The Yoruba alphabet (

Yoruba The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...

: ''Álífábẹ́ẹ̀tì Yorùbá'') is either of two

Latin alphabets The lists and tables below summarize and compare the letter inventories of some of the Latin-script alphabets. In this article, the scope of the word "alphabet" is broadened to include letters with tone marks, and other diacritics used to represen ...

used to write the

Yoruba language Yoruba (, ; Yor. '; Ajami script, Ajami: ) is a language spoken in West Africa, primarily in South West (Nigeria), Southwestern Middle Belt, and Central Nigeria. It is spoken by the Ethnic group, ethnic Yoruba people. The number of Yoruba speake ...

, one in Nigeria and one in neighboring Benin. The Nigerian Yoruba alphabet is made up of 25 letters, without C Q V X Z but with the additions of Ẹ,

Ọ When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot is usually reserved for the '' interpunct'' ( · ), or to the glyphs "combining dot above" ( ◌̇ ) and "combining dot below" ( ◌̣ ) which may be combined with some letters of t ...

Ṣ Ṣ (minuscule: ṣ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet, formed from an S with the addition of a dot below the letter. Its uses include: * In the Alvarez/Hale orthography of the Tohono Oʼodham language to represent retroflex (Akimel O'odham a ...

and Gb. However, many of the excluded consonants are present in several dialectal forms of Yoruba, including V, Z, and other digraphs (like ch, gh, and gw). Central Yoruba dialects also have 2 extra vowels that are allophones of I and U. It is somewhat unusual in that the letter P usually transcribes , being only in restricted situations like onomatopoeia. The Beninese alphabet has the letters Ɛ and Ɔ, and previously had C.

Sounds

The nasal vowels are written with digraphs: , , , , , unless they come after . Long vowels are written double, as in (). The high and low tones are written with acute and grave accents (á, à), while mid tone is unmarked (a), except for disambiguation on a nasal (n̄, etc.). Combinations of these tones produce falling and rising tones, written e.g. â, ǎ when they are combined on a single vowel letter. These may appear on nasal consonants as well, as in (how...?), ''nǹkan'' (things). An apostrophe may be used to mark an elided sound, at the choice of the writer, as in (), from , but (), from . When ''n'' is a syllable of its own before a vowel, as in (), it is pronounced (plus tone). In older signage, may be used for current .

References

{{reflist Yoruba language Latin alphabets Writing systems of Africa

Sounds

See also

References