Kriol Spelling Guide

Rules for Spelling Kriol Consonants

English uses "silent" letters in some words; Kriol does not use any "silent" letters for consonants.

English	Silent Letter	Kriol
climb	b	klime
sign	g	sine
night	gh	nite
white	h	wite
knife	k	nife
sick	c	sik
walk	l	waak

The letter ‘c’, as something different from ‘ch’, is not used in Belize Kriol, except for proper nouns like people’s names and geographic names. If a word has the ‘s’ sound, then the word is written with the letter ‘s’; if the word has a ‘k’ sound, then it is written with the letter ‘k’.

English	Sound	Kriol
calabash	k	kalbash
school	k	skool
centipede	s	santapi

Some English words are written with a ‘d’ and/or ‘g’. The related Kriol words are pronounced with the ‘j’ sound, and are written with the letter ‘j’. For example: jrink (drink), kallij (college), brij (bridge).
Some English words are written with a ‘gh’ or ‘ph’. The words are pronounced with the ‘f’ sound, and are written with the letter ‘f’ in Belize Kriol. For example: rof (rough), dalfin (dolphin).

There are some English words that have a ‘y’ sound after the consonant, as in ‘cute’, However, it is more frequent in Belize Kriol words and it is written with the letter ‘y’ after the consonant.

English	Kriol
beautiful	byootiful
educate	edyukate
confuse	kanfyuze
girl	gyal
humor	hyooma
cart	kyaat
mule	myule
news	nyooz
pupil	pyoopl
tune	tyune
view	vyue

You will notice that the letter combinations ‘ch’, ‘sh’, and ‘zh’ are included in the list of Belize Kriol consonants. The Kriol writer should be careful to consider which sound is used in the Kriol word and how it differs from the English spelling.

English Spelling	English Sound	Kriol Sound	Kriol Spelling
chaperone	sh	ch	chaparong
sugar	sh	sh	shuga
nation	sh	sh	nayshan
machine	sh	sh	masheen
special	sh	sh	speshal
ocean	sh	sh	oashan
measure	zh	zh or j	mezha or meja

There are some words that have a ‘w’ sound after the consonant, as in ‘language’, However, it is more frequent in Belize Kriol words and it is written with the letter ‘w’ after the consonant. Notice also that the letter ‘q’ is not used in Belize Kriol. For example: langwij (language), bwai (boy), kwik (quick).

Rules for Spelling Kriol Vowels

The vowels used in Belize Kriol are somewhat different from the vowels used in English. Writing vowels in Belize Kriol is related to English, but it has been simplified. Kriol has four kind of vowels: long, short, glides, and nasalized.

Long vowels have the sound that is like the name of the letter; for example the vowel sound in ‘bleed’ is the same as the name of the letter ‘e’. Compare this to the vowel sound in ‘bed’; the vowel sound is not the same as the name of the letter ‘e’, it is a ‘short e’.

Long vowel sounds are always spelled with two letters (with the exception of the letter ‘y’ for the long ‘i’ sound at the end of some words).

Each of the Kriol long vowels as two or three ways of writing. The choice of which way to use is always based on what will be most like the English spelling.

One of the ways to spell each of the long vowels uses the ‘silent e’ rule. The ‘silent e’ rule uses a letter ‘e’ at the end of the word to tell you that the previous vowel is a long vowel, not a short vowel. For example, notice the difference between the words ‘win’ and ‘wine’. The letter ‘i’ in win’ is a short vowel, but we know that the ‘i’ in ‘wine’ is a long vowel because of the ‘silent e’ on the end. This also means that any ‘e’ at the end of a word is silent.

Long Vowel Name	Spelling Options	Used Where	Sample Kriol Words
a	a + ‘silent e’	1 or 2 consonants between ‘a’ and ‘e’	lane, table
a	ay	end of word	bay
a	ay	English uses ‘ai’ for same sound	rayn (rain)
a	ay	cannot use ‘silent e’ rule	paypa (paper)
e	ea	English uses ‘ea’ for the same sound	read
e	ee	where the previous 2 rules don’t apply	areenj (orange)
e	e + ‘silent e’	English uses ‘silent e’ for same sound, only 1 consonant between ‘e’ and ‘e’	kerosene
i	i + ‘silent e’	0, 1, or 2 consonants between ‘i’ and ‘e’	pie, five, pinte (point)
i	y	end of single syllable words when it is the only vowel	fly
i	ai	where the previous 2 rules don’t apply	ailan (island), taiga (tiger)
o	o + ‘silent e’	0 or 1 consonant between ‘o’ and ‘e’	toe, rope
o	oa	where English uses the ‘oa’ for the same sound, or when the previous rule cannot be used	boat, oava (over)
u	u + ‘silent e’	0 or 1 consonant between ‘u’ and ‘e’	blue, inklude (include)
u	oo	where English uses the ‘oo’ for the same sound, or when the previous rule cannot be used	moon, rooma (rumor)

Short vowels have a sound that is a little different than the name of the letter. Compare the short vowel sound in ‘bed’ to the long vowel sound in ‘bleed’.
Short vowels are always spelled with one letter, with a few exceptions:
Spelling short vowels:

Short Vowel Sound	Kriol Example	English
a	nak	knock
aa (same sound as previous, only held longer)	daata	daughter
e	ded	dead
i	fish	fish
o	choch	church
u	buk	book

Exceptions:

Kriol	Vowel Sound	English
Ah	short a	I
-eh (at end of words)	short e (as in ‘todeh’)	today
ih	short i	he, she, it
noh	short o	didn’t, isn’t, doesn’t, etc.

Note that the short ‘i’ vowel at the end of a word may be written with the letter ‘i’ or ‘y’. If the related word in English is spelled with the letter ‘y’ then a ‘y’ is used in Kriol. For example in: happy, fifty, direkly (directly), doty (dirty), heby (heavy). The short ‘i’ vowel occurs at the end of many Kriol words that are not related to english words, these are spelled with the letter ‘i’, for example: hikiti (a kind of turtle), baami (a kind of bread), duki (a chart used by people who play a kind of lottery).

Vowel glides, sometimes called diphthongs, are two sounds that occur together. Kriol has two vowel glides, the sounds in ‘out’ and ‘beer’. Both glides have two ways of spelling them in Kriol words.

The ‘ou’ glide, as in ‘out’ is spelled with either ‘ow’ or ‘ou’. If the related word in English is spelled with ‘ow’, and the Kriol word is pronounced the same, then the Kriol word is spelled with ‘ow’. For example: powda (powder), krowd (crowd), owl.

In all other cases ‘ou’ is used. For example: hous (house), about, kloudz (clouds), kow (cow).

The Kriol pronunciation of the following words, and other similar words, is quite irregular: beer, bare, clear, tear (meaning ‘to rip’, not ‘tear drops’). Two spellings have been proposed: ‘-yaa’ and ‘-ayr’. Therefore: byaa/bayr (beer/bare), klyaa/klayr (clear), tyaa/tayr (tear).
Nasalized vowels are vowels in which the sound comes more through the nose than the mouth. In Kriol these vowels are marked by writing ‘hn’ after the vowel. For example: waahn (want), frahn (from), kohn (come), kyaahn (can’t), sohnting (something). The letters ‘hn’ may be silent, but when followed by some words they can also be pronounced. For example: ‘pahn hihn’ (on him) the ‘hn’ would probably not be pronounced, but ‘pahn dis’ (on this) the ‘hn’ would be pronounced because the ‘n’ sound is made in the same place in the mouth as the ‘d’ sound.

For a more thorough description of the spelling rules, as well a listing of 4000 Kriol words, purchase the "Belize Kriol Glassary an Spellin Gide". It is sold in bookstores in Belize.