Ga phonology

Consonants
Ga has 31 consonant phonemes.


 * is an allophone of which occurs before nasals and is represented with its own digraph in writing.
 * may be realised as when between a consonant and vowel
 * has an allophone before nasal vowels

Vowels
Ga has 7 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels. All of the vowels have 3 different vowel lengths: short, long or extra long (the latter appears only in the simple future and the simple past negative forms).

Tones
Ga has 2 tones, high and low. Like many West African languages, it has tone terracing.

Phonotactics
The syllable structure of Ga is (C)(C)V(C), where the second phoneme of an initial consonant cluster can only be and a final consonant may only be a (short or long) nasal consonant, e.g. ekome, "one", V-CV-CV; kakadaŋŋ, "long", CV-CV-CVC; mli, "body", CCV. Ga syllables may also consist solely of a syllabic nasal, for example in the first syllable of ŋshɔ, "sea".