It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Nguni 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.
A superscript X marks a sound or spelling found specifically in Xhosa, S in Swazi, and Z specifically in Zulu. Sounds marked * only appear in loanwords.
^The velar nasal [ŋ] may be pronounced as [ŋg] in Swazi.
^The click consonants do not have any equivalent phoneme in English. The nearest equivalents to English-speakers are the Tut-tut or Tsk! Tsk!, tchick!, and clip-clop!interjections.
^/a/ is phonetically realised as an open front unrounded vowel [a] in Swazi, an open central unrounded vowel [ä] in Zulu and an open back unrounded vowel in Xhosa [ɑ].
^Realized similar to cat in Swazi, similar to father in Xhosa, and in between the two in Zulu
