Help:IPA/Mauritian Creole

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

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Mauritian 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 Mauritian 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.

The writing systems used for the language vary, but generally there are no silent letters in written Mauritian Creole unless a word is written with the traditional standard French orthography.

Consonants
IPA	Examples	English approximation
b	bizin	bow
d	dodo, dim^[1]	dim
dz	dimal, diab^[1]	cards
dʒ	jet	jet
f	fin	feel
ɡ	golfis	goldfish
j	yer^[2]	yesterday
k	kamarad	sky
l	lalimier	light
m	mo	my
n	nu^[2]	no
ŋ	laŋ	wrong
ɲ	gany^[2]	canyon
p	Pyer	spy
ʁ	frer ^[3]	between go and loch
s	saken	six
t	tïm^[1]	steam
ts	timid^[1]	cats
tʃ	chabi	chav
v	va	vat
w	wi	we
z	azordi	zero
Marginal consonants
h	maharaja^[4]	hotel

Vowels
IPA	Examples	English approximation
a	rani	cat
e	resif	hey
i	si	see
o	so, dodo	story (short)
u	ruz	rule
ə	rugbi^[5]	aroma
Nasal vowels
ɑ̃	ansam, langaz	No English equivalent; nasalized [a]
ɛ̃	byin	No English equivalent; nasalized [e]
ɔ̃	lontan	No English equivalent; nasalized [o]
Long vowels and diphthongs^[3]
ɑː	aswar	spa
ɛː	frer	fairy
iːə	kouvertir	idea
oː	inportan	story
uːə	bonzour

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d /t, d/ are palatalized or affricated to [tʲ, dʲ] or [tˢ, dᶻ] before /i, j/ in words of French origin, but in words of English origin they remain alveolar stops.
^ ^a ^b ^c There are alternations between /ɲ/, /nj/, and /j̃, j/ in many words.
^ ^a ^b At the end of a word or before a consonant, the sequence of a vowel followed by ⟨r⟩ is realized as a long vowel or diphthong.
^ /h/ appears only in words of English or Indic origin, but in all cases it may be optionally omitted.
^ [ə] occurs in words which traditionally had /i/ deriving from standard French [ə, œ] in their initial syllable (e.g. dëló "water" from de l'eau). In such words, [ə] is unstressed, but a stressed [ə] is also heard as the reflex of English /ʌ/ in a few words such as rugbi "rugby". All words in which [ə] occurs also have alternative pronunciations with another vowel so [ə] is not yet phonemic.

[dentals-1] /t, d/ are palatalized or affricated to [tʲ, dʲ] or [tˢ, dᶻ] before /i, j/ in words of French origin, but in words of English origin they remain alveolar stops.

[ny-2] There are alternations between /ɲ/, /nj/, and /j̃, j/ in many words.

[rhotic-3] At the end of a word or before a consonant, the sequence of a vowel followed by ⟨r⟩ is realized as a long vowel or diphthong.

[4] /h/ appears only in words of English or Indic origin, but in all cases it may be optionally omitted.

[schwa-5] [ə] occurs in words which traditionally had /i/ deriving from standard French [ə, œ] in their initial syllable (e.g. dëló "water" from de l'eau). In such words, [ə] is unstressed, but a stressed [ə] is also heard as the reflex of English /ʌ/ in a few words such as rugbi "rugby". All words in which [ə] occurs also have alternative pronunciations with another vowel so [ə] is not yet phonemic.

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[2]

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