Kabiyɛ

Family: Atlantic-Congo · Africa · ISO kbp · Glottolog · 1,300,000 speakers
24
Consonants
23
Vowels

The phoneme inventory below shows every sound that functions as a meaningful unit in Kabiyɛ — a Atlantic-Congo language spoken in Africa . With 47 phonemes, it has a relatively large inventory compared to the world's languages. Sounds marked with a dashed border (*) are marginal: they appear only in loanwords or highly specialized contexts and are not part of the core phonological system.

Consonants

approximant

lateral fricative

sibilant fricative

trill

Vowels

* Marginal phoneme — occurs only in loanwords or rare contexts.

How large is this inventory?

Smaller (11) Average (36) Larger (141)
47
phonemes

Kabiyɛ has 47 phonemes, placing it in the 79th percentile of languages by inventory size — larger than most languages.

Compared to English

For English speakers learning Kabiyɛ, these are the sounds that will require the most focused practice.

In Kabiyɛ, not in English (25)

These sounds don't exist in English — English speakers will need to learn them from scratch.

In English, not in Kabiyɛ (23)

English speakers learning Kabiyɛ won't use these sounds — they'll need to suppress them.

Most phonologically similar languages

Ranked by Jaccard similarity — the proportion of phonemes shared relative to the combined inventory of both languages.

Compare Kabiyɛ with another language

See which sounds are shared and which are unique.