Vowels

Yoruba has a total of seven oral vowels and five nasal vowels. The nasal vowels are marked with an accompanying nasal consonant, /n/. For example, in words like wọn “they”; ìtàn “history”; ikùn “stomach.”

The Yoruba syllable structure

Like many languages, understanding the vowel sounds is key to understanding the Yoruba syllable structure. In Yoruba phonology, syllables can occur as a stand-alone vowel, for example, /ẹ/ “you,” singular pronoun in the object position; /ẹ/ subject plural or honorific pronoun”; / ì /  in words like  ì-lù “drum”. Syllables can also occur as a sequence of  consonant and vowel sounds in monosyllabic  and disyllabic words. For example:

1. fò “to jump”
2. olùgbàlà “savior” with the syllables:  o-lù-gbà-là

Syllabic consonants

The Yoruba language does not allow the sequence of consonants (consonant clusters) in a word, except if one of the contiguous consonants is syllabic.

Only two consonants, /n/ and /m/, can function as syllables in Yoruba. For example:

In Bímbọ́lá, Bí-m-bọ́-lá, a Yorùbá name that means “born into wealth,” /m/ is a syllabic consonant because it stands alone as a syllable in the word. Similarly, /n/ in aláǹgbá , a-lá-ǹ-gbá, “lizard, /n/ is a syllabic consonant because it stands alone as a syllable in the word.

Note: In Yoruba syllable structure, nasal vowels are not the same as syllabic consonants.

For example: The nasal vowel /in/ in  i-rin “metal” is not a syllabic nasal but a combination of consonant /r/ followed by nasal vowel /in/.

Yoruba Tones

Yoruba has three tones, and all three tones occur in word syllables.

High: ( ́)

Low: ( ̀) and,

Mid (-).

The high and low tones are marked using the corresponding diacritics in every syllable. However, the mid-tone is always unmarked.

Example:

In Adéọla, the tones are carefully placed in thus: A-dé-ọ- lá, ” Adéọlá.  Note that the first and third syllables have mid tones but they are not overtly marked using the mid-tone diacritic (-). Therefore, all vowels in Yorùbá words without tone marks are inherently carrying a mid tone even when they are not marked in the words.

“Tones in Yoruba  are phonemic because they bring about a change in meaning. As a result, the correct pronunciation of words is extremely important for communicating accurate meaning in Yoruba.

For example, tones differentiate the meaning in these homographs:

Yorùbá does not use a glide tone on a single vowel sound. Instead, such sounds are repeated to articulate the glide as well as the corresponding tone marks. When there is a combination of tones on a singular sound, such sounds are written as multiple vowels with specific tone mark.

Example:

Ọlọ́pàá, ọ-lọ́-pà-á “Police”
Òórùn, ò-ó-rùn”Smell”
Dábàá, dá-bà-á  “suggest”

Consonants

There are eighteen consonant sounds in Yoruba language. All of these consonants are integral to pronouncing and reading Yoruba words.

/b/, /d/, /f/, /g/, /gb/, /h/, /j/, /k/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, /s/, /ṣ/, /t/, /w/, /y/