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Pronunciation respelling for English

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Denelson83 (talk | contribs) at 03:33, 11 December 2005 (Revert angr's changes; canonical IPA only). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

In order to help American readers who may be unfamiliar with the International Phonetic Alphabet, the following chart matches the consonant and vowel IPA symbols used to represent the sounds in the English language (the generalized standard General American dialect) with the phonetic symbols used in a few American dictionaries/reference materials. This chart is not a comprehensive list of symbols found in pronunciation guides, and it is not a guide to the pronunciation systems found in these works; you will need to consult the individual works to learn the idiosyncratic conventions of each system.

Chart

If viewing this in your browser as opposed to as a hard copy, you may hover over the abbreviations with your mouse to get the full titles.

Consonants

IPA AHD MWCD NOAD RHD MECD DPL DPN NBC MWO A example
b b b b b b b b b b b bib
tʃ ch ch CH c͜h ch ch ch ch ch č church
d d d d d d d d d d d deed, milled
f f f f f f f f f f f fife, phase, rough
ɡ g g g g g g g g g g gag
h h h h h h h h h h h hat
ʍ hw hw hw hw hw hw hw which
dʒ j j j j j j j j j ǰ judge
k k k k k k k k k k k kick, cat, pique
x KH k KH K͜H - - - - [k] x Scottish loch
l l l l l l l l l l l lid, needle
m m m m m m m m m m m mum
n n n n n n n n n n n no, sudden
ŋ ng ŋ NG n​͡g ng ŋ ng ng [ng] ŋ thing
p p p p p p p p p p p pop
ɹ r r r r r r r r r r roar
s s s s s s s s s s s sauce
ʃ sh sh SH s͜h sh sh sh sh sh š ship, dish, ration
t t t t t t t t t t t tight, stopped
θ th th TH t͜h th th th th th θ thin
ð th th TH th̸ th th t̷h th: [th] ð this
v v v v v v v v v v v valve
w w w w w w w w w w w with
j y y y y y y y y y y yes
z z z z z z z z z z z zebra, xylem
ʒ zh zh ZH z͜h zh zh zh zh zh ž vision, pleasure

Vowels

IPA AHD MWCD NOAD RHD MECD DPL DPN NBC MWO A example
æ ă a æ a a a a a a æ pat, lad, cat, ran
e ā ā ā ā ay ā ay ay A e pay, day
ɛr âr ar er âr air air ar εr care, hair, there
ɑ ä ä, ȧ ä ä aa ä aw, o ah ä, [a'] a father
ɑr är är är är aar är ahr är ar arm
ɛ ĕ e e e e e ɛ e e ε let, head
i ē ē ē ē ee ē ē ee E i bee, see
ɪ ĭ i i i i i i i i ɪ pit, city
aɪ ī ī ī ī ī ī y igh I ay pie, by, my
ɪr îr ir ir ēr eer ir ɪr pier, near, here
ɑ ŏ ä ä o o ä o ah ä a pot, not, wasp
o ō ō ō ō ō ō ō oh O o toe, no
ɔ ô ȯ ô ô aw ô aw, o aw o ɔ caught, paw, for, horrid, hoarse, law, all
ɔɪ oi ȯi oi oi oy oi oy oi oi ɔy noise, boy
ʊ o͝o u̇ o͝o o͝o o͝o oo u oo u ᴜ took, put
ʊr o͝or u̇r o͝or o͝or oor ur ᴜr tour
u o͞o ü o͞o o͞o oo o͞o ū oo: ü u boot, soon, through
aʊ ou au̇ ow ou ow ou ow ow au aw out, now
ʌ ŭ ə ə u u u ʋ UH & ʌ cut, run, enough
ɝ ûr ər ər ûr ur ʉr er ER &r ər urge, term, firm, word, heard, bird
ə ə ə ə ə ə ə e uh &, & ə about, item, edible, gallop, circus
ɚ ər ər ər ər ər ər er er &r ər butter, winner
ju yo͞o yü yo͞o yo͞o yoo yo͞o yū yoo: yü yu pupil
IPA AHD MWCD NOAD RHD MECD DPL DPN NBC MWO A example

Notes:

  • The older IPA symbols (ι, ɷ) are sometimes encountered for [ɪ] and [ʊ], respectively.
  • The symbol [ʍ] is sometimes encountered in place of [hw].
  • The works referenced above adhere (for the most part) to the one-symbol-per-sound principle. Other works not included here, such as Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged, 2nd ed.), do not and thus have several different symbols for the same sound.

Title abbreviations

See also

Note: This page uses special characters

This article contains special characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols.

Technical Note: Most IPA symbols are not included in Times New Roman, the default font for Latin scripts in Internet Explorer for Windows. To properly view IPA symbols in Internet Explorer for Windows, you must set your browser font to a typeface that includes the IPA extensions, such as Lucida Sans Unicode (which comes with Windows XP), Gentium (which is freely available), Doulos (SIL) (same source, SIL), or Arial Unicode MS (which comes with Microsoft Office). Alternatively, the style sheet could try using unicode-range specifications to note the gaps where Times does not have glyphs for IPA, Hawaiian ‘okina (glottal stop), etc. and thus hopefully forced the browser to check further down the list of fonts.

On this page, we have forced the browser to use such a font, so it should appear correctly, but this hasn't yet been done to all the other pages containing IPA. This also applies to other pages using special symbols. Bear this in mind if you see error symbols such as "蚟" in articles.

Special symbols should display properly without further configuration with Mozilla Firefox, Konqueror, Opera, Safari and most other recent browsers.

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