Zinou Creole

Phonology

Orthography

Zinou Creole is written using the Latin script; however, it lacks a standardised orthography, particularly for certain vowels and consonants, resulting in spelling variations that are largely dependent on individual speaker preference, or the origin of some words. This irregularity is highly common in informal register of Zinou Creole. Notably, words of French origin tend to exhibit greater orthographic and morphological variation, whereas words derived from Persian and Arabic are generally more phonetically straightforward and structurally simpler.

Consonants

	Plosive		Fricative		Nasal	Approximant	Rhotic
Labial	p /p/	b /b/	f ph /f/	v /v/	m /m/	w /w/
Alveolar	t 6 /t/	d 9' /d/	s 9 c[2] ç[3] /s/	z 6’ s[4] /z/	n /n/	l /l/	r /r/[1]
Palatal			ch /ʃ/	j g[2] /ʒ/		y /j/
Velar	k kh qu 5 c[3] ç[2] /k/	g gh q 8 gu[2] /g/
Glottal	' 2 3 /ʔ/	h	/h/

[1] - The pronunciation of /r/ varies by speaker's idiolect. It may be guttural [ʁ] or a rhotic [ɹ], or a flap [ɾ] or a non-rhotic (only pronounced before or between vowels). [2] - Only used before the vowels e i & y. [3] - Only used before the vowels a o & u.

Vowels

Monophthong				Diphthong
ɐ	a à	y	u û ü	ɐi̯	aï aë ay
æ	æ ä	ø	eu eû eo	ɐu̯	aô aou aw
ɑ	â	œ	œ ö ø	ei̯	ea ei ey
e	e é ê	o	o ó ô	ou̯	eau où ow
ɛ	è ai aî	ɔ	ò au å	u̯ɐ	oi wa
i	i î ee y	u	ou u oo ù	u̯e	oê we