The Yorùbá alphabet consists of 25 letters and uses the familiar Latin characters.
In Yorùbá Alphabet, there are Consonants and Vowels. Consonants are 18 in total while Vowels are 7 in total.
There are two vowel types in Yorùbá; oral and nasalized. Oral vowels are produced entirely through the mouth and nasalized ones are produced through both the mouth and nose. The representation of the seven Yorùbá oral vowels
The pronunciation of words in Yorùbá language is tonal; where a different pitch conveys a different word meaning or grammatical distinction.
This means that pronouncing words in Yorùbá is based on what is called Àmìn ohùn - Tone Marks.
Yorùbá is a tonal language with three tones: high, mid and low. The high tone is indicated by an acute accent (á, é, ẹ́, í, ó, ọ́, ú). The mid tone is not marked and the low tone is marked with a grave acute (à, è, ẹ̀, ì, ò, ọ̀, ù).
Tone | Orthography | Musical note |
---|---|---|
HIGH | High with a rising tone, depicted by an acute accent | Mi (Mí) |
MID | Mid with a flat tone, depicted by an absence of any accent | Re |
LOW | Low with a falling tone, depicted by a grave accent | Do (Dò) |