Phonology and Orthography
The orthographical system in common use, originally introduced by Edward Steere, is quite phonetic. Its letters, with their approximate phonetic values, are given below.
| Letter: | A | B | Ch/C | D | E | F | G | I | J | K | L | M | N | Ng' | O | P | S | Sh | T | U | V | W | Y |
| Value: | a | b/ɓ~w/β | tʃ/tj | d | e} | f~v | ɡ | i | dʒ/dj | k | l | m | n | ŋʰ | ɔ | p | s | ʃ | t | u | f~v | w | j |
It has become increasingly common to use 'c' in place of 'ch'. In common with other Bantu languages, as affixes are added, combinations of vowels may contract and consonants may change. For example, 'aa' changes to a long 'a', 'ae' and 'ai' change to 'e', and 'ao' and 'au' change to 'o (in other cases, a 'y' is often used to separate other combinations of vowels). The nasal 'n' changes to 'm' before 'b' or 'p', and is pronounced ŋ before 'k' or 'g'; after 'n', 'l' changes to 'd'. These rules will all be implicit in the tables given below.
Like many Bantu languages, Bemba is tonal, with two tones; however, tone has limited effect on meaning as the number of words that would otherwise be confused is small. Stress tends to fall on the prefix, when it exists, and can lead to subtle differences of meaning (see the verb forms below).
Read more about this topic: Bemba Language