African French - Pronunciation

Pronunciation

Differences in pronunciation between varieties of African French can be quite important (e.g. pronunciation of French in Morocco is quite different from the pronunciation of French in Senegal). Despite these significant regional variations, there exist some trends among African French speakers such as the pronunciation of the letter R, which tends to be pronounced like a trilled R instead of a guttural R, but some speakers can also pronounce it as a guttural (a voiced uvular fricative like ‹غ› in the Arabic word مغرب Maghrib). Pronunciation of, and, as well as other sounds may be also different. Standard French intonation can be also either maintained or not.

In most cases, however, it is not possible to make generalizations about the pronunciation of French in Africa, each local pronunciation of French being influenced by the African languages spoken locally.