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Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Abbreviations below: AmE = American English; BrE = British English (Received Pronunciation)
Vowels
English 'plain' vowels
* The English [o] and [e] vowels are realized as diphthongs, but they are included here with the plain vowels because the [ɪ] and [ʊ] are just off-glides.
The symbol [ː] is just the IPA symbol that means the vowel to the left is long. The vowels marked here with [ː] are the English vowels that are usually longer than the others. The distinction between long and short vowels is more pronounced in British English than in American English (where many researchers do not transcribe any length for vowels at all).
Note about [ɑ] and [ɔ]: For a large number of speakers of American English, there is no distinction between these vowels. This is frequently called the cot-caught merger. For many of these speakers, the two vowels have merged as [ɑ]; for others they have merged with [ɔ].
Reduced vowels
These are vowels that occur in unstressed syllables.
- roses - AmE close central unrounded vowel (called barred-i), BrE near-close near-front unrounded vowel
- IPA AmE [ɨ], BrE [ɪ]
- SAMPA AmE [1], BrE [I]
- Rosa 's - This sound is called schwa
- runner - AmE only. This is called an r-colored schwa. This is a single sound, not a sequence of schwa and r.
- button - This is called syllabic n.
- bottle - This is called syllabic l.
- open pronounced "opm" - AmE rapid speech only. This is called syllabic m.
Some speakers do not have a contrast between barred-i and schwa.
R-colored vowels
These are plain vowels that are followed by r.
- bird
- IPA AmE [ɝ] BrE [ɜ]
- SAMPA AmE[3`] BrE [3]
- beard
- IPA AmE [iɹ] BrE [ɪə]
- SAMPA AmE[ir\] BrE [I@]
- marry *
- merry *
- Mary * / bared
- IPA AmE [ɛɹ] BrE [ɛə]
- SAMPA AmE[Er\] BrE [E@]
- bard
- IPA AmE [ɑɹ] BrE [ɑː]
- SAMPA AmE[Ar\] BrE [A:]
- board
- IPA AmE [ɔɹ] BrE [ɔː]
- SAMPA AmE[Or\] BrE [O:]
- boor
- IPA AmE [ʊɹ] BrE [ʊə]
- SAMPA AmE[Ur\] BrE [U@]
- Often IPA [ɔː]/SAMPA [O:] in BrE
- After palatals (e.g. in sure, jury, cure, Europe) often IPA [ɝ]/SAMPA [3`] in AmE
- byre
- IPA AmE [aɪɚ] BrE [aɪə]
- SAMPA AmE[aI@`] BrE[aI@]
- Bauer
- IPA AmE [aʊɚ] BrE[aʊə]
- SAMPA AmE[aU@`] BrE[aU@]
* For many speakers of American English, all or some of [æ], [ɛ], and [e] are merged before [ɹ]. That is, merry, marry, and/or Mary are homophones. The vowel is pronounced as [ɛɹ]. For speakers of British English, these sequences are just the plain vowel, with [ɹ] beginning the next syllable;
Also note that speakers with the [ɑ]/[ɔ] merger usually still pronounce the vowel in core as [ɔɹ].
It was formerly widespread in AmE (and still is to some extant in Ireland and generally in Scotland) to have a phonemic contrast between [ɔɹ] in words like north, cord, horse, war and [oɹ] in words like force, board, hoarse, wore.
Diphthongs
Diphthongs are vowel sounds that smoothly glide from one vowel to another.
- Often considered a sequence of [j] and [uː] rather than a diphthong
Consonants
Stops
The voiceless stops, [p], [t], and [k] are aspirated when they occur at the beginning of stressed or word-initial syllables. Aspiration is marked in IPA with a superscript h. These symbols are thus [pʰ], [tʰ], [kʰ]. It is not always necessary to include the superscript h when transcribing English into IPA because speakers make the distinction automatically.
Affricates
Affricates are phonetically just sequence of a stop and a fricative.
A distinction is made in English between affricates and a sequence of a stop and fricative, because a syllable boundary never separates an affricate, but it might separate a stop/fricative sequence. The contrast can be heard in the phrases why choose, in which [tʃ] is an affricate, and white shoes, in which it is a sequence of stop + fricative.
Fricatives
Note that the th in thigh and thy are different sounds. The latter is voiced, the former is voiceless.
Some linguists consider [h] a glide rather than a fricative.
Nasals
Note that engma only occurs postvocalically (after vowels) in English.
Approximants
Approximants, also called liquids, are smooth sounds that are almost like vowels.
[w] and [j] are also called glides.
Suprasegmentals
The suprasegmental symbols are called that because they apply to more than one segment, or symbol. In English, the relevant suprasegmentals are the markings for primary and secondary stress.
- primary stress
- secondary stress
- syllable break
IPA examples
The square brackets around IPA symbols are not part of the IPA itself, but just serve to indicate that the contents of the brackets are not normal text, but IPA symbols. The distinction is important, as some IPA transcriptions can look like other words. For example, the IPA transcription for bean is [bin].
- phonetician AmE [ˌfoʊnəˈtɪʃn̩] BrE [ˌfəʊnəˈtɪʃən]
See also
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