Afaan Oromo/Alphabet

aa — as in father, water, army
aw — as in cow or ouch
ay — as in aisle or pie
ee — as in eight or gray
ii — as in evil or teepee
oo — long o as in oboe or sober
oy — as in boy
uu — long oo as in fool or spoon.

The glottalized consonants are c, q, x, and ph. These can be described as explosive ch, k, t, and p sounds, respectively. Leslau (1969) describes the pronunciation of glottalized consonants as follows:

In pronouncing the glottalized consonants, the stream of air coming from the lungs is shut off by closure of the glottis. The air about it is then forced out through a stricture somewhere along the vocal organ. This stricture is a the lips for [ph], at the teeth for [x], at the palate for [c], and at the velum for q.^[1]

Vowels and consonants may be repeated to make the sound long. For example, to say the Oromo word annan (“milk”) one must hold the first n sound slightly longer than the second, as in the English word “pen-knife”. A doubled vowel makes the vowel long and can often change the meaning of the word, as in lafa (“ground”) and laafaa (“soft”). Dh, ch, ph, sh, and ny count as single consonants though they are written as two letters.

Traditionally, Oromo was written using Ge'ez script as used by Amharic. In 1991, the Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization formally adopted a modified Latin alphabet (qubee) as shown at the beginning of this chapter. This qubee replaced the various other transliteration schemes of Oromo to Latin script and helped to standardize spelling of Oromo words. Spelling differences still occur, however, due to personal preferences and dialectal differences. Regardless, certain spelling rules can be observed that match speech patterns.

A word in Oromo cannot begin or end with a double consonant. The word for “sport” is converted to isporti.

Three consonants cannot occur in a row in a word. For this reason, certain suffixes may add an i to prevent this, as in arg (“see”) + na (1st per. plu. suffix) → argina (“we see”).

Vowels cannot change without a break, either a consonant or apostrophe, between them. What breaks are used can differ with spelling preferences and dialects. For example, “very” can be baa'ee, baayee, baa'yee, or baay'ee, and “to hear” can be dhaga'uu or dhagahuu. The apostrophe indicates that the vowels are produced independently and not as a diphthong.

bobaa — “lap”     bobbaa — “excrement”     boba'aa — “fuel”     bobba'a — “he will get out”     boba'a — “it's burning”

birraa — “Spring”     bira — “near”     biiraa — “beer”

dhugaa — “truth”     dhuuga — “yogurt”     duggaa — “hymn book”     duuga — “he whittles”

dhaala — “inheritance”     dhaalaa — “heir”     dhala — “child”     dhalaa — “female”     dallaa — “fence”

coora — “feeling”     cora — “gathering”     coraa — “remnant”

jaallataa — “lover”     jaallatta — “you love”     jallataa — “bent, curved”

haaraa — “new”     aara — “smoke”     har'a — “today”     haraa — “trash”