International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects
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This article has information on Canadian English, Irish English, Scottish English, South African English, and Welsh English that needs additional citations for verification. (March 2009) |
IPA vowels chart – audio representations
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IPA help • IPA key • chart • chart with audio • view |
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This concise chart shows the most common applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent English language pronunciations.
See Pronunciation respelling for English for phonetic transcriptions used in different dictionaries.
- AuE = Australian English
- CaE = Canadian English
- GA = General American
- IrE = Irish English
- NZE = New Zealand English
- RP = Received Pronunciation (Standard in Great Britain)
- ScE = Scottish English
- SAE = South African English
- SSE = Standard Singapore English
- WaE = Welsh English
Contents |
Chart [edit]
- Note: An image of the chart is also available
This chart gives a partial system of diaphonemes for English. The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values. For the vowels, a separate phonetic value is given for each major dialect, and words used to name corresponding lexical sets are also given. The diaphonemes and lexical sets given here are based on RP and General American; they are not sufficient to express all of the distinctions found in other dialects, such as Australian English.
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| IPA: Other symbols used in transcription of English pronunciation | ||
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| IPA | Explanation | |
| ˈ | Primary stress indicator (placed before the stressed syllable); for example, rapping /ˈræpɪŋ/ | |
| ˌ | Secondary stress/full vowel indicator (placed before the stressed syllable); for example, pronunciation /prɵˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən/ | |
| . | Syllable separation indicator; for example, ice cream /ˈaɪs.kriːm/ vs. I scream /ˌaɪ.ˈskriːm/ | |
| ̩ | ̍ | Syllabic consonant indicator (placed under the syllabic consonant); for example, ridden [ˈɹɪdn̩] |
See also [edit]
- English phonology
- Phonetic alphabets
- Pronunciation respelling for English
- SAMPA chart for English
- "Vowel wheel" – a subjective schematic of English vowel sounds as pronounced in a General American accent.
- Wikipedia:IPA for English
- International Phonetic Alphabet
Notes [edit]
- ^ a b c d This is the compromise IPA transcription used in the entries of Wikipedia articles. It covers most dialects of English.
- ^ Pronounced [ɾ] in some positions in GA and Australian English, and is possible in RP in words like butter, [ʔ] in some positions in Scottish English, English English, American English and Australian English, and [t̞] non-initially in Irish English.
- ^ Pronounced [ɾ] in some positions in GA and Australian English.
- ^ Pronounced [t̪] in Irish English, Newfoundland English, and New York English, merges with /f/ in some varieties of English English, and merges with /t/ in some varieties of Caribbean English.
- ^ Pronounced [d̪] in Irish English, Newfoundland English, and New York English, merges with /v/ in some varieties of English English, and merges with /d/ in some varieties of Caribbean English.
- ^ Marginal elsewhere, and otherwise merged with /k/, see Lock–loch merger.
- ^ Pronounced [ɱ] before f (e.g. symphony [ˈsɪɱfəni)
- ^ In some dialects (e.g. Brummie) "ringer", "sing" etc are pronounced with an additional /ɡ/, like "finger": /ˈɹɪŋɡə/ rather than /ˈɹɪŋə/
- ^ [ɫ] traditionally does not occur in Irish English; [l] does not occur in Australian, New Zealand, Scottish, or American English. RP and some other English accents, along with South African English, however, have clear [l] in syllable onsets and dark [ɫ] in syllable rimes.
- ^ L-vocalization as [ɤ] is prevalent in Standard Singapore English.
- ^ L-vocalization as [w], [o], and [ʊ] occurs in New Zealand English and many regional accents not included in the chart. Notably Cockney, New York English, Estuary English, Pittsburgh English, and African-American Vernacular English.
- ^ The tap [ɾ] is found in some varieties of Scottish and Irish English.
- ^ Some dialects, such as Scottish English, Irish English, and much of the American South dialects, distinguish ʍ from w; see whine and wine and voiceless labiovelar approximant
- ^ /ɔː, aʊ, ɔɪ/ are never reduced. In some dialects, such as Australian, all reduced vowels become [ə].
- ^ Harrington, Cox & Evans (1997)
- ^ Kenyon & Knott (1944/1953)
- ^ Kenyon (1950)
- ^ Bauer et al. (2007:97–102)
- ^ Roach (2004:241–243). See Pronunciation respelling for English#International Phonetic Alphabet for the alternative system devised by Clive Upton for Oxford University Press dictionaries.
- ^ See bad–lad split for this distinction.
- ^ Suzanna Bet Hashim and Brown, Adam (2000) 'The [e] and [æ] vowels in Singapore English'. In Adam Brown, David Deterding and Low Ee Ling (eds.) The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation, Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics ISBN 981-04-2598-8, pp. 84–92.
- ^ Often transcribed /a/ for RP, for example in dictionaries of the Oxford University Press.
- ^ Deterding, David (2003) 'An instrumental study of the monophthong vowels of Singapore English', English World Wide, 24(1), 1–16.
- ^ ɒ~ɔ occurs in American accents without the cot–caught merger (about half of today's speakers); the rest have ɑ.
- ^ In American accents without the cot–caught merger, the LOT vowel (generally written o) appears as ɒ~ɔ instead of ɑ before the fricatives /f/, /θ/ and /s/ and the velar nasal /ŋ/; also usually before /ɡ/, especially in single-syllable words (dog, log, frog, etc.), and occasionally before /k/ (as in chocolate). See lot–cloth split. In American accents with the cot–caught merger (about half of today's speakers), only ɑ occurs.
- ^ It is not clear whether this a true phonemic split, since the distribution of the two sounds is predictable; see Kit–bit split.
- ^ a b Deterding, David (2000) 'Measurements of the /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ vowels of young English speakers in Singapore'. In Adam Brown, David Deterding and Low Ee Ling (eds.), The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation, Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, pp. 93–99.
- ^ Tay Wan, Joo, Mary (1982). "'The phonology of educated Singapore English'". English World-Wide 3 (2): 135–45.
- ^ Often transcribed /e/ for RP, for example in Collins English Dictionary.
- ^ a b c d e f See Fern–fir–fur merger for this distinction.
- ^ Sometimes transcribed for GA as [əɹ], especially in transcriptions that represent both rhotic and non-rhotic pronunciations, as [ə(ɹ)].
- ^ In Welsh English, you, yew and ewe are /juː/, /jɪu/ and /ɪu/ respectively; in all other varieties of English they are homophones.
- ^ a b c Canadian English has a phenomenon called Canadian raising in which raised diphthongs [ʌi] and [ʌu] are found before voiceless consonants, as in right [ɹʷʌit] and out [ʌut]; in other environments, [aɪ] and [aʊ] are used. In much of U.S. English, this happens with [ʌɪ], primarily when a voiceless consonant phoneme follows /aɪ/. For example, dike, life, and sight end with voiceless /k/, /f/, and /t/, so the diphthongs differ from those in wives and side, which have voiced /v/ and /d/. For some speakers, [ʌɪ] also occurs before voiced consonants when another syllable follows, but only when no morpheme break occurs; hence [ʌɪ] in tiger and/or spider, but [aɪ] in rider because -er is a separate morpheme. Most U.S. English distinguishes between writer [ˈɹʌɪɾəɹ] and rider [ˈɹaɪɾəɹ] purely based on this vowel difference.
- ^ Lee, Ee May and Lim, Lisa (2000) ' Diphthongs in Singaporean English: their realisations across different formality levels, and some attitudes of listeners towards them. In Adam Brown, David Deterding and Low Ee Ling (eds.), The English Language in Singapore: Research on Pronunciation, Singapore: Singapore Association for Applied Linguistics, pp. 100–111.
- ^ Alternative symbols used in British dictionaries are /ɛː/ (Oxford University Press) and /ɛə/.
- ^ Roach (2004) notes that many people in England use [ɔː] for this vowel, but also that RP traditionally distinguishes between maw /mɔː/ and moor /mʊə/, tore /tɔː/ and tour /tʊə/, as well as paw /pɔː/ and poor /pʊə/.
References [edit]
- Gimson, A. C. (1980). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English (3rd edn. ed.). London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6287-2.
- Harrington, J.; Cox, F.; Evans, Z. (1997). "An acoustic phonetic study of broad, general, and cultivated Australian English vowels". Australian Journal of Linguistics 17: 155–84. doi:10.1080/07268609708599550.
- Kenyon, John Samuel (1950). American Pronunciation (10th ed.). Ann Arbor: George Wahr.
- Kenyon, John S.; Knott, Thomas A. (1944/1953). A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster. ISBN 0-87779-047-7.
- Bauer, L.; Warren, P.; Bardsley, D.; Kennedy, M.; Major, G. (2007). "New Zealand English". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 37 (1): 97–102. doi:10.1017/S0025100306002830.
- Schneider, Edgar W.; Kortmann, Bernd (2004). A Handbook of Varieties of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017532-0.
- Roach, Peter (2004). "British English: Received Pronunciation". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 34 (2): 239–245. doi:10.1017/S0025100304001768
- Wells, J. C. (2000). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2nd edn. ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited. ISBN 0-582-36468-X.
External links [edit]
- IPA chart with AIFF sound files for IPA symbols
- IPA chart with MP3 sound files for all IPA symbols on the chart (limited version is available to anyone)
- The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 2005) Symbols for all languages are shown on this one-page chart.
- lexconvert a GPL command-line program to convert between Unicode IPA and the ASCII notations of various English speech synthesizers
- LONGMAN Dictionary of Contemporary English ONLINE uses IPA.
- Online IPA editor for English
- Online/Offline IPA editor for English
- IPA transcription systems for English – discussion by John C. Wells of RP transcriptions
