Afrikaans phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

The phonetic quality of the close vowels

• tends to be merged with into.
• is weakly rounded and could be more narrowly transcribed as or. Thus, it is sometimes transcribed.

  The phonetic quality of the mid vowels

• vary between mid or close-mid.
• According to some scholars, the stressed allophone of is actually closer than mid. However, other scholars do not distinguish between stressed and unstressed schwas. This article uses the symbol regardless of the exact height of the vowel.
• The central, not the front are the unrounded counterparts of. Phonetically, have been variously described as mid and open-mid.
• are rather weakly rounded, and many speakers merge with into, even in formal speech. The merger has been noted in colloquial speech since the 1920s.

  The phonetic quality of the open vowels

• In some words such as vanaand 'this evening', unstressed is actually a schwa, not.
• is open near-front, but older sources describe it as near-open central and open central.
• is either open near-back or open back. Especially in stressed positions, the back realization may be rounded, and sometimes it may be even as high as the phoneme. The rounded realization is associated with younger white speakers, especially female speakers of northern accents.

  Other notes

• As phonemes, and occur only in the words spieël 'mirror' and koeël 'bullet', which used to be pronounced with sequences and respectively. In other cases, and occur as allophones of and respectively before.
• Like and, is phonetically long before.
• contrasts with only in the minimal pair pers 'press' – pers 'purple'.
• Before the sequences, the and contrasts are neutralized in favour of the long variants and, respectively.
• occurs only in the word wîe 'wedges', which is realized as either or .
• The sequence is realised as either or .
• occur only in a few words.
• As a phoneme, occurs only in some loanwords from English, such as pêl 'pal', as well as in some words such as vertrek 'departure'. As an allophone of before, occurs dialectally, most commonly in the former Transvaal and Free State provinces.
• has been variously transcribed with, and. This article uses.
• has been variously transcribed with and. This article uses the former symbol.
• In some words, such as hamer, short is in free variation with long despite the fact that the spelling suggests the latter. In some words, such as laat, the pronunciation with short occurs only in colloquial language. In some other words, such as aambeeld 'anvil', the pronunciation with short is already a part of the standard language. The shortening of has been noted as early as 1927.
• The orthographic sequence can be pronounced as either or .

  Nasalized vowels

• The sequence in words such as dans is realised as. In monosyllabic words, that is the norm.
• The sequence in more common words is realized as either or. In less common words, is the usual pronunciation.
• The sequence in words such as mens is realized as.
• The sequence in words such as guns is realised more often as than as. For speakers with the merger, these transcriptions are to be read as and, respectively.
• The sequence in words such as spons is realised as.

Diphthongs

• According to, the first elements of are close-mid, more narrowly transcribed or. According to, the onsets of are near-close. For simplicity, both variants will be written simply as. are commonly used for centralized close-mid vowels anyway - see near-close near-front unrounded vowel and near-close near-back rounded vowel.
• Some sources prescribe monophthongal realizations of these; that is at least partially outdated:
• * There is not a complete agreement about the realisation of :
• ** According to, it is realised as either rising or falling, with the former being more common. The unrounded onset is a rather recent development and is not described by older sources. The monophthongal realisation is virtually nonexistent.
• ** According to, it is realised as. Its onset is sometimes unrounded, which can cause it to merge with.
• * There is not a complete agreement about the realisation of
• ** According to, they may be realised in four ways:
• *** Falling diphthongs. Their first element may be short or somewhat lengthened.
• *** Rising diphthongs. These variants do not seem to appear word-finally. The sequence is commonly realised as or, more often,, with realised as breathy voice on the diphthong.
• *** Indeterminate diphthongs, which may occur in all environments.
• *** Monophthongs, either short or somewhat lengthened. The monophthongal realisations occur in less stressed words as well as in stressed syllables in words that have more than one syllable. In the latter case, they are in free variation with all of the three diphthongal realisations. In case of, the monophthongal also appears in unstressed word-final syllables.
• ** According to, they are realized as either or.
• also occurs in words spelled with, like reël 'rule'. Historically, these were pronounced with a disyllabic sequence and so reël used to be pronounced.
• There is not a complete agreement about the dialectal realisation of in the Boland area:
• * According to, they are centralized close-mid monophthongs, which do not merge with and.
• * According to and De Villiers, they are close monophthongs, long according to, short according to De Villiers.

  Other diphthongs

• The scholar Daan Wissing argues that is not a phonetically correct transcription and that is more accurate. In his analysis, he found that makes for 65% of the realisations, the other 35% being monophthongal,, and.
• Most often, has an unrounded offset. For some speakers, the onset is also unrounded. That can cause to merge with, which is considered non-standard.
• occur mainly in loanwords.
• Older sources describe as a narrow back diphthong. However, newer sources describe its onset as more front. For example,, states that the onset of is central.
• * In some words which, in English, are pronounced with, the Afrikaans equivalent tends to be pronounced with, rather than. That happens because Afrikaans is more similar to the usual South African realization of English.

Long diphthongs

'False' diphthongs

• The suffixes and and the diminutive suffix are realised as , rather than.
• In practice, the diphthong is realised the same as the phonemic diphthong.
• , when it has arisen from diphthongisation of, differs from the phonemic diphthong by having a slightly different onset, although the exact nature of that difference is unclear. This means that puntjie 'point' sounds somewhat different than puintjie 'rubble'.

  Consonants

Obstruents

• All obstruents at the ends of words are devoiced so that, for instance, a final is realised as.
• are bilabial, whereas are labiodental.
• * According to some authors, is actually an approximant.
• are unaspirated.
• may be somewhat more front before front vowels; the fronted allophone of also occurs in diminutives ending in -djie and -tjie.
• occur only in loanwords.
• is most often uvular, either a fricative, or a voiceless trill, the latter especially in initial position before a stressed vowel. The uvular fricative is also used by many speakers of White South African English as a realisation of the marginal English phoneme. In Afrikaans, velar may be used in a few "hyper-posh" varieties, and it may also, rarely, occur as an allophone before front vowels in speakers with otherwise uvular.
• occurs only in loanwords. When at the end of an inflected root where G is preceded by a short vowel and and succeeded by a schwa, occurs as an allophone of.

  Sonorants

• is bilabial.
• merges with before labial consonants. Phonetically, this merged consonant is realized as bilabial before, and labiodental before.
• * merges with before dorsals.
• is velarised in all positions, especially noticeably non-prevocalically.
• is usually an alveolar trill or tap. In some parts of the former Cape Province, it is realised uvularly, either as a trill or a fricative. The uvular trill may also be pronounced as a tap.