The phonology of Acehnese varies between dialects and can cause difficulties in communication. This article mainly focuses on the Peusangan dialect, which is considered to be the standard variety of Acehnese, other dialects will be explicitly mentioned.
Consonants The table below shows the Acehnese consonant phonemes and the range of their realizations, non-standard phonemes are shown in brackets.
LabialDenti-alveolar AlveolarPost-alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal () () () () Plosive Fricative() () Approximant Trill
Consonant examples The following table shows typical examples of the occurrence of the above consonant phonemes in words, using minimal pairs where possible. FortisLenis/p/peuetfour/b/beuetto read//teukato arrive//deukato be lucky/c/capstamp//japtight, closely//kôtcoat//gôtto pull//suewaste//hueto pull/ʔ/ueto have a blockagein the throat//mombreast//nomto dive//nyumfeelings//ngomreed//lèhsuffix to indicatea polite request//rèea roaring sound//wèeArabic letter waw//yèeshark
Clusters
Acehnese has three consonant glides: /h/, /r/, and /l/. p t c k b d ɟ g lrsɲmn _h phth ch kh bhdhɟh ghlhrhɲh(mh)(nh)_r prtr cr kr brdrɟr gr(sr) _l plclklbl(ɟl) gl
Vowels
Native-speaking linguists divide vowels in Acehnese into several categories: oral monophthongs, oral diphthongs (which are further divided into the ones ending with /ə/ and with /i/), nasal monophthongs, and nasal diphthongs., citing
Oral vowels
Oral monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below., citing +FrontCentralBack Close Close-mid Open-mid Open
Oral diphthong vowels ending with /ə/ are shown in the table below., citing +FrontCentral Back/iə//ɯə//uə//ɛə//ʌə//ɔə/
Oral diphthong vowels ending with /i/ are shown in the table below., citing +Central Back/ui//əi//oi//ʌi//ɔi//ai/
Nasal vowels
Nasal monophthong vowels in Acehnese are shown in the table below., citing +FrontCentralBack Close Open-mid Open
Orthography The orthography of Achenese features 31 letters: the 26 letters of the basic Latin alphabet, è, é, ë, ô, and ö.
+VowelsGraphemePhoneme(IPA)Open syllableClosed syllablea/a/ba /ba/ ‘carry’bak /baʔ/ ‘at, tree’e/ə/le /lə/ ‘many’let /lət/ ‘pull out’é/e/baté /bate/ ‘cup, betel tray’baték /bateʔ/ ‘batik’è/ɛ/bèe /bɛə/ ‘smell’bèk /bɛʔ/ ‘prohibitive "don't" (e.g. bèk neupajôh boh gantang teucrôh lôn 'don't you eat my fries')'eu/ɯ/keu /kɯ/ ‘for’keuh /kɯh/ ‘so (e.g. nyan keuh), pronominal affix for second person (e.g. droe-keuh)’i/i/di /di/ 'in, from'dit /dit/ 'few, small amount'o/ɔ/yo /jɔ/ ‘afraid’yok /jɔʔ/ ‘shake’ô/o/rô /ro/ ‘spill’rôh /roh/ ‘enter’ö/ʌ/pö /pʌ/ ‘fly’pöt /pʌt/ ‘pluck, pick’u/u/su /su/ ‘sound, voice’cut /cut/ ‘small’
References
Bibliography