If any of these stranger human voice sounds have IPA annotations

Question

Wondering if the following sounds have written transcriptions / annotations in IPA or any other system:

• Snooring sound (breathing in, "hoooonk" is a trill of some sort, then the breathing out "shoo" is already transcribed).
• Screaming sound. The raspiness in the voice. If the raspy h is transcribed (𝛘), maybe this is too.
• Female grunty/grungy (the "whoawhoawhoawhoa" there) singing sound (like Christina Aguilera does when she says "not" right here, as well as others).
• The "~huh!" sound when you get scared and breath in really quickly. It is voiced and a little raspy, deep in the larynx I think.
• Vibratto (singing).
• Cough sound.
• Stick tongue out and rattle, like "nany-nany-nany pthththththt" stick your tongue out at someone.
• "ks ks", the sound when you suck in air in the side of your mouth, stick up your thumbs, (maybe snap), then point at some one, like "yep, you got it, right on."
• The rain drop sound when flicking the side of your mouth.
• The "monster voice" where you talk so low that it vibrates at the bottom of your throat, seemingly without "voice".
• Whistle.

Other sounds that can be transcribed are "hmmm...", and "psh!", and "hahaha". So wondering if these things can be also. A scream is typically just "ahhhh!" or something like that. But it doesn't include the raspiness in the voice, like Linkin Park's scream. Also, the "click" sound is transcribed, which is cool.

Answer 1

More extensive than extIPA are the Voice Quality Symbols which build on them; they still don't meet all of OP's requirements, but there's some amusement to be had with e.g. {И} electrolaryngeal phonation or {V!} harsh voice ("Harsh voice includes the use of the ventricular folds (the false vocal cords) to damp the glottis in a way similar to what happens when a person talks while lifting a heavy load, or, if the sound is voiceless, like clearing one's throat.")

Answer 2

I appreciate these questions, because playful exploration of how to accurately transcribe paralinguistic sounds can help us become more linguistically aware, and also increase fluency in the IPA, the extIPA, and the VoQS (Vocal Quality Symbols). Plus, in the future, the IPA / extIPA / VoQS could be of use in notating scripts for voice actors and vocal sound effects artists, similar to how IPA is now making inroads in music lyric notation for singers. So, without further ado:

Q #1: Snoring sound? (breathing in, "hoooonk" is a trill of some sort, then the breathing out "shoo" is already transcribed).

A: There's at least two different kinds of snores:

1. The "snorting pig-like" style, with the flapping uvula: ingressive voiceless uvular trill: [ʀ̥↓]
2. The "way back in the root of the nose" style, like "hnngkh": **ingressive voiceless velopharyngeal trill: [ ◌̥ ↓]

As for the outbreath...I see at least five basic variants:

1. Plain outbreath, with no salient oral articulation, voiceless full airstream phonation: [hː] or [↑ː]. And the length could be marked: [↑ːː] or [↑ːːː], etc.
2. Outbreath with (voiceless) central coloration [hə◌̥ːː] or [↑ə◌̥ːː] or [hᵊːː] or [↑ᵊːː]
3. Outbreath with audible mouth breathing (neutral/flat lip setting): [h⁀ɸːːː] or [↑⁀ɸːːː] or [hᶲːːː] or [↑ᶲːːː]
4. Outbreath with rounded lips, like "whooo": [hʷːːː] or [ɸʷːːː] or [↑ʷːːː]
5. But you write the outbreath as "shoo", so maybe you're picturing inter-dental (plus labial) friction on the outbreath, maybe like [h̪͆ʷːːː]. Breathing out with the teeth closed (the "sh-"), but with lippy friction as well (the "oo").

Q #2: Screaming sound? (link to Linkin Park example). The raspiness in the voice. If the raspy h is transcribed (𝛘), maybe this is too.

No, I don't hear any uvular fricative or uvular trill in the Linkin Park clip you shared. He's not hocking a loogie [𝛘], nor German "r"s [ʀ].

I'm not an expert in the physiology of metal screaming, but it sounds like he's doing a "ventricular scream", trilling the ventricular folds of the glottis as he enunciates the lyrics and sings the pitch. So, basically, as far as I can tell, you can just surround the IPA transcription of the lyrics with the "ventricular phonation" symbols: [{V‼ insert lyrics here V‼}]. For an even more complete transcription, the IPA transcription of the lyrics could be placed beneath the music score for his part.

Q #3: Female grunty/grungy (the "whoawhoawhoawhoa" there) singing sound? [Answerer edit: I snipped the broken Aguilera link in the OP; but here's link to a couple of similar "grunty" Aguilera sounds at 0.00s and 0.04s]

Interesting "whoawhoawhoa" clip. Might also call this "yoda talk." BTW, I think linguists should really study the phonology of cartoon and puppet voices -- there's a huge variety of unusual phonations and colorations, some of which may be applicable to understanding actual languages. In fact, this book does address the qualities of Yoda's voice: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/voice-quality/62327F676CC6B8823389A76449731F85

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the book, but my guess is that Yoda talk is "laryngo-pharyngealized voice" {V◌̙ˤ} (the overall compressed, lowered, retracted quality) plus "ary-epiglottal voice" {Vᴬᴬ} (the 'monstrous' laryngeal trill you hear throughout). The female actor you sampled briefly shifts into that for "woahwoahwoah", but then she does it some more as a "helpless monster voice."

Anyway, in my perspective, this would be a transcription: (And "allegro"="fast", because she rushes the words.)

[{allegro V◌̙ˤᴬᴬ woʊ.woʊ.woʊ V◌̙ˤᴬᴬ allegro}]

In the new Aguilera clip I linked to above, the first couple of "no matter" lyrics (at 0 sec and 4 sec) also have, what seems to me, ary-epiglottal trilled phonation {Vᴬᴬ}. I'm not totally sure about the physiology here. Voice experts feel free to chime in. Singers like Aguilera shift into these super-throaty vocal qualities for a moment, for some strong dramatic emphasis.

Q #4: The "~huh!" sound when you get scared and breath in really quickly? It is voiced and a little raspy, deep in the larynx I think.

A gasp. It's just a semi-voiced ingressive glottal fricative. With or without central coloring. "Semi-voiced" because it's physiologically impossible to fully voice a pulmonic ingressive fricative.

The typical high-rising tone could be marked with the Chao tone letter [˧˥] or the old-style IPA tone high-rising diacritic [◌᷄ ].

The sudden onset could be marked with the music notation “subito” (sudden).

1. [{subito ɦː↓˧˥}]
2. [{subito ɦə◌̤ ː↓˧˥}] (with central coloration)

You asked about the (semi-)voiced gasp, but a gasp could be voiceless.

Q #5: Vibrato (singing)?

By adapting music notation for IPA, here are four ways of writing it: 1. {con vibrato} 2. {con vib.} 3. {vibrato} 4. {vib.}

If you want to distinguish between narrow vibrato (a tight wave) or wide vibrato (wide waviness), you could put these wavy lines above the IPA transcription:

Q #6: Cough sound?

Well, there’s a lot of different kinds of cough. One of the basic features seems to be an ejective glottal stop [ʔ’]. But there can be a lot of other stuff going on, including sub-glottal sounds, that is “respiratory sounds”, such as phlegm coming up from the lungs! “Respiratory sounds” are of course are not included in IPA, but you could include medical terminology in the transcription if you wanted to be specific. Breath sounds are classified as vesicular, bronchovesicular, bronchial or tracheal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiratory_sounds

But here’s a basic, super light cough. As in, “I’m jokingly pretending to be sick” kind of cough:

[ʔ’h◌̩ ʔ’h◌̩]

A slight step up in intensity might include pharyngealized/constricted out-breath. Maybe something like this:

[ʔ’ħ◌̩ ʔ’ħ◌̩] or [ʔ’ə◌̥ˤ ʔ’ə◌̥ˤ] (with central coloration)

As I try pharyngealized coughing myself, one interesting feature I’ve never paid attention to is the high wheezy overtone from the constriction. A similar wheezy overtone is also heard when I start to laugh hard. There seems to be a central vocalic coloration. But I’m not sure how to mark the wheeze overtone pitch! And I'm not even sure where the "wheeze overtone" is resonating in my body (in the lungs? in the bronchial tubes? at the top of the pharynx?)

Q #7: Stick tongue out and rattle, like "nany-nany-nany pthththththt" stick your tongue out at someone?

There are a few different variations of that. Either way, it’s a voiceless protruded linguo-inter-labial trill. The symbol for “tongue protruded” is {Θ}.

One version has normal voiceless plumonary phonation. Or you can hold the glottis closed, and use the air in the oral cavity to make a “squirt”—that’s a non-pulmonary, oral (a.k.a. buccal) airstream: {ↀ}. You can also make a wetter version by using the airstream to make the upper lip and upper vestibule (the space between the upper lip and upper gums) strongly trill (wet flapping), instead of the tongue buzzing. I say "instead", because when I try it, if I switch into upper lip flapping that uses up the airstream that was being used to make the tip of the tongue buzz.

Here are those three transcriptions:

1. pulmonary voiceless protruded-tongue inter-labial lingual trill: [{Θ r̼̊ }]
2. non-pulmonary buccal airstream protruded-tongue inter-labial lingual squirt: [{ↀΘ r̼̊}]
3. pulmonary voiceless protruded-tongue inter-labial with upper labial-vestibular strongly articulated trill: [{Θ ʙ◌̼◌̥◌͈ }]

Q #8: "ks ks", the sound when you suck in air in the side of your mouth, stick up your thumbs, (maybe snap), then point at some one, like "yep, you got it, right on."?

That’s a voiceless lateral click with a fricated release (a.k.a. voiceless lateral ingressive affricate click): [ǁɬ↓] If you’re making it with your right cheek, it’s: [ǁɬ>↓] If you’re making it with your left cheek, it’s: [ǁɬ<↓]

If, for fun, you wanted to add the archetypal wink and one-raised cheek, you could supplement the IPA with the IMWA—the International Movement Writing Alphabet:

Either “Right Eye Closed” or “Left Eye Closed”: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/146%20Facial-Expressions.html

And “Right Cheek Tense High” or “Left Cheek Tense High”: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/148%20Facial-Expressions.html

You might also add the “gun-shaped” pointing finger/hand gesture: Closed Fist (the square hand symbol) + Palm Facing Vertical (the half white/half black square) + Index Finger + Thumb: The second symbol from the upper right: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/073%20Hand-Group9.html

You mentioned specifically "snapping" though. I'm sure that IMWA has a snapping symbol too, I just don't feel like looking it up. :)

Q #9: The rain drop sound when flicking the side of your mouth? (link to sample video)

The first variant depicted in that video is a non-pulmonary oral (buccal) airstream linguo-motive endo-labial whistle with digito-exo-buccal fortification (finger-to-cheek exterior).

The second variant has digito-sub-mentonian fortification (finger-to-the area beneath the chin).

Also of note, the speaker demonstrates that the underlying oral process (without the finger flick) can be done egressively or ingressively in succession [↑] or [↓].

There is also naturally a rising pitch in the whistle: [ˇ] (tone superscript) or [˩˥] (Chao tone letter)

Variant One: [{ↀ◌̺ [insert IMWA symbols here]◌͢◌ɸʷ◌͎ˇː}]

*The IMWA symbols would include: finger flick shape, the IMWA striking symbol, and the IMWA cheek symbol.

I combined the buccal airstream with the apical diacritic {ↀ◌̺ }, since the tongue is basically silently pressing the buccal air towards the lips in order to make the labial whistle.

Variant Two: same, except for using an IMWA "underside-of-the-chin" symbol (instead of the cheek).

The IMWA finger flick shape symbol would be found here: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/087%20Finger-Movements.html The IMWA strike symbol is here: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/080%20Contact-Symbols.html The IMWA cheek symbol would be found here: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/148%20Facial-Expressions.html

For “variant two”, the IMWA chin symbol is here: https://www.signwriting.org/lessons/lessonsw/153%20Facial-Expressions.html . Its underside could be specified with an IMWA diacritic.

Q #10: The "monster voice" where you talk so low that it vibrates at the bottom of your throat, seemingly without "voice"?

Not sure what example you're picturing, but maybe Vocal Fry Register {V̰} or Whispery Ventricular Phonation {Ṿ‼}. Plus maybe Pharyngealization {Vˤ} or Laryngo-pharyngealized (retracted tongue-root) {V̙ˤ}. And/or "ary-epiglottal trilled voice" {Vᴬᴬ}? Some combination of these will sound like a deep dark Yoda monster.

Q #11: Whistle?

There are a lot of different articulations for whistling. The extIPA uses this diacritic for all of them. ◌͎ .

Pucker whistling is what people generally think of first. This could be transcribed simply as [ɸʷ◌͎ ]. As the “lyrics” of a musical score, you could mark the beat length of each whistled “vocable” by using the IPA length marks [ɸʷ◌͎ ː] (two beats) *[ɸʷ◌͎ ːːː] (four beats), etc.; and/or by the music notes (quarter notes, half notes, whole notes, etc.) on the score above the IPA.

It’s possible to use pulmonic voice at the same time as a pucker whistle—that’s a hummed whistle. That could be transcribed as [βʷ◌͎ ] or [ɸʷ◌̬◌͎ ]

The Shona language has lingual whistle shibilant phonemes, which use the tongue against the roof of the mouth. These are a completely different process than pucker whistles. The Shona phonemes happen to have secondary labial rounding, but lingual whistles don’t have to be rounded. And a lingual whistle could theoretically be articulated anywhere from post-alveolar to dental.

Here’s a (somewhat questionable and incomplete) list of types of whistling, gleaned from: https://talesofonecity.wordpress.com/2023/10/09/the-art-of-whistling/

• Pucker whistling: the pucker is the most common form of whistling. In this form of whistling, air is either expelled or sucked through pursed lips to produce turbulence and in turn, the whistle.

• Finger whistling: it is also known as wolf whistling and the technique involves inserting fingers in the mouth to shape its opening. The whistle produced by this method is forceful and the sound is loud.

• Palatal or Roof whistling: in this type of whistling, the air that is pushed between the roof of the mouth and tongue produces the turbulence. [I believe this is another name for the Shona-type of lingual whistling.]

• Hand whistling: to whistle in this manner, the hands should be cupped together, and the air needs to be blown out of the mouth into the resonant chamber formed by hands.

• Bottom-lip whistling: the bottom-lip whistling is performed by sucking the air inside the mouth. The turbulence in this type of whistling is created by pinching the bottom lip at the centre. The sound produced by this method is piercing and one should practice regularly in order to master this loud whistling technique.

• Teeth whistling: it is the most difficult form of whistling and requires the whistler to draw air through the central incisors.

• Throat whistling: the mouth is kept closed for whistling in this manner. In this method of whistling, the air is forced between the tongue and the back of the throat.

[The non-pulmonary buccal airstream lingo-motive labial whistling mentioned above, is missing from this list. The lips are puckered, but unlike in normal "pucker whistling" the airstream is not pulmonic. So here the tongue is doing the work (with a bit of help from the finger flick) in order to press the air toward the lips, since the lungs aren't doing the work.]

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I hope I answered your questions!

Answer 3

There is an extension of IPA called extIPA for disordered speech that cover a lot of the things you have asked for. Those extensions are also added to the Unicode standard and available on the computer.