How to represent pronunciation in ASCII
How to represent pronunciation in ASCII
From the ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH FAQ by Mark Israel: I fear I have not used it rigorously.
Beware of using ad hoc methods to indicate pronunciation.
The problem with ad hoc methods is that they often wrongly
assume your dialect to have certain features in common with the
readers dialect. You may pronounce "bother" to rhyme
with "father"; some of the readers here don't. You may
pronounce "cot" and "caught" alike; some of
the readers here don't. You may pronounce "caught" and
"court" alike; some of the readers here don't.
The standard way to represent pronunciation (used in the latest
British Dictionaries and by linguists worldwide) is the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For a complete guide to the IPA, see
Phonetic Symbol Guide by Geoffrey K. Pullum and William
A. Ladusaw (University of Chicago Press, 1986, ISBN0-226-68532-2).
IPA uses many special symbols; on the Net, where we're restricted
to ASCII symbols, we must find a way to make do.
The following scheme is due to Evan Kirshenbaum. The complete scheme can be accessed on the WWW at http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Evan_Kirshenbaum/IPA/ I show here only examples for the sounds most often referred to in this newsgroup. The examples transcribe British Received Pronunciation (RP) except as noted. (There's
a WWW page that shows what the IPA symbols look like: http://www.unil.ch/ling/phonetique/api2.html
.) The IPA itself has a home page: http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html.
The consonant symbols [b], [d], [f], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n],
[p], [r], [s], [t], [v], [w], [z] have their usual English values.
[A] = [<script a>] as in "calm" /kA:m/, French
"bas" /bA/
[A.] = [<turned script a>] as in "odd" /A.d/ (Not
much used to transcribe U.S. pronunciation; the tendency is to
use [A] or [O] instead.)
[a] as in French "ami" /ami/, German "Mann"
/man/, Italian "pasta" /'pasta/, Chicago "pop"
/pap/, Boston "park" /pa:k/. Also in diphthongs: "dive"
/daIv/, "out" /aUt/
[C] = [<c cedilla>] as in German "ich" /IC/
[D] = [<edh>] as in "this" /DIs/
[E] = [<epsilon>] as in "end" /End/
[e] as in "eight" /eIt/, "chaos" /'keA.s/
[g] as in "get" /gEt/
[I] = [<iota>] as in "it" /It/
[I.] = [<small capital y>] as in German "Glück"
/glI.k/
[i] as in "eat" /i:t/
[j] as in "yes" /jEs/
[N] = [<eng>] as in "hang" /h&N/
[O] = [<open o>] as in "all" /O:l/, "oil"
/OIl/
[o] as in U.S. "old" /oUld/, French "beau"
/bo/
[R] = [<right-hook schwa>], equivalent to /@r/, /r-/, or
even /V"r/
[S] = [<esh>] as in "ship" /SIp/
[T] = [<theta>] as in "thin" /TIn/
[t!] = [<turned t>] as in "tsk-tsk" or "tut-tut"
/t! t!/
[U] = [<upsilon>] as in "pull" /pUl/
[u] as in "ooze" /u:z/
[V] = [<turned v>] as in "up" /Vp/
[V"] = [<reversed epsilon>] as in "fern"
/fV":n/ (rhotic /fV"rn/)
[W] = [<o-e ligature>] as in French "heure" /Wr/,
German "Köpfe" /'kWpf@/
[x] as in Scots "loch" /lA.x/, German "Bach"
/bax/
[Y] = [<slashed o>] as in French "peu" /pY/, German
"schön" /SYn/, Scots "guidwillie" /gYd'wIli/
[y] as in French "lune" /lyn/, German "müde"
/'myd@/
[Z] = [<yogh>] as in "beige" /beIZ/
[&] = [<ash>] as in "ash" /&S/
[@] = [<schwa>] as in "lemon" /'lEm@n/
[?] = [<glottal>] as in "uh-oh" /V?ou/
[*] = [<fish-hook r>], a short tap of the tongue use by
some U.S. speakers in "pedal", "petal", and
by Scots speakers in "pearl": all /pE*@l/
- previous consonant syllabic as in "bundle" /'bVnd@l/
or /'bVndl-/,
"button" /bVt@n/ or /bVtn-/
~~ previous sound nasalized
: previous sound lengthened
; previous sound palatalized
' following syllable has primary stress
, following syllable has secondary stress
Here is the scheme compared with the transcriptions in 4 U.S.
dictionaries. (Most British dictionaries now use IPA for their
transcriptions.)
| Merriam-Webster |
American Heritage | Random House
| Webster's New World (42555) |
| [A] | a umlaut | a umlaut
| a umlaut | a umlaut |
| [A.] | (merged with [A]) |
o breve | o | (merged with [A])
|
| [a] | a overdot | (merged with [A])
| A | a overdot |
| /AI/ | i macron | i macron
| i macron | i macron |
| /AU/ | a u overdot | ou
| ou | ou |
| [C] | (merged with [x]) |
(merged with [x]) | (merged with [x])
| H |
| [D] | th underlined | th in italics
| th slashed | th in italics
|
| /dZ/ | j | j
| j | j |
| [E] | e | e breve
| e | e |
| /E@/ | a schwa | a circumflex
| a circumflex | (merged with [e])
|
| /eI/ | a macron | a macron
| a macron | a macron |
| [g] | g | g
| g | g |
| [I] | i | i breve
| i | i |
| [I.] | ue ligature | (merged with [y])
| (merged with [y]) | (merged with [y])
|
| [i] | e macron | e macron
| e macron | e macron |
| [j] | y | y
| y | y |
| [N] | <eng> | ng
| ng | <eng> |
| [O] | o overdot | o circumflex
| o circumflex | o circumflex
|
| /OI/ | o overdot i | oi
| oi | oi ligature |
| /oU/ | o macron | o macron
| o macron | o macron |
| [S] | sh | sh
| sh | sh ligature |
| [T] | th | th
| th | th ligature |
| /tS/ | ch | ch
| ch | ch ligature |
| [U] | u overdot | oo breve
| oo breve | oo |
| [u] | u umlaut | oo macron
| oo macron | oo macron |
| [V] | (merged with [@]) |
u breve | u | u
|
| [V"] | (merged with [@])
| u circumflex | u circumflex
| u circumflex |
| [W] | oe ligature | oe ligature
| OE ligature | o umlaut |
| [x] | k underlined | KH
| KH | kh ligature |
| [Y] | oe ligature macron |
(merged with [W]) | (merged with [W])
| (merged with [W]) |
| [y] | ue ligature macron |
u umlaut | Y | u umlaut
|
| [Z] | zh | zh
| zh | zh ligature |
| [&] | a | a breve
| a | a |
| [@] | schwa | schwa
| schwa | schwa |
| - | superscript schwa | syllabicity mark
| unmarked | ' |
E-mail us if you like on hugh@young.wn.planet.gen.nz and 
or go back to Hugh Young's Lexicon of Polari or David England's home page.