Questions tagged [ipa]
The International Phonetic Alphabet: A Latin-based alphabet designed for transcribing all sounds of all languages.
13
votes
2answers
1k views
How is an IPA symbol that lacks a name (e.g. ɲ) called?
Some IPA symbols such as ɲ lack any name, and when I tried searching for the symbol online, the pages I got only showed palatal nasal.
But I wonder how I should call it when I talk with others. Is ...
0
votes
1answer
70 views
The TRAP vowel: a or ä?
If my mouth is open and my tongue is completely relaxed, do I make an [a] or an [ä]?
Which one is more common for the TRAP vowel in British English?
1
vote
1answer
21 views
With SSML phoneme tags using IPA phonetic symbols, how can I insert pauses to slow down pronounciation?
Note
For my text to speech engine (I use Cereproc, William Voice).
The engine can be used on the website here:
https://www.cereproc.com/
and it supports the ssml tags used in this question..
...
10
votes
1answer
771 views
How to split IPA spelling into syllables
First, please forgive my ignorance, I'm completely new to linguistics.
Given the IPA spelling for word, is it possible to programmatically split it into its sounds? So, for example, given the word "...
1
vote
0answers
137 views
Why do we transcribe the vowel sound in 'how' as /aʊ/?
The diphthong /aʊ/ doesn't really make sense to me as a transcription. I'm a Southern British English speaker, and when I say and hear 'how' it sounds to me like /hæɒw/.
/a/ doesn't seem to exist as ...
0
votes
1answer
62 views
What does a long mid-high unrounded back vowel sound like?
I'm trying to figure out what the Livonian character ȱ sounds like. As far as I can tell, it's a long mid-high unrounded back vowel. In IPA it seems to be written as /ɤː/ but that seems to be a non-...
-1
votes
3answers
110 views
Why are two versions of a word written in the same IPA pronounced differently?
My question is to be applied on any language; why do I find for instance two versions of the same word written in the same IPA symbols pronounced differently, in case of different accents for example. ...
2
votes
2answers
113 views
Do any modern orthographies use capital esh?
The letter "esh" (ʃ) is well-known from the IPA, and is also used in some languages' orthographies. Because of this second use case, Unicode includes a capital esh at U+01A9 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER ESH (...
2
votes
0answers
44 views
What is the difference between ŋ͡͡j and ɲ? [duplicate]
I was thinking about how a "b̃" is the same thing as an "m" and a "s̪" is the same thing as a "θ". Maybe the same applies to ŋ͡͡j and ɲ?
5
votes
2answers
308 views
Question about nasal vowels in IPA
Probably a silly question, but why are there no nasal vowels in IPA charts? Should we assume that nasal vowels are placed in the same position as the corresponding oral vowels in the vocal chart? So ...
3
votes
2answers
267 views
IPA Pronunciation of Unvoiced Consonants Seems Like Voiced
This might be a trivial question, but it seems to me that certain unvoiced example pronunciations for IPA sounds resemble the voiced one. For example, on this site:
http://www....
1
vote
0answers
79 views
Is it appropriate to say that [ɕ] is an intermediate form of [ʃ ç]?
The description is found in a paper about the German fricatives
https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/labphon.2014.5.issue-1/lp-2014-0005/lp-2014-0005.xml
How do the three sound differ from each other in ...
-1
votes
1answer
77 views
What is the maximum number of IPA diacritics that can be added on a vowel?
What would the symbol look like, and how would it sound like? E.g. a long rhotacized nasalized vowel with tone?
1
vote
1answer
126 views
What the palatalized [ʲ] means
So I'm pretty sure I understand labialized [ʷ] and some of the other superscripts, but I don't fully understand palatalized [ʲ]. An example of palatalized is Abkhaz, Selkup, Bulgarian, and Yanesha. ...
-2
votes
1answer
90 views
What IPA does in these complex cases
I'm trying to think of examples where the IPA symbols get really complex, and find phonologies with those symbols. I'm not quite there in understanding all the aspects of IPA, but I wanted to see if ...
1
vote
2answers
84 views
System for intermixing IPA with Orthography
So in English the word hi sounds like /haɪ/, but can be spelled "hi", "high", etc. So if you wanted to define the word "high" in English you would have to write two things:
high (the spelling/...
2
votes
2answers
123 views
Given both a word and the corresponding IPA, how to match/map the letters together?
Given both the word and the corresponding IPA equivalent, is there any stable algorithm for mapping the letter of each word to the IPA letter?
For example, given close-quote and IPA kloʊzkwoʊt -- I'd ...
-3
votes
2answers
127 views
Some questions on pieces missing from the IPA sheet [closed]
So the tilde used on the top vs. the bottom means different things (nasal vs. creaky voice). This got me wondering if the [ ̥ ] ring means anything differently when it is on the top as seen here ŋ̊. ...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
Accurately representing stress
Wondering how to accurately represent stress. In IPA, stress, is marked with ˈ◌. But in languages like Spanish (don't know of other languages that use acute accent, other than Ancient Greek), you have ...
0
votes
1answer
59 views
How to annotate the difference between blended vowels and non-blended vowels
Similar to this question about consonants, I'm wondering how you annotate with IPA (or any other system if IPA doesn't support it) the difference between blending vowels together (morphing between ...
-3
votes
1answer
56 views
If diacritics cause duplication in IPA
So in first learning the IPA I went through the consonants and the vowels. This is confusing because in the consonants chart you see stuff like [d̪] or [ʎ̥˔]. At first I thought these were just some ...
1
vote
1answer
49 views
How to annotate “popping” vs. non-popping sounds of sequential consonants
How to write (orthography) words in a distinct way to capture the essence of these pronunciations (I'll try to use IPA but probably will do it wrong so adding another variation).
hip /hɪp/
hipo /hɪpo/...
-2
votes
1answer
40 views
How to write IPA for a slovenian word Midva? [closed]
can someone please help me how to write the pronunciation for the word "Midva" that English speaking people will understand?
In Slovene it is [ˈmiːdva]
0
votes
1answer
112 views
General American English words for IPA vowel sounds
Looking at the Danish vowels, it came up with this translation:
a hat
ɑ art
ɑː father
ʌ off
ɒ og
ɒː dog
æ bet
æː bed
e face
ɛ ?
eː phase
ɛː ?
i leaf
iː leave
o oak
ɔ thought
...
-1
votes
1answer
316 views
The difference between [h] and [ħ]
I am trying to tell the difference between [h] and [ħ]. I get the technical difference of pharyngeal vs. glottal, but I don't see how it's possible to control those two regions of your anatomy ...
2
votes
1answer
179 views
What parentheses and tildes mean in IPA / phonology chart
Why some symbols in phonology charts are put in parentheses or brackets, such as (z), or [ɲ], and why there is a tilde ~ in some places, such as dz [dʒ ~ dz]. Wondering what that means exactly, if it ...
1
vote
1answer
100 views
Missing IPA symbols
Sometimes phonologies have symbols that I haven't seen in the IPA, such as ᵘa or k͜xʰ. Wondering how I go about finding out what these mean, and/or why they don't use the IPA symbols. Wondering if ...
1
vote
2answers
452 views
When should I use /ə/ or /ɪ/ and why does it seem like they're not used correctly?
So I'm trying to learn the vowel sounds of the IPA, and I'm looking at the words "temerity" and "moment" in AmE. What is especially confusing is that first word, where wiktionary lists the ...
2
votes
1answer
90 views
How these close sounds are distinguished in native language
This is not a comprehensive list but just a few snippets from languages that have a few consonants that sound pretty much the same to me. I wanted to ask how I can learn to hear the difference between ...
0
votes
1answer
35 views
Audio library for all IPA vowels and consonants
Wikipedia has a pretty good intro to the IPA sounds, even some of the "click" sounds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio
https://en....
3
votes
2answers
154 views
Germanic Philology: “translate” a word from indoeuropean language to the germanic language
I'm having a philology test next week. One of the questions will be to "translate" an indoeuropean word into a germanic word, like: i.e. Agros -> germanic Akraz (i.e. "g" --> germ. "k" for Grimm's Law,...
-2
votes
1answer
128 views
Diagram of all IPA sound places
Wondering if there is a diagram similar to the following one, but that lists all of the mouth configurations such as for ʃ and everything else.
2
votes
4answers
181 views
Why d͡z is not considered two consonants
Wondering why d͡z is not considered two consonants. Same with p͡f, t͡s, etc.
5
votes
2answers
100 views
Can we simulate the pronunciation of sounds that we can't make?
There's certain non-filled places in the IPA chart because we physically can't pronounce them. For example, a velar trill or glottal trill.
Using computers, is it possible that we could simulate how ...
0
votes
2answers
58 views
If any of these stranger human voice sounds have IPA annotations
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" ...
0
votes
3answers
190 views
If these letter pairs are used to distinguish two words in any language
Wondering if there are languages in which there are 2 words, 1 containing letter (a) and the other containing letter (b), such that they sound pretty much the same, yet they mean different things. The ...
1
vote
3answers
114 views
The anatomy of the L sound
Starting to learn the IPA and having a few questions. One is about the L sound. Here are the L sounds I've seen:
l
l̥
ɬ (No language uses this).
ɫ: both velarization and pharyngealization
lˠ (...
0
votes
1answer
79 views
Do animal sounds have linguistic symbols or classifications?
Wondering if animal sounds have any formal classification or linguistics symbols like the IPA.
For example:
Chicken sounds (pretty awesome, done by a human)
Cat sounds (purr, like trilled t, or ...
-1
votes
1answer
277 views
Complete list of sounds in all languages (IPA)
Wondering if there is a list of all the IPA sound combinations and how to pronounce them. Searching brings up a bunch of partial and not too well done lists, so wondering if there is a standard or ...
1
vote
1answer
41 views
Dental and labiodental fricatives with different relative positions of the articulators
Are there distinct phonemes for labiodental fricatives articulated with the upper teeth touching the lower lip from the inside (like in English /f/) and ones that are articulated with the tip of the ...
1
vote
1answer
102 views
Do Nasal Consonants Require Nostrils?
As far as I can tell, some nasals don't seem to require nasal aspiration. For example, [m] and [n] seem to just involve oral occlusive voicing. I can plug my nose and still make such sounds. It surely ...
1
vote
1answer
271 views
What do full stops represent in IPA?
In the IPA spelling of various words, I have often come across versions that use full stops and colons.
E.g. I have seen 'county' spelled /kaʊnti/ and also /kaʊ.nti/
and 'courage' as spelled /kʌrɪdʒ/ ...
0
votes
1answer
159 views
How to transcribe 'courage' in IPA
I am very new to linguistics, and am trying to transcribe the word 'courage' into IPA. I have come across a few different transcriptions, but I think the correct one might be "kʌrɪdʒ". Is this correct?...
4
votes
2answers
149 views
Is it possible to read the narrow IPA transcription of one's native/fluent language as effortlessly and quickly as its conventional orthography?
it seems there's no neurolinguistic limit on how many letters can a language's alphabet have (it varies a lot between languages), the IPA is a huge phonetic alphabet, As of the most recent change in ...
3
votes
0answers
71 views
How many different vowels can be reliable annotated?
This question is similar to How many different vowels are there? but with a different twist: here I am not interested in the minimal difference between two vowels that can be heard, but in reliable ...
-1
votes
1answer
109 views
The most relative for ə sound in Arabic
The IPA for "man" in American English is mən. Arabic, however, doesn't have the vowel sound ə. So, what's the most related sound in Arabic? I know there are some short vowels (Harakat) but I don't ...
6
votes
1answer
140 views
Online tool for IPA pronunciation synthesis
I've already found this tool from 0n0e.com but the problem is that it pronounces the words too quickly. Is there any other phoneme synthesis online which speaks a bit slower?
1
vote
1answer
186 views
How do I translate a DARPA phonetic alphabet transcription into an IPA transcription
What's the relationship between the DARPA phonetic alphabet transcription into an IPA transcriptions?
Is it possible to map a transcription from one system directly into the other? Is it possible in ...
3
votes
2answers
258 views
Choice of phonemic symbol for /b/, /d/, /g/, /ʝ/ in Spanish
Wikipedia states this on the Spanish consonants /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ and /ʝ/:
The phonemes /b/, /d/, and /ɡ/ are realized as approximants (namely [β̞, ð̞, ɣ˕]) or fricatives in all places except after a ...
2
votes
2answers
152 views
Deducing a rule out of set of examples
Consider the following Spanish words, written in IPA (with their English translation):
And the same question for middle position and final position
My answer is:
Initial position: Looking at the ...
