structural:summarization, stylistic:style_transfer
Vowels

Below is the vowel system of Cebuano with their corresponding letter representation in angular brackets:

Sometimes, ⟨ a ⟩ may also be pronounced as the open-mid back unrounded vowel /ʌ/ (as in English "g u t"); ⟨ e ⟩ or ⟨ i ⟩ as the near-close near-front unrounded vowel /ɪ/ (as in English "b i t"); and ⟨ o ⟩ or ⟨ u ⟩ as the open-mid back rounded vowel /ɔ/ (as in English "th ou ght") or the near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ (as in English "h oo k").

During the precolonial and Spanish period, Cebuano had only three vowel phonemes: /a/, /i/ and /u/. This was later expanded to five vowels with the introduction of Spanish. As a consequence, the vowels ⟨ o ⟩ or ⟨ u ⟩, as well as ⟨ e ⟩ or ⟨ i ⟩, are still mostly allophones. They can be freely switched with each other without losing their meaning (free variation); though it may sound strange to a native listener, depending on their dialect. The vowel ⟨ a ⟩ has no variations, though it can be pronounced subtly differently, as either /a/ or /ʌ/ (and very rarely as /ɔ/ immediately after the consonant /w/). Loanwords, however, are usually more conservative in their orthography and pronunciation (e.g. dyip, " jeepney " from English "jeep", will never be written or spoken as dyep).

There are only four diphthongs since ⟨ o ⟩ and ⟨ u ⟩ are allophones. These include /aj/, /uj/, /aw/, and /iw/.