Somali phonology

Its consonants cover every place of articulation on the IPA chart, though not all of these distinctions are phonemic.

Lexical prominence in Somali can be classified under a pitch accent system, in which there is one high-tone mora per word.

The tone system distinguishes both grammatical and lexical differences.

The question of the tone system in Somali has been debated for decades.

A long vowel or a diphthong consists of two morae and can bear two tones.

Only one high tone occurs per word and this must be on the final or penultimate mora.

When a vowel occurs in word-initial position, a glottal stop ([ʔ]) is inserted before it.

One unusual change which can occur is /lt/ to [ʃ] (compare Spanish mucho from Latin multus).

This is a kind of external sandhi in which words join, undergoing phonological processes such as elision.

There is also a process of vowel harmony in strings longer than a word, known as "harmonic groups".

Intonation (as opposed to tone, see above) does not carry grammatical information, although it may convey the speaker's attitude or emotion.