Language/Papiamento/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

As Papiamento comes from Portuguese and Spanish, it contains many characteristics from those 2 languages.

Vowels

Letter	IPA	English approximant
A a	[ a ]	as a in "arm"
E e	[ e ] [ ε ] [ ə ]	as e in "end" as a in ''fat'' (New Zealand) as a in ''a dog''
I i	[ i ]	as ee in "teeth"
O o	[ o ] [ ɔ ]	as o in "orange" as ough in ''thought''
U u	[ u ] [ ʌ ]	as oo in "boot'' as u in "ugly"

Consonants

Letter	IPA	English approximant
B b	[ b ]	as b in "bite"
C c	[ k ]	as c in "cat"
D d	[ d ]	as d in "dog"
F f	[ f ]	as f in "feet"
G g	[ g ]	as g in "gone"
H h	[ h~x ]	as h in "hill"
J j	[ j ]	as y in "yes"
K k	[ k ]	as k in "key"
L l	[ l ]	as l in "lap"
M m	[ m ]	as m in "moon"
N n	[ n ]	as n in "noon"
Ñ ñ	[ ɲ ]	as ny in "canyon"
P p	[ p ]	as p in "problem"
Q q	[ k ]	as q in "quip"
R r	[ r ]	as r in the Spanish word "rosa"
S s	[ s ]	as s in "sand"
T t	[ t ]	as t in "top"
V v	[ v ]	as v in "very"
W w	[ w ]	as w in "wall"
X x	[ ks ] [ kʃ ]	as x in "box" as ct in "reflection"
Y y	[ j ]	as y in "yell"
Z z	[ z ]	as z in "zoo"

Double Letters

Letters	IPA	English approximant
uu	[ y ]	as u in Portugese word "tudo"
ch	[ tʃ ]	as ch in "cheese"
dj	[ dʒ ]	as j in "jog"
sc	[ s ]	same as s
sh	[ ʃ ]	as sh in "sheep"
zj	[ ʒ ]	as si in "vision"

Tones

Papiamento is a tonal language which uses tones to differentiate between words, with a high and a low tone.

1. When the stress on the words falls on the stem (main) syllable, there is no accent.
2. Deviations from it are marked with an accent over vowels:

• high tone (´)
• low tone (`).

Vowels	Samples
á	altá, evitá
é	étiko, platé
í	asistí, tíket
ó	holó, ferfdó
ú	baúl, sunú
è	agènda, balèt
ò	blònt, fòndo
ù	drùif, bùs