The Kalabari language has both Diacritical and Tonal Marks. The Tonal Marks which show the rise and fall of the tones of the vowels, are no longer used in written Kalabari.
The Diacritical Marks are, however, stillused.
A diacritic is a mark placed under or over a letter to indicate that it should have a different sound from the same letter of its kind that does not have the mark.
Examples of these marks are [ . _ etc. ]
We can have them under [ e i o u ] and [ b d ]
Hence e and e have different sounds in Kalabari.
e is heavy : e is light.
Also , [ b] and [ b ] are different.
b sounds as it does in [ boy]
b has no equivallent in English
e.g bele (pot) bibi (mouth)
[d ] and [ d ] are different
d sounds as it does in [ dog ]
d has no equivallent in English
e.g duein (corpse) diri (book)
NB: Parents need to guide their children on the sound of these semi-plosive forms of d and b
