Alphabet
Our Massalit alphabet has 34 letters.
There are 10 vowels:
- 5 are 'light' or 'open' vowels: a, e, i, o, u
- 5 are 'heavy' or 'closed' vowels: â, ê, î, ô, û
There are 24 consonants:
- b, c, ch, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, mb, n, nd, n̰, nj, ŋ, ŋg, r, s, t, w, y, z
Among the consonants,
- These special letters not found in English: n̰ and ŋ (n̰ is like 'ny' in English, ŋ is like 'ng in English)
- These letters are made up of 2 symbols but they represent one sound: ch, mb, nd, nj, ŋg
Watch these videos to see how the letters are pronounced:
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The 10 vowels
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Writing the "sagi" vowels
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Consonants b - mb
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Consonants d - nd
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Consonants j - nj
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Consonants ŋ - g - ŋg
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Consonants n̰ - ŋ - c
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![](javascript:playhls('scald-playlist-43-0','/sites/www.masarak.org/files/scald_media_stream/streams/hls_standard/atom39-.m3u8', 'video', 5, 'https://masarak.org/sites/www.masarak.org/files/styles/scald_poster/public/posters/playlist/ABC-masarak.png?itok=JuTdw5qa', 'Writing the "sagi" vowels'))
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Study the alphabet chart to see how the letters are used:
You can also watch the same videos on Youtube: