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Understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system that transcribes phonemes, the distinct sounds of a language, using primarily Roman characters along with some borrowed symbols. It consists of 44 characters, including 24 consonants and 20 vowel sounds, which are categorized into monophthongs and diphthongs. The document details the characteristics of vowels and consonants, including their articulation and examples of long and short vowels, as well as voiceless and voiced consonants.

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121 views12 pages

Understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system that transcribes phonemes, the distinct sounds of a language, using primarily Roman characters along with some borrowed symbols. It consists of 44 characters, including 24 consonants and 20 vowel sounds, which are categorized into monophthongs and diphthongs. The document details the characteristics of vowels and consonants, including their articulation and examples of long and short vowels, as well as voiceless and voiced consonants.

Uploaded by

samjoshua422
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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IPA

International Phonetic Alphabet


• Is transcribed between slashes.
• Each letter symbol represents a phoneme
• Phoneme is a single distinctive sound of a language
• The term phoneme is usually restricted to vowels and consonants
• Primarily uses Roman characters
• Other letters are borrowed from different scripts
• Consists of 44 characters – 24 consonants and 20 vowel sounds
• 20 vowels – 8 diphthongs & 12 monophthongs
• phthong means sound or tone

• monophthongs has pure vowels

• Diphthong – two vowel sounds combine to create one other vowel


sound

• Diphthongs are also called as glide vowels

• Monophthong is a vowel is spoken with exactly one tone and one


mouth position.

• /k/ - start and end of a transcription


• Vowels :

• Each horizontal row depicts the extent to which the mouth is open
(narrow to wide)

• Each vertical column depicts the position of the tongue (front to


back)

• Dipthong:

• Combination of two vowel sounds in a syllable

• They are arranged according to the second sound


• first column has the /ə/ sound

• second column has the /ɪ/ sound in written but pronounced in the longer and similar /iː/

• The third column has the /ʊ/ sound in the written but pronounced in the longer and similar /uː/

• In consonants the first two rows are paired with similar sounds

• Each pair words are produced with tongue position and mouth in same position but the sound
varies according to play of vocal cords

• Them being the voiceless and voiced consecutively

• Voicless sound is produced only from the air passing through mouth

• Voiced sound is produced by air passing through the vocal cords vibrating and then through the
mouth

• The last row has the single consonants


Long Vowels
• iː - fleece, sea, machine, we, bean

• uː - goose, shoe, two, blue, group

• ɑː - father, car, bath

• ɔː - door, shore, thought, law, north, war, four

• ɜː - girl, nurse, stir, learn, refer


Short Vowels
• ɪ - sit, biscuit, hymn, minute
• ʊ - foot, shook, good, pulp
• ʌ - mug, strut, duck, above, blood
• ɒ - stop, lock, wash
• ə - about, cinema, the, anger, mirror, standard
• e – dead, met, dress, many
• æ – apple, trap, stand
• ɜː - girl, nurse, stir, learn, refer
Diphthongs
• ɪə - mere, steered, hearing
• ʊə - tourist, poorly, sewer
• eə - barely, flair, shared

• eɪ - today, pay, stay, macaulay


• ɔɪ - boy, Toyota, soya
• aɪ - sky, myself, fry, tied

• əʊ - no, so, slow, hoe


• aʊ - cow, how, thou,
Consonants
Voiceless Voiced

• p – path, apple, tap • b – bath, able, cab


• t – true, want, stand • d – done, cod, budding
• ʧ - cheese, touch, teacher • ʤ - adjust, jolly, judge, genie
• k – like, care, Christ • g – gun, signature, ghost

• f – phase, life, cough • v – vase, live, stove


• θ – birth, thick, think, both • ð – this, mother, bother, they
• s – sea, certain, ice • z – resume, laze, noise
• ʃ - show, lush, wish • ʒ - leisure, vision
Voiced Voiceless

• m – mean, came, • h – hat, hallow


• n – now, learn, sincere
• ŋ – sing, thing, think
• l – love, sole
• r – real, around
• w – way, wind
• j – yum, yesterday

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