Within the Boraana language there are consonants, allophones of consonants, vowels and stress. Boraana Oromo is a tonal language and is unique but has common similarities with some of the other dialects of Oromo. The smallest unit of meaningful sound are called phonemes and are present within the Boraana language. Boraana contains six passive articulators which may differ in areas yet some merge into each other.
Consonants • can be heard as fricatives when in intervocalic position. • can be heard as when occurring before velar sounds. • can also have a retroflex allophone and can also be heard as a tap in intervocalic position. • and only occur in loanwords. Consonants can be short or long (with the exception of sh, p', ny, and h). When it comes to the spelling the short consonants use the letter once while the long consonants are written twice causing the similar word to have completely different meaning. Consonants occur single in initial position; intervocalically they occur single, double, or in a cluster of two different consonants but do not occur in word final position. Phonemically, all words end in a vowel.
Distribution and allophones of consonants In some words there is a free alternation between and . This pattern of free variation has also been observed between initial and in some instances. • • • • While the ejective voiceless palatal occurs in medial and initial position the voiceless palatal only occurs in initial and medial position in loanwords. Some instances of initial can alternate with
null. Similar variation occurs in Wellegga Oromo.
Consonant clusters within morphemes Consonant clusters have been found within
l, m, n, and r. Overall, consonant clusters with
l, m, n, or r as a second consonant are possible but less frequent.
Vowels Vowel sounds /i, e, a, o/ can also be heard as [ɪ, ɛ, ʌ, ɔ]. Vowels can be long or short in final position, medial and initial. All words end with a short or long vowel.
Initial position contrast •
aalaa - a kind of grass •
eelee - pan •
oola - to spend the day •
ummuu - amber necklace
Medial position contrast • ''fiit'aa'' - family/relatives •
keenna - our •
koorree - Samburu (tribe) •
fuloo - gate, entrance
Final position contrast •
garaa - belly •
beela - hunger •
daara - nakedness •
gari - somewhere
Short and long vowels The short vowel in Boraana are
i, e, a, o. All of these short vowels are pronounced with little muscular effort having a phonetically lax realization. This occurs before a double consonant or cluster, before a consonant plus final short vowel, and also before an ejective or an implosive consonant. The vowel
u is excluded because it is realized as itself in all environments, therefore not changing. When a short vowel is at the end of a word it becomes voiceless. This process is practiced with words like
gara (place, side) and ''nad'eeni'' (woman). Andrzejewski (1957) gave a description of voiceless vowels in Boraana: "Thus during the articulation of these sounds the tongue and lips are in the same position as during the articulation of vowels, but breath is substituted for voice". Long vowels are essentially double vowels,
ii, ee, aa, oo, uu in the initial and medial position. Occasionally a [ɛɛ] will occur but there is no specification to decipher whether [ɛɛ] is an allophone of long vowel ee but most tend to assume exactly that due to lack of finality on the topic. Final position vowels are phonetically short and are realized as a vowel plus glottal stop plus voiceless vowel or as a short vowel plus voiceless vowel.
Long Vowel Examples: •
himbeeka - I know, he knows •
kurneesoo - tenth This is also the case for Orma Oromo
Example: •
saddeecaa - • ''nad'eeni'' - woman
Stress In the following text and descriptions stress will be indicated by []. For instance [i], [e], [a], [ii], etc. Stress functions as a property of morphemes and as a property of sentences.
Stress as a property of morphemes In Boraana Oromo short vowel noun endings have penultimate or ultimate stress (with exception to the final phonetically voiceless vowel) depending on whether they are feminine (penultimate) or masculine (ultimate).
Examples: •
intala (f) "girl, daughter" •
d[u]kana (f) "darkness" • ''h[a]nd'ura'' (f) "navel, umbilical cord" •
gal[a]ana (m) "river" Exceptions occur: •
[i]bidda (m) "fire" "Nouns ending in
-ii, -ee, -oo, -uu are generally feminine." As noted before feminine nouns mostly have penultimate stress due to ending in a short vowel.
Examples: • ''k'urt'[u]mmii'' (f) "fish" • ''simp'[i]rree'' (f) "bird" It's important to note that the
-aa noun endings can be masculine or feminine. This is also the case for Orma and Waata Oromo.
Examples: •
ag[a]rtaa (f) "pupil of the eye" •
m[a]taam mat[a]a (m) "head" • ''m[a]k'aa, mak'[a]a'' (m) "name" "Nouns ending in the singulative suffixes
-(e)esa, -(e)ensa, -(i)isa, -(i)ca, have stress on the first syllable."
Examples: •
b[i]neesa - "animals" •
[o]rbobiisa - "spider, crab" •
d[i]randisa - "cattle tick" "Nouns ending in
-ni have ultimate or penultimate stress in free variation. The final phonetically voiceless vowel is not counted."
Examples: •
[a]faani or af[a]ani - "mouth" •
[i]lkaani or ilk[a]ani - "teeth" Adjectives follow the same stress patterns as nouns.
Fixed Stress Fixed stress is found on the linker clitic, the linker clitic plus
-fi, the subject marking suffixes
-t[i]i and
-[i]i, and also in verb inflection and derivation (middle voice imperative suffixes, negative imperative suffixes, negative past subordinate suffixes and the first syllable of a verb stem with some exceptions).
Examples: -Linker clitic in genitive function- (the word preceding it loses its base form stress pattern in this process) • ''f[i]it'ee muk[a]a'' • ''(f[i]it'ee m[u]ka'[a]a)'' • top tree
LIN=GEN (Linker clitic functioning as genitive) "the top of the tree" -Verb inflection- (First syllable of a verb stem except in the case of main clause affirmative verbs and in verb forms containing a stressed suffix)
Stress as a property of sentences With the exclusion of preverbal short final vowels, usually preverbal syllables in present and past affirmative statements have stress. Differentiation between the preverbal stress rule or the presence of a stressed linker clitic is not always possible when determining how the preverbal stress formed. For example the stress pattern of the word
gabayaa: • ''[a]ani y[a]a kalee b[i]llaa gabay[a]a bitad'd'e'' == Alphabet ==