Lesson 1: Alphabet, pronunciation & numbers

The alphabet used in this primer was laid out in 2016 by Dr. Christophe Landry and other members of the revitalization community. This orthography borrows from the French and English alphabets as well as the alphabets used to represent other French-based creoles of the world. The form of the word gives certain clues to its etymology and helps give Louisiana Creole a distinctive look. You can find more information and download Landry et al.'s Guide to Louisiana Creole Orthography by clicking here.

As we will state several times throughout this book, it is difficult to capture the richness of the Creole language on the page. Just how everyone cooks their gumbo in slightly different ways, across the Gulf South people pronounce Creole differently too. To take this dynamic, spoken language and turn it into the static, written word is a huge challenge. Should we come up with a ‘middle ground’ to use for writing, effectively making a ‘standardized’ Creole for reading and writing? If so, how do we choose just one pronunciation or grammatical form? Doesn’t one single standard risk erasing all the diversity that makes Creole such an interesting and beautiful language? Nobody likes a bland gumbo! Instead, we suggest including all of Creole’s distinctive flavors. This means that people spell words how they say them, obeying the rules of one simple system which we describe here. Think of it as a list of ingredients.

In this guide, we have tried our best to keep spellings consistent to help you at the beginning of your language-learning journey. Over time, as you learn more, you can experiment with spicing up your Creole from your family or friends. As everyone knows, gumbo tastes better with plenty of spice!

For example, in the vowels below, you’ll notice that some of the sounds of Louisiana Creole don’t have an equivalent in English. These are known as rounded vowels, and they were inherited from the French language. Not all speakers use these sounds, however. You may hear some speakers pronounce the word ‘butter’ as diboer, while others might pronounce it dibè. No matter how you choose to learn it, you should still be well understood by most other Creole speakers.

Vowels

A lak ‘lake’ as in English “father” [a, ɑ]

Æ frær ‘brother’ as in English “apple” [æ]

E de ‘two’ as in French “deux” ; close to English “uh” [ø]

É lété ‘summer’ as in English “pay,” but no < y > sound [e]

È fèt ‘party’ as in English “let” [ɛ]

I gri ‘gray’ as in English “fee” [i]

Ì babìnn ‘lip’ as in English “it” [ɪ]

O gro ‘large’ as in English “toe” [o]

Ò lòt ‘another’ as in English “bought” [ɔ]

Œ sœr ‘sister’ as in French “sœur” ; no English equivalent [œ]

OU toujour ‘always’ as in English “fool” [u]

U sûr ‘sure’ as in French “sûr”; no English equivalent [y]

Consonants

B boug ‘man, guy’ same as English [b]

Ç ça ‘that’, ‘it’s’ same as < s >; only in words ‘ça’ and ‘çé’ [s]

CH lamòché ‘half’ as in English “church” [tʃ]

D dolo ‘water' same as English [d]

DJ djòb ‘job’ as in English “job” [dʒ]

F fenm ‘woman, wife’ same as English [f]

G gin ‘to have’ as in English “game” [g]

H enho ‘on, above’ as in English “hot” [h]

J jòrdi ‘today’ like < s > in English “treasure” [ʒ]

K korish ‘rooster’ same as English [k]

L las ‘tired’ same as English [l]

M makak ‘monkey’ same as English [m]

N nwar ‘black’ same as English [n]

Ñ béñé ‘beignet’ like < ny > in English “canyon” [ɲ]

P pær ‘father’ same as English [p]

R rish ‘rich’ flapped as in Spanish “pero” [ɾ]

S swété ‘to wish’ same as English [s]

SH shar ‘car’ as in English “sheep” [ʃ]

T ta ‘a heap, a lot’ same as English [t]

V vré ‘true’ same as English [v]

W wa ‘to see’ same as English [w]

Y pyas ‘dollar’ same as English [j]

Z zærb ‘grass’ same as English [z]

Nasal vowels

Louisiana Creole, like French, has a special class of vowels that are nasalized. These vowels can create contrastive meaning in the language, unlike in English. It is difficult to describe how to nasalize a vowel, but imagine making an open vowel sound like “ah” and then slowly moving your tongue to make an < n > sound. Before your tongue touches the roof your mouth, the vowel sound you are making is nasalized.

The table here presents the combinations of letters used to represent nasal vowels in Louisiana Creole. The first column is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbol for the sound. The second column shows the way(s) the sound can be written in Louisiana Creole. The third column describes the sound in terms of the vowels you have already learned above.

an/en/am/em nasalized < a > [ɑ̃]

ònn/enn nasalized < a > followed by < n > [ɑ̃n]

anm/enm nasalized < a > followed by < m > [ɑ̃m]

ann non-nasalized < a > followed by < n > [an]

amm non-nasalized < a > followed by < m > [am]

in/im nasalized < è > [ɛ̃]

ènn nasalized < è > followed by < n > [ɛ̃n]

inm nasalized < è > followed by < m > [ɛ̃m]

èn non-nasalized < è > followed by < n > [ɛn]

èm non-nasalized < è > followed by < m > [ɛm]

inn non-nasalized < i > followed by < n > [in]

imm non-nasalized < i > followed by < m > [im]

on/om nasalized < ò > [ɔ̃]

onn nasalized < ò > followed by < n > [ɔ̃n]

onm nasalized < ò > followed by < m > [ɔ̃m]

òn non-nasalized < ò > followed by < n > [ɔn]

òm non-nasalized < ò > followed by < m > [ɔm]

un/um nasalized < œ > [œ̃]

unn nasalized < œ > followed by < n > [œ̃n]

unm nasalized < œ > followed by < m > [œ̃m]

oun non-nasalized < ou > followed by < n > [un]

oum non-nasalized < ou > followed by < m > [um]

un non-nasalized < u > followed by < n > [yn]

Circumflex

The circumflex (^): theoretically it can appear over any vowel, and it is used to distinguish homophones. Because there are sometimes more than two homophonous forms, however, you may need to rely on context to determine the meaning. If you see this symbol over a vowel, the vowel is pronounced exactly the same as it would be without the circumflex (except < ê >, which is pronounced like < é >).

Numbers

1 - ènn

2 - dé

3 - trò

4 - kat

5 - sink

6 - sis

7 - sèt

8 - wit

9 - nèf

10 - dis

11 - onz

12 - douz

13 - trèz

14 - katòrz

15 - kinz

16 - sèz

17 - dis-sèt

18 - diz-wit

19 - diz-nèf

20 - vin

21 - vint-é-ènn

22 - vin-dé

30 - trent

40 - karant

50 - sinkant

60 - swasant

70 - swasant-dis

80 - katré-vin

90 - katré-vin-dis

100 - sen

101 - sen ènn

1000 – mil