Haitian Creole - Orthography and Phonology

Orthography and Phonology

Haitian creole has a systematic orthography where spelling strictly follows pronunciation, except for proper nouns and foreign words. According to the official standardized orthography, Haitian Creole is composed of the following 32 sounds : a, an, b, ch, d, e, è, en, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, ng, o, ò, on, ou, oun, p, r, s, t, ui, v, w, y, z. Of note is the absence of letters c, q, u and x. Letter k is to be used for the sounds of letters c and q. Letter u is always associated with another letter (ou, oun, ui), while letter i (and its sound) is used to replace the single letter u in French words. As for letter x, its sound is produced by using the combination of letters k and s, k and z, or g and z.

• There are no silent letters in Haitian creole.
• All sounds are always spelled the same, except when a vowel carries a grave accent <`> before , which makes it an open vowel instead of a nasal vowel (e.g. for /ɛ̃/ and <èn> for /ɛn/; = /ɔ̃/, but <òn> = /ɔn/; = /ã/, but <àn> = /an/).
• When immediately followed by a vowel in a word, the digraphs denoting the nasal vowels (an, en, on, and sometimes oun) are pronounced as an oral vowel followed by n.
• There is some ambiguity in the pronunciation of the high vowels i and ou when followed in spelling by n: common words such as moun ("person") and machin ("car") end with consonantal /n/, while very few words, mostly adopted from African languages, contain nasalized high vowels (e.g. houngan "voodoo priest").