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Thecentral northeastern dialect ofBrazilian Portuguese (Portuguese:dialeto nordestino central) is a dialect spoken in the central part of theNortheast Region, Brazil, in all the states ofRio Grande do Norte,Paraíba,Alagoas andSergipe, much of the state ofPernambuco (except for theZona da Mata and theRecife metropolitan area), north ofBahia, south ofCeará, southeastern ofPiauí and a few regions ofMaranhão. It has roughly about 53,000,000 native speakers and varies within the region. This dialect shares similarities betweennorth coast, Baiano and Recifense dialects.

• Predominant use ofvoiced (d) andvoiceless (t)dental stops beforeclose front unrounded vowel (i) even in final syllables "de" and "te", likepresente[pɾɛˈzẽti] ("present") anddiário[diˈaɾju] ("daily").
• Palatalization predominant (but not always recurring) of fricatives/s/ and/z/ in/ʃ/ and/ʒ/ beforevoiceless (t) andvoiced (d)alveolar stops, and also, but less often, before thedenti-alveolar lateral approximant (l) and thedenti-alveolar nasal (n), likeposte[ˈpɔʃti] ("post"),desde[ˈdeʒdi] ("from", "since"),os navios[uʒnaˈviws] ('the ships"), anddois lados[ˈdojʒˈladʊs] ("two sides").
• Debuccalization ofsyllable-final/s/ and/z/ in colloquial speech (in a number of words and with varying frequency according to the place) to theglottal 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), likemesmo[ˈmeɦmʊ] ("same") andeu fiz tudo[ˈewˈfih'tudʊ] (being more common[ˈewˈfiʃ'tudʊ]).
• Debuccalization of the letter "v" (normally pronounced as[v]) in colloquial speech to thevoiced 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"), likeVamo?[ˈɦɐ̃mʊ̥] or[ˈɦɐ̃m] ("Let's go?"),Tu vem?[ˈtuˈɦẽj̃] ("Are you coming?") andVai te embora![ˈɦajˈtĩˈbɔ(ː)ɾɐ] ("(You) Go away!").
• In "des", "dis", "tes" or "tis" syllables, there arevoiced alveolar sibilant affricate (d͡z) andvoiceless alveolar sibilant affricate (t͡s):idades[iˈdad͡z] ("ages", "years") andpartes[ˈpaht͡s] ("parts").
• Voiced glottal fricative (ɦ) andvoiceless 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[ˈkɔɦdɐ] ("rope"),rabo[ˈɦabu] ("tail" - also locally in Brazilian Northeast "buttocks") andbarragem[baˈɦaʒẽj̃] ("dam"),querer[keˈɾe] ("to want").
• Opening of the pre-tonic vowels/e/ and/o/ to/ɛ/ and/ɔ/ most of these syllables with vowels:rebolar[hɛbɔˈla] ("throw away").

This key also serves, for the most part, to thenorth 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 palatalizes 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 alveolar (/s/ and /z/), and in others postalveolar /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).

• ¹After the vowels /i/ or /ĩ/ and semivowel /j/.
• ²Used in plural words ending in "des", "dis", "tes" and "tis".
• ³Between the end and the beginning of syllables.
• ⁴At the beginning of words and the digraph "rr".
• ⁵Also in palatalization of /z/ before /d/.
• ⁶Phonetic junction between /k/ and /s/.
• ⁷Allophone of /l/ before /i/ and /ĩ/.
• ⁸Also in palatalization of /s/ before /t/.

• ¹ Only in words of foreign origin in the Portuguese language, in words denoting slang, regionalisms and optionally the grapheme "di" and "ti" that are in post-tonic syllables with rising diphthongs (and never in all locations, depending on local state changes to state where it is spoken dialect), 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).

• ¹Substitution for unstressed vowels /e/ and /o/.

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