Encyclopedia
The
International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of
phonetic notation devised by linguists. It is intended to provide a standardized, accurate and unique way of representing the sounds of any spoken language, and is used, often on a day-to-day basis, by phoneticians, dialectologists, and other linguists; speech scientists and speech therapists; foreign language teachers; lexicographers; and
translators. In its unextended form it has approximately 107 base symbols and 55 modifiers.
The symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet are divided into three categories:
letters, diacritics, and suprasegmentals . These categories are often divided into smaller sections. For example, the International Phonetic Association divides the letters into two distinctive groups:
vowels and consonants Since its creation, the organization of vowels and consonants has largely remained the same, with a minimal amount of symbols being added or removed. Many of the changes involved renaming symbols or categories, or modifying typefaces.
Extensions of the alphabet are relatively recent; the Extended IPA was first created in 1991 and revised to 1997. Also, the VoQS were proposed in 1995 to provide a system for more detailed transcription of voice production.
Description
The general principle of the IPA is to provide one symbol for each sound . This means that the IPA
- does not use letter combinations unless the sound being represented can be regarded as a sequence of two or more sounds ;
- does not have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them;
- does not have letters that represent multiple sounds, the way represents the double consonant in English;
- does not use letters whose sound value is context-dependent, such as c in English.
Selectiveness
The IPA is an example of what is known to linguists as a
selective phonetic alphabet. Indeed, some symbols, such as that of the
pharyngeal fricative , though modified to look more Latin, were inspired by
glyphs in other writing systems .
Despite its preference for letters that harmonize with the Latin alphabet, the International Phonetic Association has occasionally admitted symbols that seem to have nothing to do with Roman letters. For example, prior to 1989, the IPA symbols for click consonants were , , , and , none of which look terribly out of place among Latin letters. However, except for , none of these symbols was reflective of contemporary practice among
Khoisanists . Hence, at the 1989 convention of the International Phonetic Association in
Kiel, they were replaced by the more iconic symbols , , , , and .
Symbols and sounds
The sound-values of most consonants taken from the Latin alphabet correspond roughly to those of
French, and are also close to those of most other European languages : these consonants are , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The other consonants from the Latin alphabet, , , , , , , , and , correspond to the sounds these letters represent in various other languages:
The
vowels from the Latin alphabet correspond to the vowels of Spanish and are similar to those of Italian. is like the vowel in
piece, is as in
rule, etc.
Symbols derived from the Greek alphabet include , , , , , , and . Of these, the only ones that closely correspond to the Greek letters they are derived from are and . , , , and denote beta-like, epsilon-like, phi-like, and chi-like sounds, but do not correspond to them exactly. represents a
u-like sound, but is otherwise fairly distant from the original Greek letter , upsilon.
The sound-values of modifications of Latin letters can usually be derived from those of the original letters. For example, letters with a rightward-facing hook at the bottom represent
retroflex consonants; and small capital letters usually represent
uvular consonants. Apart from the fact that certain kinds of modification to the shape of a letter correspond to certain kinds of modification to the sound represented, there is no way to deduce the sound represented by a symbol from the shape of the symbol .
Usage
Although at first the IPA may seem too precise to offer much choice in how to transcribe speech, there is in fact a variety of ways to do so. At one end of the spectrum is
narrow transcription, in which every feature of every sound is specified, down to the dialect and speech habits of the individual speaker. At the other end of the spectrum is
broad transcription, which attempts to provide just enough description of the sounds to allow for variations among different speakers’ pronunciation of the same word. In either case, the transcription is generally enclosed in
brackets.
One particular form of a broad transcription is a phonemic transcription. It may be enclosed in slashes if a theoretical model of the essential phonemes in a language is being claimed, thus disregarding all allophonic difference. For example, one particular pronunciation of the English word “little” may be transcribed using the IPA as or . The broad, phonemic transcription, placed between slashes, indicates merely that the word ends with phoneme , but the narrow, allophonic transcription, placed between square brackets, specifies that this final is dark when realized.
Use in dictionaries
Most British English dictionaries now use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciation of words. However, most American volumes use a system that may be more intuitive for readers unfamiliar with the IPA. For example, the pronunciation-representation systems in most American dictionaries use “y” for IPA and “sh” for IPA , reflecting the most common representations of those sounds in written English.
One of the benefits of using an alternative to the IPA is the ability to use a single symbol for a sound pronounced differently in different dialects. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary uses o for the vowel in
cot but ô for the one in
caught . Regional dialects without the
caught-cot merger generally pronounce cot like IPA and côt like IPA , whereas those with the merger pronounce the vowels o and ô the same way . Using one symbol for the vowel in
cot enables the dictionary to provide meaningful pronunciations for speakers of most dialects of English.
On the other hand, the systems used in American dictionaries have their drawbacks. One of these is the difficulty of properly representing sounds not found in the English language, such as and . Another, more significant one is that each dictionary uses its own system of phonetic notation, and hence there is little consistency among different dictionaries.
The IPA is also not universal among dictionaries in other countries and languages. Mass-market Czech multilingual dictionaries, for instance, tend to use the IPA only for sounds not found in the
Czech language, e.g. , etc. It is obvious that the phonetic transcription uses the Czech alphabet . Some symbols are replaced by letters that denote close sounds in Czech, e.g. home [houm] instead of . However, better dictionaries give some comments on the differences in pronuciation in English and Czech. The transcription described above is used because it is more understandable for Czech users than more precise IPA characters.
Educational initiative
There is some interest in using native speakers to produce sound and video files of sufficient breadth to completely demonstrate all the speech sounds covered by the IPA. Such a project would encompass a large subset of the world's languages. This would aid linguistic and anthropologic research, as well as help teach language learning. Specifically, the development of a reference standard using the IPA could be used in order to preserve intact examples of the sounds of human language. For education, the IPA can help standardize resources which prepare students and very young children for universal language acquisition through familiarization and subsequent imitation of the breadth of human speech sounds.
Letters
The International Phonetic Alphabet divides its symbols into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.
Consonants
A pulmonic consonant is a consonant made by obstructing the
glottis or
oral cavity and either simultaneously or subsequently letting out air from the lungs. Pulmonic consonants make up the majority of consonants in the IPA, as well as in human language. All consonants in the English language fall into this cateogry.
The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation and columns that designate
place of articulation. The main chart includes only consonants with a single place of articulation.
Notes:
- Asterisks mark reported sounds that do not have official IPA symbols. See the articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
- Daggers mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: . In the meantime the similarly shaped izhitsa is used here.
- In rows where some symbols appear in pairs , the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant . However, cannot be voiced. In the other rows , the single symbol represents a voiced consonant.
- Although there is a single symbol for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, when dealing with a particular language, the symbols are treated as specifically alveolar, post-alveolar, etc., as appropriate for that language.
- Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
- The symbols represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
- It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives , , and .
Coarticulation
Coarticulated consonants are sounds in which two individual consonants are pronounced at the same time. In English, the [w] in “went” is a coarticulated consonant, as the lips are rounded while the back of the tongue is raised simultaneously. Other languages, such as
French and
Swedish, have different coarticulated consonants.
| |
|---|
| | Voiceless labialized velar approximant |
| | Voiced labialized velar approximant |
| | Voiced labialized palatal approximant |
| | Voiceless palatalized postalveolar fricative |
| | Voiced palatalized postalveolar fricative |
| | Voiceless "palatal-velar" fricative |
Notes:
- is described as a “simultaneous and ”. However, this analysis is disputed. See the article for discussion.
Consonants
Non-pulmonic consonants are sounds which are made without the lungs. These include clicks and implosives .
| |
|---|
| Click releases | Implosives | Ejectives |
|---|
| | Bilabial | | Bilabial | | For example: |
| | Laminal alveolar | | Alveolar | | Bilabial |
| | Apical alveolar | | Palatal | | Alveolar |
| | Laminal postalveolar | | Velar | | Velar |
| | Lateral coronal | | Uvular | | Alveolar fricative |
Notes:
- All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar
...
or
uvular stop, plus a symbol for the anterior release:
etc., or . When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a may usually be assumed.
- Symbols for the voiceless implosives are no longer supported by the IPA, though they remain in Unicode. Instead, the IPA uses the voiced equivalent with a voiceless diacritic: , etc.
- Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, , is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite .
- The ejective symbol is often seen for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as , but these are more properly transcribed as creaky .
Vowels
Notes:
- Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel, as does . All others are unrounded.
- is not confirmed as a distinct phoneme in any language.
- is officially a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and is frequently used for an open central vowel.
- and are written as and respectively in older versions of the IPA.
Affricates and double articulation
Affricates and
doubly articulated stops are represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar, either above or below the symbols. The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third affricate transcription sometimes seen uses the superscript notation for a consonant release, for example for , paralleling ~ . The symbols for the palatal plosives, are often used as a convenience for or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care.
| |
|---|
| Tie bar | Ligature | Description |
|---|
| | | voiceless alveolar affricate |
| | | voiced alveolar affricate |
| | | voiceless postalveolar affricate |
| | | voiced postalveolar affricate |
| | | voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate |
| | | voiced alveolo-palatal affricate |
| | – | voiceless alveolar lateral affricate |
| | – | voiceless labial-velar plosive |
| | – | voiced labial-velar plosive |
| | – | labial-velar nasal stop |
Note:
- If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: .
Diacritics
Diacritics are small markings which are placed around the IPA letter in order to show a certain alteration in the letter's pronunciation. Sub-diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender , i.e. .
The dotless i,
, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: , , , , o . More advanced diacritcs were developed in the Extended IPA for more specific pronunciation encoding.
| Syllabicity diacritics |
|---|
| | Syllabic | | Non-syllabic |
| Consonant-release diacritics |
|---|
| | Aspirated | | No audible release |
| | Nasal release | | Lateral release |
| Phonation diacritics |
|---|
| | Voiceless | | Voiced |
| | Breathy voiced | | Creaky voiced |
| Articulation diacritics |
|---|
| | Dental | | Linguolabial |
| | Apical | | Laminal |
| | Advanced | | Retracted |
| | Centralized | | Mid-centralized |
| | Raised |
| | Lowered |
| Co-articulation diacritics |
|---|
| | More rounded | | Less rounded |
| | Labialized | | Palatalized |
| | Velarized | | Pharyngealized |
| | Velarized or pharyngealized |
| | Advanced tongue root | | Retracted tongue root |
| | Nasalized | | Rhoticity |
Notes:
- Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as .
- With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice.
The state of the glottis can be finely transcribed with diacritics. A series of alveolar plosives ranging from an open to a closed glottis phonation are:
| | voiceless |
| | breathy voice, also called murmured |
| | slack voice |
| | modal voice |
| | stiff voice |
| | creaky voice |
| | glottal closure |
Suprasegmentals
These symbols describe the suprasegmental features of a language, collectively known as a language's prosody. These symbols show the length, stress, pitch, and rhythm of a language. Many suprasegmentals are often reserved for very specific transcriptions intended to convey the differences in speech between individuals or dialects.
| | Primary stress |
| | Secondary stress |
| | Long |
| | Half-long |
| | Extra-short |
| | Syllable break |
| | Linking |
Intonation
The IPA also has a series of suprasegmentals which are used to indicate intonation in language. Certain languages, such as Japanese and Norwegian, posess.
| | Minor break |
| | Major break |
| | Global rise |
| | Global fall |
Tone
IPA allows for the use of either tone diacritics or tone letters to indicate tones. These are used in tonal languages such as Chinese.
| | Extra high |
| | High |
| | Mid |
| | Low |
| or | Extra low |
| | Rise |
| | Fall |
| e | Downstep |
| e | Upstep |
Obsolete symbols, nonstandard symbols, and capital variants
The IPA inherited alternate symbols from various traditions, but eventually settled on one for each sound. The other symbols are now considered obsolete. An example is which has been standardised to . Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that such things should be indicated with diacritics: for is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series has been dropped; they can now be written respectively.
There are also unsupported or ad hoc symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as .
While the IPA does not itself have a set of capital letters, languages have adopted symbols from the IPA as part of their orthographies, and in such cases they have invented capital variants of these. This is especially common in Africa. An example is Kabye of northern Togo, which has . Other IPA-inspired capitals supported by Unicode are .
Extended IPA
The Extended IPA is a new group of symbols for the IPA whose original purpose was to accurately transcribe disordered speech. However, linguists have used it to designate a number of unique sounds within standard communication, such as hushing, gnashing teeth, and smacking lips. The Extended IPA has also been used to record certain peculiarities in an individual's voice, such as whispers, nasalized voicing, and whisperingunds that have no symbols in the IPA
The remaining blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc symbols have appeared in the literature, for example for the lateral flaps and voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. For example, the Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, . Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, . A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap symbol and the advanced diacritic, . Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written . Palatal and uvular taps, if they exist, and the epiglottal tap could be written as extra-short plosives, . A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted , just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals and the palatal trill, while not strictly impossible, are very difficult to pronounce and are unlikely to occur even as allophones in the world's languages.
The vowels are similarly manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering. For example, the unrounded equivalent of can be transcribed as mid-centered , and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised . True mid vowels are lowered , while centered are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The vowels that aren't representable in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic.
Symbol names
An IPA symbol is often distinguished from the sound it is intended to represent since there is not a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound in broad transcription. Official names are described in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, although the name of a symbol may vary in context. The symbols also have nonce names in the Unicode standard. In some cases, the Unicode names and the IPA names do not agree. For example, IPA calls "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".
The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the symbols from the Greek section. Letters which are not directly derived from these alphabets, such as [], may have a variety of names, sometimes based on the appearance of the symbol, and sometimes based on the sound that it represents.
For diacritics, there are two methods of naming. For traditional diacritics, the IPA uses the name of the symbol from a certain language, for example, is acute, based on the name of the symbol in English and French. In non-traditional diacritics, the IPA often names a symbol according to an object it resembles, as is called bridge.
Other phonetic notation
The IPA is not the only phonetic transcription system in use. The other common Latin-based system is the Americanist phonetic notation, devised for representing American languages, but used by some US linguists as an alternative to the IPA. There are also sets of symbols specific to Slavic, Indic, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian linguistics, as well as other regional specialties. The differences between these alphabets and IPA are relatively small, although often the special characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of diacritics or digraphs.
Other alphabets, such as Hangul, may have their own phonetic extensions. There also exist featural phonetic transcription systems, such as Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech and its derivatives.
There is an extended version of the IPA for disordered speech , and another set of symbols used for voice quality . There are also many personal or idiosyncratic extensions, such as Luciano Canepari's canIPA.
Since the IPA uses symbols that are outside the ASCII character set, several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Notable systems include Kirshenbaum, SAMPA, and X-SAMPA. The usage of mapping systems has been declining as technical support for Unicode spreads.
See also
- International Phonetic Alphabet for English explains those IPA symbols used to represent the phonemes of English.
- International Phonetic Alphabet for Dutch explains those IPA symbols used to represent the phonemes of Dutch.
- TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX
written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document preparation system [i] for the
...
.
References
Notes
External links
