Consonants

Obstruents

The consonant inventory in LibSE is the same as that for American dialects of English except that LibSE does not have the voiced interdental fricative /ð/; /d/ shows up instead, as in they [de]. Its voiceless counterpart, /θ/, does occur, but only in syllable-initial position and only variably. Thus, thatch is pronounced both [θæʃ] and [θæʃ] . In syllable-final position, /t/ or /f/ is used, e.g. both [bof], teeth [tit]. Loanwords from Niger-Congo languages and VLE with labiovelar consonants are extremely rare in LibSE, and many speakers convert the labiovelar to a bilabial, so that Kpanyan, a district in Sinoe County, is realized as  rather than .

The affricates /ʧ/ and /ʤ/ occur in syllable-initial position, as in child and jail. In other environments, the corresponding fricative occurs, e.g. teach [tiʃ] , age [eƷ].

Obstruents in LibSE are sometimes subject to syllable-final devoicing.