Key to Pronunciation: West African English
View our pronunciation model for West African English here.
The pronunciations given are those in use among educated urban speakers of standard English in West Africa. While avoiding strongly regionally or socially marked forms, they are intended to include the most common variants for each word.
Words associated with West Africa are given British and American pronunciations alongside the West African pronunciation(s). Where a word is associated with an additional part of the English-speaking world, further pronunciations in the appropriate global variety of English are also given.
To hear the pronunciation spoken aloud, click the blue play icon to the left of each transcription.
Note from Catherine Sangster, Head of Pronunciations, October 2020
“A small but significant number of our World English pronunciations lack audio at the moment. Audio is created by freelance actor-phoneticians working with our sound engineer in our Oxford recording studio, but for the last several months it has been unsafe for us to run these sessions. We will prioritize addressing this backlog as soon as we can safely get back into our studio.”
Vowels
| West African English | As in… |
| i | fleece, kit, happy, rabbit |
| ɛ | dress |
| a | trap, bath, palm, start, letter, ago |
| ɔ | lot, cloth, north, force, thouɡht |
| ʊ | cup, |
| u | goose, foot |
| ia | here |
| ea, ɛ, ia | square |
| ɔ, a | cup |
| uə, ɔ | cure |
| e | face |
| ai | pride |
| au | mouth |
| o | goat |
| ɔi | choice |
The vowel in words such as nurse is affected by spelling and/or the variety of West African English. Such vowels can be /ɔ/, /ɛ/ or /a/. The vowels in words such as cup and square are also affected by the variety.
Consonants
| As in… | |
| b | big /biɡ/ |
| d | dig /diɡ/ , then /dɛn/ |
| dʒ | jet /dʒɛt/ |
| f | fig /fiɡ/ |
| ɡ | get /ɡɛt/ |
| ɡb | Igbo /ˈiɡbo/ |
| h | head /hɛd/ |
| j | yes /jɛs/ |
| k | kit /kit/ |
| l | leg /lɛɡ/ |
| m | mud /mɔd/ |
| n | net /nɛt/, thing /tin/ |
| p | pit /pit/ |
| r | red /rɛd/ |
| s | sit /sit/ |
| ʃ | ship /ʃip/ |
| t | tip /tip/, thin /tin/ |
| tʃ | chip /tʃip/ |
| v | vet /vɛt/ |
| w | win /win/ |
| z | zip /zip/ |
| ʒ | vision /ˈvɪʒən/ |
/ʃ/, /dʒ/ or /z/ are sometimes heard where /ʒ/ may be expected (e.g. occasion).
/ŋ/ is a variant of /n/ which only ever occurs before /k/ or /ɡ/, as in monkey /ˈmɔŋki/. Not all such environments will have /ŋ/; some will retain /n/.
/ɡb/ is often treated as a single sound, a simultaneous ‘double articulation’ of the two stop sounds.
Word-final consonant clusters are often simplified, either by dropping a consonant or by adding a vowel.
Unlike many other varieties, consonants cannot take on the function of a vowel in word-final unstressed syllables (i.e. ‘syllabic consonants’ at the ends of words do not occur); they will always have a preceding vowel, e.g. able /ˈebul/.
After a vowel, West African English only has /r/ when it is also followed by a vowel, e.g. pour /pɔ/ but pouring /ˈpɔrin/.
Stress
The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress. The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress. The symbol ˈˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable may be pronounced with either primary or secondary stress.