Sounds

Consonants

Marshallese has 22 consonants (five of which are written with digraphs), plus a supplementary velar central approximant consonant (often not written in the current orthography):

Primary Bilabial Dental Palatal Velar
Secondary pal. vel. pal. vel. lab. plain lab.
Nasal m /mʲ/ m̧ /mˠ/ n /n̪ʲ/ ņ /n̪ˠ/ ņw /n̪ˠʷ/   n̄ /ŋ/ n̄w /ŋʷ/
Plosive p /pʲ/ b /bˠ/ j /t̪ʲ/ t /t̪ˠ/     k /k/ kw /kʷ/
Rhotic   r /r̪ʲ/ d /r̪ˠ/ dw /r̪ˠʷ/    
Approximant   l /l̪ʲ/ ļ /l̪ˠ/ ļw /l̪ˠʷ/ y /j/ h or ʔ /ɰ/ w /w/

• Marshallese has a number of consonants with contrasting secondary articulations:
  • palatalized consonants
  • velarized consonants
  • labio-velarized consonants
• The velarized bilabial plosive is phonetically voiced /bˠ/.
• The pronunciation of palatalized dental plosive /t̪ʲ/ can also sometimes be heard as /z/.[1] They are allophones in Marshallese, and foreign postalveolar consonants and alveolar fricatives are typically assimilated as Marshallese j.

Vowels

Marshallese has four vowel phonemes each with several allophones:

Marshallese vowel Simple realisations Main orthographies
height phoneme unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
front back front back
High (close) /ɨ/ [i] [ɯ] [u] i u
Upper Mid (near-close) /ɘ/ [ɪ] [ɤ]
(long) [ʊ] i (or ę) o ū (or ü)
Lower Mid (open-mid) /ɜ/ [e] [ʌ]
(short) [o] e o̧ (or o̠) ō (or ü)
Low (open) /ɐ/ [ɛ] [ɑ] [ɔ] a ā (or ä)

Marshallese vowels are not specified along the front-back and rounded-unrounded dimensions, but on the height and ATR dimensions (see the IPA classification of vowels in the table on the right). This means that a given vowel phoneme will have several different phonetic realizations.

For example, the high vowel phoneme /ɨ/ may alternately be pronounced [i], [ɯ], [u], [i͡ɯ], [i͡u], [ɯ͡i], [ɯ͡u], [u͡i], [u͡ɯ], depending on the context:

• Specifically, vowels next to palatized consonants become front unrounded ([i], [ɪ], [e], [ɛ]),
• vowels next to velarized consonants become back unrounded ([ɯ], [ɤ], [ʌ], [ɑ]),
• and vowels next to labialized consonants become back rounded ([u], [ʊ], [o], [ɔ]).
• When between two consonants of different types (e.g., a velarized consonant and a labialized consonant), the vowels become diphthongs, beginning with the surface form found next to the preceding consonant, and ending with the surface form found next to the following consonant (e.g., in the case of a vowel between a velarized and labialized consonant, the diphthongs would be [ɯ͡u], [ɤ͡ʊ], [ʌ͡o], [ɑ͡ɔ]:

Consonants
secondary
articulations palatalized
(m,p,n,j,r,l,y)
/Cʲ_Cʲ/ velarized
(m̧,b,ņ,t,d,ļ,h)
/Cˠ_Cˠ/ labialized
(ņw,dw,ļw,n̄w,kw,w)
/Cʷ_Cʷ/ palatalized-
velarized
/Cʲ_Cˠ/ velarized-
palatalized
/Cˠ_Cʲ/ velarized-
labialized
/Cˠ_Cʷ/ labialized-
velarized
/Cʷ_Cˠ/ palatalized-
labialized
/Cʲ_Cʷ/ labialized-
palatalized
/Cʷ_Cʲ/
Vowel
realisation front
unrounded back
unrounded back
rounded front and back
unrounded back
rounded and unrounded complex
Phoneme simple vowel allophones diphthong allophones
i,u /ɨ/
(close) [i] [ɯ] [u] [i͡ɯ] [ɯ͡i] [ɯ͡u] [u͡ɯ] [i͡u] [u͡i]
i(ę),o,ū /ɘ/
(near-close) [ɪ] [ɤ] [ʊ] [ɪ͡ɤ] [ɤ͡ɪ] [ɤ͡ʊ] [ʊ͡ɤ] [ɪ͡ʊ] [ʊ͡ɪ]
e,o̧,ō /ɜ/
(open-mid) [e] [ʌ] [o] [e͡ʌ] [ʌ͡e] [ʌ͡o] [o͡ʌ] [e͡o] [o͡e]
a,ā /ɐ/
(open) [ɛ] [ɑ] [ɔ] [ɛ͡ɑ] [ɑ͡ɛ] [ɑ͡ɔ] [ɔ͡ɑ] [ɛ͡ɔ] [ɔ͡ɛ]

Syllable and phonotactics

This section requires expansion.

Marshallese syllable structure is such that all syllables begin and end with a consonant, with a vowel at the syllable's nucleus.

• The smallest possible one-syllable word is structured /CVC/.
• Multiple /CVC/ sequences can form a multi-syllable word, meaning that consonant clusters of no greater than two consonants can exist inside a word if surrounded by vowels: /CVCCVC/. The two consonants in a cluster are not required to agree by palatalization, velarization or labialization.
• It is also possible for a syllable's final consonant and the following syllable's first consonant to be shared, so /CVCVC/ is also possible.

In all cases, the vowel of each syllable assimilates to the consonants at both its sides.

• If both consonants are palatalized, the vowel becomes a front vowel.
• If both consonants are velarized, the vowel becomes a back vowel.
• If both consonants are labialized, the vowel becomes a rounded back vowel.
• If the two consonants are of two different categories, the vowel forms a diphthong in between them.

These multiple vowel articulations are a product of the different consonant phonemes that neighbor them on each side. They are not vowel phonemes in their own right, as Marshallese vowels are phonemically distinguished only by vowel height. Therefore, a vowel's backness or roundedness is relevant to the consonant phonemes, and not to the vowel phoneme.

Marshallese orthography permits that words can begin and end with vowels, but this merely means the consonant phoneme on the "vowel" end of the word is actually an unwritten approximant:

• [j] if the vowel is a front vowel.
• [ɰ] if the vowel is a back vowel.
• [w] if the vowel is a rounded vowel.

Stress

This section requires expansion.

Orthography

Marshallese underwent a change of orthography in recent times. However, most people still use the old orthography. It is written in a form of the Latin alphabet with unusual diacritic combinations. There are different alphabetic systems in use by Marshallese speakers depending on religious affiliation, due to many schools being run by church groups. Each teacher uses his/her preferred method of teaching language. As a result, children who attend Catholic schools tend to use the same spellings because the teachers are trained by a small group of Maryknoll Sisters. Students in public schools vary their spelling from island to island, based upon what their teachers learned about language and spelling.

Here is the (current) alphabet (note that letters with a macron are usually represented with a tilde in printed texts, eg, ō becomes õ):

Base letter Phonology   Letter with cedilla Phonology   Letter with macron Phonology
a A /ɐ/ [ɛ]
/ɐ/ [ɑ]   ā (or ä) Ā (or Ä) /ɐ/ [ɔ]
b B /bˠ/    
d D /r̪ˠ/    
e E /ɜ/ [e]    
i I /ɨ/ [i]
/ɘ/ [ɪ]    
j (or y)^{[citation needed]} J (or Y)^{[citation needed]} /j/ [ʒ]
/j/ [j]^{[citation needed]}    
k K /k/    
l L /l̪ʲ/ ļ (or ł) Ļ (or Ł) /l̪ˠ/  
m M /mʲ/ m̧ (or m̠) M̧ (or M̠) /mˠ/  
n N /n̪ʲ/ ņ (or n̠) Ņ (or N̠) /n̪ˠ/ n̄ (or ñ or ŋ) N̄ (or Ñ or Ŋ) /ŋ/
o O /ɘ/ [ɤ] (long) o̧ (or o̠) O̧ (or O̠) /ɜ/ [ʌ] (short) ō (or ö) Ō (or Ö) /ɜ/ [o]
p P /pʲ/    
r R /r̪ʲ/    
t T /t̪ˠ/    
u U /ɨ/ [ɯ]
/ɨ/ [u]   ū (or ü) Ū (or Ü) /ɘ/ [ʊ]
w W /w/
/ʷ/    

Sometimes, the unusual combinations of letters with combining macrons are replaced by vowels with diaeresis and by ñ/Ñ (or by an ŋ/Ŋ letter), and the combining cedilla is replaced by ł/Ł, or underlined letters (or letters with combining macron below).