<P> Pronunciation in the many varieties of African French can be quite varied . There are nonetheless some trends among African French speakers; for instance, the letter R tends to be pronounced as an alveolar trill instead of the standard dialect's uvular trill or' guttural R .' The voiced uvular fricative, the sound represented by ⟨ غ ⟩ in the Arabic word مغرب Maghrib, is another common alternative . Pronunciation of the letters (d), (t), (l) and (n) may also vary, and intonation may differ from standard French . </P> <P> In terms of vocabulary, there exist three phenomena in African French . First, the presence of words which do not exist in standard French . These words were either coined locally or borrowed from local African languages . As a consequence, each regional variety of African French has its own local words that are not the same as in other varieties of African French, although this local vocabulary only constitutes a small part of the overall vocabulary which for the most part is identical to standard French . When talking to people from other regions or countries, African French speakers often switch to a more standard form of French avoiding this local vocabulary . However, there also exist some African French words that are found across many African countries (see for example chicotter in the Abidjan French vocabulary section below). </P> <P> A second phenomenon is the use of some words with a meaning different from standard French . For example, the word présentement (which means "at the moment" in standard French) is used a lot in sub-Saharan Africa (but not in the Maghreb) with the meaning of "as a matter of fact", "as it were" and not "at the moment". </P> <P> A third phenomenon is hypercorrection, which is found especially among the educated and upper classes of sub-Saharan Africa . Educated people there tend to speak a very formal sort of French which may sound a bit old - fashioned and conservative to European and North American French speakers . </P>

19. why are there so many francophone countries in africa