

Yoruba's phonemes can be categorized into three major classes: Consonant-Vowel syllables, Vowels, and Nasal Vowels. The Nasal consonant 'n' will be covered separately.

Nasal Vowels

All of the vowels of Yoruba have nasalized equivalents. This is done orthographically (in the spelling) by taking a vowel and attaching an "n" to it (vowel+n), and phonetically (in speaking) by pronouncing a vowel while holding the tongue up to the back of the roof of the mouth, as if to pronounce an "n" or a "ng". All nasal vowels are pronounced in this manner, though depending on the dialect the pronunciation itself may change.

In in
En en
Ẹn ẹn
Un un
On on
Ọn ọn
An an

TONES

Aside from the alphabet shown above, Yorùbá also extensively uses another phonological feature mentioned earlier--tones.

What are Tones?

Tones (amì ohùn in Yorùbá) are the prime feature of Intonation, or the varying degrees of sound of definite pitch. In English, intonation is used as a feature to mark mood, or to define a question:

She bought herself a diamond necklace

Without any punctuation or other conventions, in English it can be difficult to understand the context of such a sentence. It could be a question (She bought herself a diamond necklace?), or a sarcastic comment (She bought herself a diamond necklace.), or a statement of disbelief (She bought herself a diamond necklace!), but we can't be sure without hearing the intonation of the speaker.

In other languages, however, such changes in intonation do not signal changes in mood or interrogatives of entire sentences, but changes in meaning of individual words. This is how Yorùbá uses intonation.

Yoruba Tones

For newcomers to Yoruba (or more appropriately, those whose first language is not tonal) it is often helpful to think of Yoruba tones in terms of song notes, as the language itself is very lyrical and lends itself well to singing.

Yorùbá makes use of three separate tones:
< ` > Low tone (sometimes known as 'Do tone')
< ¯ > Mid tone (sometimes known as 'Re tone')
< ´ > High tone (sometimes known as 'Mi tone')

The low tone is typically marked with a grave accent, while the high tone is marked with an acute accent, and the mid tone is marked with a macron. It is important to note that the mid tone is rarely marked in actual texts, as it is considered the 'base tone' for speaking. Whatever a person's natural tone is for speaking "flatly," that would be their individual Mid tone.

In some dialects of Yoruba, it is common to see tones combined when they stand next to one another in a word. These are marked with the following signs:

‹ ˇ › a caron is used for the 'rising tone', where one low tone is followed by a high tone.

‹ ˆ › a circumflex is used for the 'falling tone', where one high tone is followed by a low tone.

However, these tone marks are becoming increasingly uncommon.