Language/Cebuano/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-pronunciation

Vowels

Cebuano has three vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that make a difference in word meaning. Stressed vowels can be long or short. Vowel length makes a difference in word meaning, e.g., daapit ‘to invite’ — dapit ‘place’. There are four diphthongs: /aw/, /ay/, /iw/, /uy/.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Open		a

 

Consonants

	Bilabial		Dental		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩		n̪ ⟨n⟩				ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Stop	p ⟨p⟩	b ⟨b⟩	t̪ ⟨t⟩	d̪ ⟨d⟩			k ⟨k⟩	ɡ ⟨g⟩	ʔ (see text)
Fricative			s̪ ⟨s⟩						h ⟨h⟩
Affricate
Approximant(Lateral)						j ⟨y⟩		w ⟨w⟩
				l̪ ⟨l⟩
Rhotic				ɾ̪~r̪ ⟨r⟩

 

Stress

Stress in Cebuano can occur on any syllable of a word. The position of stress can distinguish word meaning.