Lesson 1: The Alphabet

In the alphabet of Acholi, the following letters of the English alphabet do not exist although their sounds occur. Those letters are F, H, Q, S, V, X and Z. Their sounds are pronounced using combinations of certain consonants and/or vowels.

Vowel Sounds

Acholi language has 5 cardinal vowels: a, e, i, o, u.

Listen carefully to the following words as you notice how vowels are pronounced:

Vowel	Example	Meaning
a	gang	home
e	dek	sauce
i	bin	come
o	bong	beehive
u	cuk	market

Consonants

Acholi language has 14 consonant sounds and they are pronounced as below:

Consonant	Example	Meaning
b	bolo	throw
c	cam	food
d	dek	sauce
g	gang	home
j	jang	branch
k	kodi	seed
l	lak	tooth
m	mon	woman
n	nam	lake
p	pala	knife
r	rac	bad
t	tara	lamp
w	war	shoes
y	yamo	wind

Combination of Consonants

Acholi language has the following consonant combinations:

Combination	Example	Meaning
ng	ngom	land
ny	nyanya	tomatoes