Vowels and consonants
Vowels
Dagbani vowels, just like vowels of the English language, are the sounds the production of which there is no obstruction in the passage of air. They are called vaawulinima or bachikɔbiyɛri in Dagbani.
Types of Vowels
There are two types of vowels; short vowels (vaawuli jihi) and long vowels (vaawuli waɣila).
Note: the brackets [ ] are used to enclose letter sounds. Thus, this differentiates inscription of sounds of letters from writing the letters themselves. Eg. The sound of the letter a is written as [a].
Short Vowels (Vaawuli Jihi)
The following are the short vowels in Dagbani language: [a], [e], [ɛ], [i], [u], [o], [ɔ]
These vowels are used in the following examples:
[a] - a (you/your)
[e] - be (is)
[ɛ] - bɛla (small)
[i] - di (eat/it)
[u] - du (climb)
[o] - go (travel)
[ɔ] - gɔm (sleep)
Long Vowels (Vaawuli Waɣila)
The following are the long vowels in the Dagbani language:
[aa], [ee], [ii], [uu], [oo]
The long vowels are used in the following examples:
[aa] - baa (dog)
[ee] - bee (or/leg)
[ii] - bii (heat)
[uu] - duu (room)
[oo] - doo (man)
Note: one needs to be very mindful of where to use either a short or a long vowel. They are not interchangeable at all. For example ''ba'' means ''father'' whiles ''baa'' means ''dog''. So you can imagine the blunder one would be causing if they interchanges [aa] for [a] or vice versa.
Consonants
Consonants can be described as speech sounds that are not vowels. They are sounds the production of which there are no obstruction in the passage of air. Dagbani consonants are 26 in number and are grouped into two.
Types of Consonants
The two types of consonants are Single-Letter Consonants (Kɔnsɔnanti Gansi) and Diagraphs (Kɔnsɔnanti Jɛba).
Single-Letter Consonants
They are [b], [d], [f], [g], [h], [j], [k], [l],[m], [n], [ŋ], [p], [r], [s], [t], [v], [w], [y], [z], [ʒ]
Single- Letter consonants can be used in the following examples:
[b] - ba (father/ride)
[d] - da (buy)
[f] - fo (quite)
[g] - go (travel)
[h] - hali (even)
[j] - jilima (respect)
[k] - kɔm (water)
[l] - lɛm (umbrella)
[m] - mani (me/I)
[n] - nua (hand)
[ŋ] - ŋɔ (this)
[p] - puli (stomach)
[r] - kurili (old) Note: there is no native Dagbani word starting with the sound r
[s] - sala (human/charcoal)
[t] - tia (tree)
[v] - vari (leaves)
[w] - wum (hear)
[y] - yuŋ (night)
[z] - zim (flour)
[ʒ] - ʒim (blood)
Diagraphs (Bachikɔb' Jɛba)
A diagraph is made up of a pair of consonants that make one sound.
They include:
[gb], [kp], [ŋm], [ch], [sh], [ny]
[gb] - gbali (leg)
[kp] - kpam (oil)
[ŋm] - ŋmambila (bird)
[ch] - cheche (bicycle)
[sh] - shia (bee)
[ny] - nyuli (yam/jealous)
Special Dagbani characters
Among the vowels and consonants mentioned above, there are some alphabets that are among English alphabets but are among the Dagbani alphabets. These alphabets are ɛ, ɔ, ŋ, and ʒ. ɛ and ɔ are vowels whiles ŋ and ʒ are consonants.
It is also worthy of notice that the letter c is not among the Dagbani alphabets as a single letter.
