International Phonetic Alphabet

LING101September 2, 2009

Quickwrite #2

• The international phonetic alphabet (IPA) was developed so that phoneticians can transcribe the speech sounds of all languages. Why did they have to invent a new system? For example, why couldn’t they use the English writing system?

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• The goal is to unambiguously transcribe the speech sounds of all languages– Alphabetic writing systems can only represent the

sounds of their language– Letter to sound correspondence is frequently

ambiguous

English Consonants in IPAp pill t till k kill

b bill d dill g gill

m mill n nil ŋ ring

f feel s seal h heal

v veal z zeal l leaf

θ thigh t7ʃ chill ɹ reef

ð thy ʤ Jill j you

ʃ shill ʍ which w witch

ʒ measure

English Vowels in IPAi beet I bit

e bait ɛ bet

u boot ʊ foot

o boat ɔ bore

æ bat a pot/bar

ʌ butt ə sofa

aj bite aw bout

ɔj boy

Digression: California Vowel Shift

• http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/vowels.html• http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=1693373&m=1693374

More IPA

• IPA chart (you can hear the sounds that each symbol represents)

• Find the IPA symbols for sounds of English

Phonemes and allophones

• No two phones are really the same– Different speaker– Same word, same speaker

• If substituting one phone for another does not change the meaning, two phones belong to an abstract unit called phoneme

• We will study more about phonemes when we discuss phonology

Broad and narrow transcription

• An utterance can be phonetically transcribed differently depending on how detailed the transcription is

• At one end of the spectrum, one can simply write down the phonemes– [bʌtəɹ]

• One can transcribe the utterance in greater phonetic detail• [bʌɾəɹ]

IPA to English

• [bit]• [lædəɹ]• [mʌŋki]• [ɵɹu]• [ʃap]• [koʧ]

English to IPA

• cough• huge• rhythm• slyly• child• easy• February• gauge• monk

• leather• pushed• whale• vegetable• torque• raspberry• carton• seizure• thief