Central northeastern Portuguese

• Predominant use of voiced (d̪) and voiceless (t̪) dental stops before close front unrounded vowel (i) even in final syllables "de" and "te", like presente Portuguese pronunciation: [pɾɛˈzẽt̪i] ("present") and diário Portuguese pronunciation: [d̪iˈaɾju] ("daily").
• Palatalization predominant (but not always recurring) of fricatives /s/ and /z/ in /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ before voiceless (t̪) and voiced (d̪) alveolar stops, and also, but less often, before the denti-alveolar lateral approximant (l̪) and the denti-alveolar nasal (n̪), like poste Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpɔʃt̪i] ("post"), desde Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈd̪eʒd̪i] ("from", "since"), os navios Portuguese pronunciation: [uʒ ˈn̪aviws] ('the ships"), and dois lados Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈd̪ojʒ ˈlad̪ʊs] ("two sides").
• Debuccalization of syllable-final /s/ and /z/ in colloquial speech (in a number of words and with varying frequency according to the place) to the glottal fricatives [h] and [ɦ] (when in the end of words, this only happens if there's another word following it, but if it doesn't, the pronunciations of these consonants are the standard ones), like mesmo Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈmeɦmʊ] ("same") and eu fiz tudo Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈew ˈfih 'tud̪ʊ] (being more common Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈew ˈfiʃ 'tud̪ʊ]).
• Debuccalization of the letter "v" (normally pronounced as [v]) in colloquial speech to the voiced glottal fricative [ɦ], in some of the verbal forms (those starting with "v") of the verbs "Ir" ("to go"), "Vir" ("to come") and "Ver" ("to see"), like Vamo? Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɦɐ̃mʊ̥] or Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɦɐ̃m] ("Let's go?"), Tu vem? Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈt̪u ˈɦẽj̃] ("Are you coming?") and Vai te embora! Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɦaj ˈt̪‿ĩˈbɔɾɐ] ("(You) Go away!").
• In "des", "dis", "tes" or "tis" syllables, there are voiced alveolar sibilant affricate (d͡z) and voiceless alveolar sibilant affricate (t͡s): idades Portuguese pronunciation: [iˈdad͡z] ("ages", "years") and partes Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈpaht͡s] ("parts").
• Voiced glottal fricative (ɦ) and voiceless glottal fricative (h) are present in the sound of the letter "r" (the first between syllables, but never with an "r" starting a non-initial syllable alone, because these do /ɾ/, and the second at the beginning of words or digraph "rr"). None of the two phonemes occur at the end of words. Examples: corda Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkɔɦdɐ] ("rope"), rabo Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈɦabu] ("tail" - also locally in Brazilian Northeast "buttocks") and barragem Portuguese pronunciation: [baˈɦaʒẽj̃] ("dam"), querer Portuguese pronunciation: [keˈɾe] ("to want").
• Opening of the pre-tonic vowels /e/ and /o/ to /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ most of these syllables with vowels: rebolar Portuguese pronunciation: [hɛbɔˈla] ("throw away").
• Monophthongization of /e/ and /ɛ/ or /o/ and /ɔ/ in some cases.

This key also serves, for the most part, to the north coast and recifense dialects. But the dialects cited here do not have the phoneme /d͡z/ and /t͡s/, characteristic of the central northeastern dialect. Recifense dialect usually palatalize fricatives in any syllabic consonant meeting (including the end of words) and not only before /d/ and /t/. Moreover, in certain regions of southeastern of Piauí and Maranhão west coast also a greater or lesser palatalization of fricatives may occur under the influence of Amazonian dialects (northern and Amazon Plateau), and even the absence of such palatalization. That is, in some areas the sound is pronounced exactly what is written (/s/ and /z/), and others as /ʃ/ and /ʒ/. In north coast dialect, also virtually no dental stops before /i/, /j/ or /ĩ/, and in its place they use postalveolar affricates (/d͡ʒ/ and /t͡ʃ/). In contrast, the central northeastern dialect has almost exclusive predominance of dental stops before /i/, /j/ or /ĩ/. And the postalveolar affricates are used only in the following cases: in words of foreign origin in the Portuguese language, especially English; in words denoting slang and regionalisms; and phonemes are present in the standard variety of Brazilian Portuguese, are also often in television media to replace the dental stops (though never in common parlance).