Nafaanra sounds

Vowels
Nafaanra has seven oral and five nasalized vowels. A difference in vowel length can make a difference in meaning, as in ', "to go", vs. ', "fetish" or o, "we" vs. oo, "we will". Similarly, the phonemic contrastiveness of nasalization can be seen in sii, "to be giving birth," vs. , "to build". The vowel system closely resembles that of other Senufo languages. It is like the two Northern Senufo languages Supyire and Mamara in having only five nasal against seven oral vowels. In the orthography, nasalization of vowels is marked by adding the letter "n" after the vowel.

Consonants
In the table below, orthographic symbols are included between brackets if they differ from the IPA symbols. Note especially the use of "j" for IPA and the use of "y" for IPA, common in African orthographies.

The consonant system of Nafaanra is fairly similar to that of other Senufo languages. Nafaanra has only one attested palatal fricative,, occupying an intermediate position between the Northern Senufo languages (Mamara, Supyire) that have both and its voiced counterpart , and the Central and Southern Senufo languages (e.g. Karaboro, Senari, Djimini) that have no palatal fricatives at all.

Tone
Like the other Senufo languages, Nafaanra has three contrastive tones: High, Mid and Low. Tone is normally not marked in the Nafaanra orthography. Examples are: The Mid tone sometimes has a rising feature, the High tone sometimes is subject to downstep (a tonal process resulting in a High tone being realised lower than a preceding High tone), and an upstep is also found. The "rising feature" of Mid may be related to the fact that two different Mid tones are found in some other Senufo languages (e.g. Sucite and Supyire). The High tone downstep (signified by a raised exclamation mark) occurs in the following context: It is likely that the tonal lowering seen in this particular example is related to the low tone nasal prefix found in future tense constructions in some other Senufo languages. In fact, Supyire shows a similar phenomenon in future tense constructions with a direct object (in other future tense constructions, a low tone nasal is found). In general however, downstep is more widespread than in Supyire; a similar phenomenon is found in Palaka, Tagwana, and Djimini.
 * "yam" (High-Low)
 * dama "two pesewas (coin)" (Mid)
 * "rope" (Low)
 * we !   (he FUT go)   "he will go".

An upstep is found in the imperative tense of high tone verbs:
 * ki   (it close)   "close it!"