Help:IPA/Haitian Creole

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Haitian Creole on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Haitian Creole in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.

For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

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The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Haitian Creole pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

There are no silent letters in Haitian Creole unless a word is written with the traditional orthography.

See Haitian Creole phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Haitian Creole.

Consonants
IPA	Examples	English approximation
b	bagay	bow
ʃ	cho	shoe
d	dous	do
f	fig	festival
ɡ	gòch	gain
ɣ	rezon ^[1]	between go and loch
h	hèn	hotel
j	pye	yes
k	kle	sky
l	liv	lean
m	machin	mother
n	nòt	note
ŋ	bilding	feeling
p	pase	spy
s	sis	six
t	tout	still
v	vyann	vent
w	wi ^[1]	we
ɥ	uit^[2]	roughly like sweet
z	zero	zero
ʒ	jedi	measure
Non-native consonants
dʒ	djaz	jazz

Vowels
IPA	Examples	English approximation
a	abako; pàn	bra
e	ale	hey
ɛ	fèt	bed
i	lide	see
o	zwazo	story
ɔ	deyò	off
u	nou	cool
Nasal vowels^[3]
ã	anpil	No English equivalent; nasalized [ɒ]
ɛ̃	mwen	No English equivalent; nasalized [ɛ]
ɔ̃	tonton	No English equivalent; nasalized [o]
ũ	houngan	No English equivalent; nasalized [u]

^ ^a ^b The contrast between [ɣ] and [w] is lost before rounded vowels, and the two phonemes merge then as [w]. Some orthographies of Haitian Creole follow the etymology of the word by using ⟨r⟩ for [w] before a rounded vowel if it comes from an original [ɣ]: gro [ɡwo] ('big' cf. French gros [ɡʁo]). The official orthography follows the modern pronunciation of the word and uses ⟨w⟩ for [w] in all cases and so [ɡwo] is spelled ⟨gwo⟩.
^ [ɥ] is always followed by [i]. This phoneme is extremely rare and maybe only exists in this word.
^ When [n] follows an oral vowel, a grave accent ⟨`⟩ is written on the vowel before ⟨n⟩: ⟨èn⟩ represents [ɛn], ⟨òn⟩ represents [ɔn], and ⟨àn⟩ represents [an]. The oral pronunciation occurs also when ⟨n⟩ is followed by another vowel.

[rhotic-1] The contrast between [ɣ] and [w] is lost before rounded vowels, and the two phonemes merge then as [w]. Some orthographies of Haitian Creole follow the etymology of the word by using ⟨r⟩ for [w] before a rounded vowel if it comes from an original [ɣ]: gro [ɡwo] ('big' cf. French gros [ɡʁo]). The official orthography follows the modern pronunciation of the word and uses ⟨w⟩ for [w] in all cases and so [ɡwo] is spelled ⟨gwo⟩.

[2] [ɥ] is always followed by [i]. This phoneme is extremely rare and maybe only exists in this word.

[nasal-3] When [n] follows an oral vowel, a grave accent ⟨`⟩ is written on the vowel before ⟨n⟩: ⟨èn⟩ represents [ɛn], ⟨òn⟩ represents [ɔn], and ⟨àn⟩ represents [an]. The oral pronunciation occurs also when ⟨n⟩ is followed by another vowel.

[1]

[2]

[3]