section_path: Phonology/Vowels
section_name: Vowels
paragraph_text: Vowels
  
  Standard Swahili has five vowel phonemes: /ɑ/, /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/. According to Ellen Contini-Morava, vowels are never reduced, regardless of stress. However, according to Edgar Polomé, these five phonemes can vary in pronunciation. Polomé claims that /ɛ/, /i/, /ɔ/, and /u/ are pronounced as such only in stressed syllables. In unstressed syllables, as well as before a prenasalized consonant, they are pronounced as,,, and. E is also commonly pronounced as mid-position after w. Polomé claims that /ɑ/ is pronounced as such only after w and is pronounced as in other situations, especially after /j/ (y). A can be pronounced as in word-final position. Long vowels in Swahili are written as doubled vowels (for example, kondoo, "sheep") due to a historical process in which /l/ became elided between the second last and last vowels of a word (for example, kondoo, "sheep" was originally kondolo, which survives in certain dialects). As a consequence, long vowels are not considered phonemic. A similar process exists in Zulu.