The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Galician language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-gl}} and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters

See Galician phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Galician.

Consonants
IPA Examples English approximation
b baixo, viver, weber best
β abaixo, viver[1] between baby and bevy
d dedo dice
ð dedo,[1] (dialectal) fazer other
f faro, nafta, Philip face
ɡ galego ago
ɣ galego[1] between ago and ahold
k cor, quen, quad, kelvin scan
l lúa, ballet luck
ʎ lle, brillo[2] billiards
m ama, lamber mate
n urna, pensa not
ŋ unha, longo, un, yang, ítem singer
ɲ uña onion
p pés spouse
θ zoo, cea,[3] theta thing
r ría, parra trilled r
ɾ fría, para, ar US atom
s seu, casa, este between sip and ship (retracted)[4]
ʃ xente, flash, beige, (dialectal) dez, casas ship
t tempo stand
chave catch
v afgano[5] of
z mesmo,[5] (dialectal) fazer, casas between zone and genre (retracted)[4]
Dialectal consonants
IPA Examples English approximation
ħ ghato, trigho[6] hat
ʝ lle, vello[2] you
Non-native consonants
joule, gin, adagio budge
h hippy hook
ts tsar, pizza, hertz between cats and catch (retracted)
x kharxa, Bach[7] loch
ʒ flashback[5] genre
 
Vowels
IPA Examples English approximation
a cadro, má art
ra, á[8] father
ɛ feltro, café set
e selo, télex they
i lima, dial, río, oïades ski
ɔ ovo, abiótico, ao fin off
o avoa, avó story
u mula, dual, rúa, argüír ruler
Unstressed word-final vowels[9]
ɐ hora, na unrest
ɪ onte, se kit
ʊ niño, termonuclear, do output
 
Semivowels
IPA Examples English approximation
j saia, cilio, pai, spray yet / boy
w tenue, bilingüe, pau, watt switch / cow
 
Suprasegmentals
IPA Examples Explanation
ˈ Arousa [aˈɾowsɐ] primary stress
ˌ Vilamarín [ˌbilɐmaˈɾiŋ] secondary stress
. as [ˈri.ɐs] syllable break

Notes

mudé
  1. 1,0 1,1 1,2 Voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /ɡ/ are lenited to approximants [β̞, ð̞, ɣ˕] (frequently represented without the undertacks) of the same place of articulation except after a pause or a nasal vowel, when they are stops [b, d, ɡ], like English b, d, g.
  2. 2,0 2,1 Many speakers delateralize /ʎ/ to Template:IPAblink (normally represented without the undertack).
  3. /θ/ merges with /s/ in western dialects.
  4. 4,0 4,1 The alveolar sibilants [s, z] are realized as laminal in some dialects, much like the ordinary alveolar sibilants found in French, German, Mandarin Chinese as well as the Slavic languages (Template:Harvcoltxt).
  5. 5,0 5,1 5,2 Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are allophones of /f/, /s/ and /ʃ/, respectively, before voiced consonants.
  6. In some dialects, /ɡ/ is spirantized to [ħ ~ ʕ] or [h ~ ɦ] in a phonological process known as gheada. For simplicity, this process is resepresented here with [ħ] only.
  7. /x/ may be used in loanwords, foreign names and hispanicized names like kharxa, Bach, Araújo (instead of Araúxo, pron. with Template:IPAblink) and Fagilde or Fajilde (instead of Faxilde, pron. with Template:IPAblink).
  8. Template:Harvcoltxt
  9. There are only three unstressed word-final vowels in Galician: [ɐ, ɪ, ʊ]. The first one is phonemically /a/, whereas the other two vowels are a result of the neutralizations of, respectively, the non-open front vowels /ɛ–e–i/ and the non-open back vowels /ɔ–o–u/. This neutralization also applies to unstressed monosyllabic words; for instance, the article o is pronounced Template:IPAblink. In some cases, vowels from the final unstressed set appear in other positions, as e.g. in the word termonuclear [ˌtɛɾmʊnukleˈaɾ], because the prefix termo- is pronounced [ˈtɛɾmʊ] (Template:Harvcoltxt, Template:Harvcoltxt).

References

mudé
  • Freixeiro Mato, Xosé Ramón (2006), Gramática da lingua galega (2 ed.), Vigo: Edicións A Nosa Terra, ISBN 9788483410608
  • Regueira, Xosé Luís (2010), Dicionario de pronuncia da lingua galega (PDF), A Coruña: Real Academia Galega, ISBN 978-84-87987-77-9
mudé