Edo phonology

Edo has a rather average consonant inventory for an Edoid language. It maintains only a single phonemic nasal,, but has 13 oral consonants, and the 8 stops, which have nasal allophones such as  before nasal vowels. There are seven vowels,, all of which may be long or nasal, and three tones. Syllable structure is simple, being maximally CVV, where VV is either a long vowel or plus a different oral or nasal vowel.

The three rhotics have been described as voiced and voiceless trills plus a lax English-type approximant. However, Ladefoged found all three to be approximants, with the voiced–voiceless pair being raised (without being fricatives) and perhaps at a slightly different place of articulation compared to the third, but not trills.

The Edo alphabet has separate letters for the nasalized allophones of and, mw and n:

Long vowels are written by doubling the letter. Nasal vowels may be written with a final -n or with an initial nasal consonant. Tone may be written with acute accent, grave accent, and unmarked, or with a final -h (-nh with a nasal vowel).