Phonological

Phonology is the study of the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It deals with the abstract, cognitive aspects of speech sounds rather than their physical properties. Phonology examines how sounds function within a particular language system, including their distribution, patterns, and the rules governing their combination and variation. It also explores phenomena such as phonemes (distinctive units of sound), phonological rules, phonotactics (permissible arrangements of sounds), and prosody (rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns). Phonology is crucial for understanding how sounds convey meaning and how they are processed and interpreted by speakers and listeners.

Dholuo phonology, like phonology in any language, involves the study of the sound system and patterns of Dholuo

The overview of Dholuo phonology

Consonants: Dholuo has a relatively small consonant inventory, including stops, fricatives, nasals, approximants, and a lateral consonant. The exact set of consonants and their phonetic realizations may vary slightly between different dialects and speakers. Dholuo has 17 consonants, including two semi-vowels [j, w], and five nasal obstruent combinations, which always function in the language as unit phonemes. The consonants have a one-to-one correspondence between their phonemic and orthographic representation

BA; CHA; DA;  FA; GA; HA;  JA; KA; LA; MA; NA; PA; RA; SA; TA;  WA; YA.

All the consonants take “A” for their phonetical meaning.

Vowels: Dholuo possesses a vowel system comprised of nine vowels, including the low, back vowel /a/, along with four pairs of additional vowels primarily distinguished by [ATR] harmony. These nine distinct vowels are characterized by features such as [high], [low], [back], [round], and [ATR]. Dholuo has five vowel qualities, which can be short or long: a, e, i, o, u. This is how they are pronounce: 
A pronounced like in words App, apply, Agro, Afro, application, agony etc not like apple, ago, 
E Pronounced like in egg, education, ego etc.
I Pronounced like in it, in, not like nice, despite, like etc.
O Pronounced like in oak, odd etc not like in out.
U Pronounced like in Uganda, ute, full etc not like in luck, duck etc.

Tone: Dholuo is a tonal language, meaning that the pitch or tone contour of a syllable can distinguish word meanings. Dholuo typically has two contrastive tones: high and low. 

Examples of Dholuo words with varying meanings distinguished by tone

Example: pronouncing the word “keyo”

When the term "Keyo" is pronounced with a short emphasis on both syllables, it signifies the action of harvesting. However, when pronounced as "Ke-yo" with a prolonged emphasis on the first syllable ("Ke") and a shorter emphasis on the second syllable ("yo"), it denotes the action of spreading or broadcasting

Tone is often marked using diacritics in linguistic analysis.

Syllable structure: Dholuo syllables typically follow a simple structure, with a consonant-vowel (CV) pattern being the most common. However, consonant clusters and complex syllable structures are also possible, especially in loanwords from other languages.

Word Stress: In Dholuo, stress on a vowel typically occurs when it is either lengthened or part of a vowel-vowel sequence, making it "heavy" in pronunciation. This means that stress in Dholuo is characterized by the length or sequence of vowels within a word

Phonotactics: Phonotactics refers to the rules governing the possible phoneme sequences in a language. In Dholuo, for example, words generally cannot begin with certain consonants like sh or z, 

Use of S instead of “SH” and  “Z”
In Dholuo, the phonetic distinction between the sounds "SH" and "Z" does not exist. Instead, both are consistently pronounced as "S". Therefore, words like "shillings" and "Zebra" are articulated with an "S" sound. In summary, Dholuo lacks distinct pronunciation for "SH" and "Z", both being uniformly rendered as "S".
Example of 

Remember, phonological rules can be quite complex and vary between different dialects of the same language. This is a basic introduction to Dholuo phonology, and a more detailed understanding would require in-depth linguistic study