Last Updated: 2020-07-02
Background
Language Family: Niger-Congo / Atlantic-Congo / Atlantic / Northern / Senegambian / Fula-Wolof / Wolof
- Wolof is spoken throughout Senegal.
- Wolof contains borrowings from Arabic.
Phonology
Consonants
- The authors I have read disagree about which of the prenasalized consonants exist in Wolof; I have opted to include all of the prenasalized voiced consonants in my analysis, but to exclude the prenasalized voiceless consonants, as those were less widely attested.
- Voiceless prenasalized consonants do not occur word-initially (Camara 2006, 2).
- Consonants geminate, which is indicated by repetition of the grapheme (Camara 2006, 1–2).
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Postalveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Uvular
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Stops
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p b ᵐb
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t d ⁿd
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k ɡ ᵑɡ
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q
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Affricates
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tʃ dʒ ᶮdʒ
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Fricatives
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f
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s
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x
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Nasals
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m
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n
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ɲ
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ŋ
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Flaps
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ɾ
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Approximants
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w
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l
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j
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Note: Where three phonemes share a cell, they are ordered voiceless, voiced, and prenasalized.
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Vowels
- Vowel length is contrastive in Wolof. Long vowels are written by doubling the vowel character (Diop 2012, 5).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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u
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High-Mid
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e
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o
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Mid
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ə
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Low-Mid
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ɛ
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ɔ
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Low
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a
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Alphabet
- Some older orthographies use ⟨ny⟩ instead of ⟨ñ⟩ (Gamble, Salmon, and Njie 1985, v).
- When accented vowels are doubled, the diacritic is sometimes omitted on the second (Diop 2012, 5).
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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a
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/a/
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à
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/aː/
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b
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/b/
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c
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/tʃ/
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d
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/d/
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e
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/ɛ/
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é
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/e/
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ë
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/ə/
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f
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/f/
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g
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/ɡ/
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i
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/i/
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j
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/dʒ/
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k
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/k/
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l
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/l/
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m
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/m/
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n
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/n/
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ñ
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/ɲ/
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ŋ
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/ŋ/
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o
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/ɔ/
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ó
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/o/
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p
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/p/
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q
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/q/
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r
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/ɾ/
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s
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/s/
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t
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/t/
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u
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/u/
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w
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/w/
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x
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/x/
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y
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/j/
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Digraph
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mb
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/ᵐb/
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mp
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/ᵐp/
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nc
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/ᶮtʃ/
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nd
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/ⁿd/
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ng
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/ᵑɡ/
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nj
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/ᶮdʒ/
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nk
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/ᵑk/
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nt
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/ⁿt/
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Misc. Rules
- Short /u/ is generally realized as lax [ʊ] (Camara 2006, 3).
- /a/ reduces to [ə] in the final syllable of a word, unless the preceding syllable has a low or mid-low vowel (Camara 2006, 4).
- Epenthesis of [ə] occurs after word-final geminated consonants; if the consonant is a voiceless stop, that [ə] is also realized as voiceless (Camara 2006, 1).
- Vowels nasalize before nasal or prenasalized consonants (Camara 2006, 4).
References
Camara, Sana. 2006. Wolof Lexicon and Grammar. NALRC Press.
Diop, Elhadji Bamba. 2012. “Trainee Wolof Manual.”
Gamble, David P., Linda K. Salmon, and Alhaji Hassan Njie. 1985. Peoples of the Gambia I: The Wolof. Gambian Studies.