International Phonetic AlphabetSystem of phonetic notationThe 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, starting in the late 19th century, as a standard written representation for the sounds of speech.
Latin alphabetAlphabet of the Latin language The Latin alphabet is the set of letters used by the ancient Romans to write Classical Latin, later augmented with lower-case letters to write Medieval Latin. Its expansion into the core 26-letter modern inventory (standardised today as the ISO basic Latin alphabet, which is utilized by Modern Latin), was motivated by vernacular languages.
Open-mid back rounded vowelIPA: Vowelsaudiofull chartLegend: unrounded • roundedThe open-mid back rounded vowel, or low-mid back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spokenlanguages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ɔ⟩. The IPA symbol is a turned letter c and both the symbol and the sound are commonly called "open-o".
African Reference AlphabetThe African Reference Alphabet is a largely defunct continent-wide guideline for the creation of Latin alphabets for African languages. Two variants of the initial proposal (one in English and a second in French) were made at a 1978 UNESCO-organized conference held in Niamey, Niger. They were based on the results of several earlier conferences on the harmonization of established Latin alphabets of individual languages.
DiacriticModifier mark added to a letterLatin letter A with multiple diacriticsA diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greekδιακριτικός (diakritikós, "distinguishing"), from διακρίνω (diakrínō, "to distinguish"). The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective.
Yucatec Maya languageYucatec Maya ( ; Spanish: yucateco), referred to by its speakers as mayaʼ or maayaʼ t’aan (pronounced), is a Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula, including part of northern Belize. There is also a significant diasporic community of Yucatec Maya speakers in San Francisco, though most Maya Americans are speakers of other Mayan languages from Guatemala and Chiapas.
Alveolar ejective affricateAn alveolar ejective affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spokenlanguages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨t͡sʼ⟩ or ⟨t͜sʼ⟩.
MacOSmacOS (previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a proprietary Unix operating system, derived from OPENSTEP for Mach and FreeBSD, which has been marketed and developed by Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's line of Mac computers. As of April 2026, within the market of desktop and laptop computers, it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of all Linux distributions, including ChromeOS and SteamOS.
Letter caseLetter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (more formally majuscule) and smaller lowercase (more formally minuscule) in the written representation of certain languages. The writing systems that distinguish between the upper- and lowercase have two parallel sets of letters: each in the majuscule set has a counterpart in the minuscule set.
R-colored vowelAn r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulated in various ways: the tip or blade of the tongue may be turned up during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex articulation) or the back of the tongue may be bunched.
Languages of AfricaThe number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SIL Ethnologue), one of the greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.