Kinyarwanda phonology

Consonants
The table below gives the consonant set of Kinyarwanda.

Vowels
The table below gives the vowel sounds of Kinyarwanda.

All five vowels occur in long and short forms. The distinction is phonemically distinctive. The quality of a vowel is not affected by its length.

Tone
Kinyarwanda is a tonal language. Like many Bantu languages, it has a two-way contrast between high and low tones (low-tone syllables may be analyzed as toneless). The realization of tones in Kinyarwanda is influenced by a complex set of phonological rules.

Orthography
Except in a few morphological contexts, the sequences 'ki' and 'ke' may be pronounced interchangeably as [ki] and [ke] or [ci] and [ce] according to speaker's preference.

The letters 'a', 'e', or 'i' at the end of a word followed by a word starting with a vowel often follows a pattern of omission (observed in the following excerpt of the Rwandan anthem) in common speech, though the orthography remains the same. For example, Reka tukurate tukuvuge ibigwi wowe utubumbiye hamwe twese Abanyarwanda uko watubyaye berwa, sugira, singizwa iteka. would be pronounced as "Reka tukurate tukuvug' ibigwi wow' utubumiye hamwe twes' abanyarwand' uko watubyaye berwa, sugira singizw' iteka."

In the colloquial language, there are some discrepancies from orthographic Cw and Cy. Specifically, rw (as in Rwanda) is often pronounced. The most obvious differences are the following:


 * {| class=wikitable

! Orthog. !! Pron.
 * rw ||
 * pw ||
 * bw ||
 * mw ||
 * my ||
 * tw ||
 * dw ||
 * cw ||
 * by ||
 * }
 * tw ||
 * dw ||
 * cw ||
 * by ||
 * }
 * cw ||
 * by ||
 * }
 * }

Note that these are all sequences;, for example, is not labio-velar. Even when Rwanda is pronounced, the onset is a sequence, not a labialized.