The Twi Alphabet

Asante Twi is written in the Akan Unified Orthography, the shared spelling system set up in 1978 for Asante, Akuapem and Fante. The alphabet in order is:

A B D E Ɛ F G H I K L M N O Ɔ P R S T U W Y

• Vowels (7): a, e, ɛ, i, o, ɔ, u. Ɛ and Ɔ are full letters, not accented e and o, and they have their own capitals: Ɛyɛ dɛ (It is nice), Ɔkɔ sukuu (She goes to school). See ɛ and ɔ.
• Consonants (15): b, d, f, g, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, w, y. The letter l is rare and appears mostly in borrowed words such as lɔre (lorry).
• Not used: c, j, q, v, x and z. They appear only in names and some borrowed words, such as the name Joyce. Most borrowed words are respelled with Twi letters: sukuu (school), paanoo (bread).

Two letters, one sound. Where English uses ch, j or sh, Twi uses letter pairs: ky, gy, hy (Maakye, good morning), tw, dw, hw, kw (Twi, dwom song, hwɛ look, kwan road) and ny, nw (nya get, nwoma book). See ky gy hy, tw dw hw kw and ny and nw.

Doubled letters. A doubled vowel is a long vowel: Akwaaba (Welcome). A doubled m or n at the start of a word usually means a nasal that is a syllable by itself: mmofra (children), nnipa (people). See syllabic nasals.

What spelling leaves out. Every syllable is said with a high or low pitch, and some vowels are nasal, but ordinary Twi writing marks neither. Learn words by ear as well as by sight. See tone overview and vowels and nasal vowels.

Spelling you will see online. Phone keyboards often lack ɛ and ɔ, so people type e and o, or even 3 and c: Wo ho te s3n? Learn to read these, but write the real letters yourself. See informal spelling e and o. Fante writing also uses the pairs ts and dz, which Asante does not use.