"International Phonetic Alphabet" from Dory to Lilly

Linguists like to compare languages, and one of the biggest barriers to this is that there are a lot of different writing systems out there, and some languages don't have writing systems at all.  So they came up with their own writing system, which can be applied to any spoken language.  It's called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and it has hundreds of symbols to represent all the individual sounds represented in human languages.  IPA can describe EXACTLY how something is pronounced.  With this, English's 26 letters become 40-odd symbols, describing exactly how we make the sounds represented by our letters in different situations.


Here's a chart:. These are all the symbols IPA uses to describe English sounds.  I was going to explain all that jargon on the left side and top of the chart, but then I realized that it's kind of complicated, and although useful and interesting for people studying Linguistics, it's kind of irrelevant if you're just wanting to learn how to read and write with this alphabet. So, if anyone wishes me to, I can explain more about it, but I'm not going to right now.

Click to make bigger

IPA is based on the Latin writing system, so a lot of those characters are familiar and make the sounds you'd expect them to.  Some of them are familiar and don't make the sounds you'd expect them too, though, so be careful.  Some of the characters are Greek, or upside-down, or made-up, and those are the ones you'll have to memorize. Here's an explanation of the sounds they make.  It may be best for you to go somewhere private when looking through this list so you can try out some of the sounds without feeling silly.  Seriously, it helps.

b: bad, lab

d: did, lady

f: find, if

g: give, flag

h: how, hello

j: yes, yellow

• notice that the j in IPA represents the sound we would usually write as y.  IPA doesn't use the y symbol, at least not for English.

k: cat, back

• k represents both the English c and k, as well as the ck combination. They are all the same sound, after all.

l: leg, little

ɫ : little, hustle

• "dark l." usually, an l is made with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge (the ridge behind your teeth), but sometimes, often at the end of words, it shows up as a dark l, which is made with the back of the tongue against the velum (soft part of the top of your mouth, way at the back.)

m: man, lemon

n: no, ten

ŋ: sing, finger

• "ang." Usually the n sound is an alveolar nasal, which means the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and the air from your lungs goes through your nose. When we use ŋ instead, the back of our tongue presses up against the velum instead. 
• Also, a handy remembering tool is that linguists often coin names for thing that use the concept they illustrate. The name "ang" is pronounced with an ŋ.

p: pet, map

ɹ: red, try

• Our regular r is an upside-down r in IPA, technically. When they're only talking about English sounds, linguists often just use a regular r to make things more simple.  But, we talk about Spanish a lot in this blog, and to the IPA world in general, the symbol r represents the trilled r used in Spanish, and ɹ represents how we do it in English.

s: sun, miss

ʃ: she, crash

• The "sh" sound is represented with the symbol "esh" in IPA.  Once again, the name uses the sound it talks about.

t: tea, top

ɾ: better, little

• alveolar tap.  We think of it as a t, or a double t, in English, but it's actually a separate sound.  Usually t's are an alveolar stop, meaning the tongue presses up against the alveolar ridge and stops the airflow completely, and then releases it.  With an alveolar tap, it doesn't completely stop the airflow; it just "taps" the alveolar ridge.

ʔ: mitten, cat

• The glottal stop!  It's when you stop the air completely in the back of your throat and then release it.  Say "glottal:" that's an alveolar tap.  Now say "glottal" with a Cockney accent: look, a glottal stop!

tʃ: check, church

• Even though it's two characters together, think of it as one symbol.  There are a couple instances like this in IPA, and you just have to learn and watch out for them.

θ: think, both

• "Theta."  This is one of the two symbols that represent the "th" in English.  You may have noticed before that English has two "th" sounds: both are interdental fricatives, with the tongue between the teeth and vibrating, but one uses the vocal chords and one doesn't.  θ doesn't.

ð: this, mother

• "eth" is the voiced interdental fricative.  Here is another case where the name employs the sound it describes, as it does with theta.

v: voice, five

w: wet, window

ʍ: whom, which

• A lot of people don't have this sound in their normal speech.  It's that odd "h" that people add after the "w".  A lot of older people do it.  It depends on your dialect of English.

z: zoo, lazy

ʒ: pleasure, vision

• This is a sound that English doesn't like much.  It mostly shows up in words borrowed from other languages, especially French, which loves this sound.  It's the "g" in "mirage," and the "s" in "vision."  You might use it in "garage."

dʒ: just, large

• Since IPA used "j" for our "y" sound, it needed another symbol for "j." Here it is. Once again, think of it as one symbol even though it's two characters.

In the chart, some of the characters are in parenthesis.  That means that they're allophones: English speakers don't think of them as different sounds, and some speakers don't use them at all.

You may have noticed that those are all consonants. Next I'll give you vowels, which are kind of tricky.  Also, harder to describe, because they vary a lot with accents and dialects.  When you look at these, think of them as Standard American English would pronounce them.  I'll give you a link to a site that has sound bytes later in this post.

æ      cat, black          

e       bait, eight       

ə:      away, cinema 

ʌ:      was, hustle

• ə and ʌ are practically the same sound-- ə is used when the sound comes in an unstressed syllable; ʌ is when it's stressed.

ɜ:      bet, end          

ɪ: hit, sitting         

i: see, heat           

ɑ:      hot, rock

ɔ:      bought, coffee

• a lot of people don't have this sound in their dialect of American English.  This is characteristic of the east coast, and usually doesn't show up in the west (they use ɑ instead)  My relatives in Rhode Island use this vowel; I don't.  If I were to spell it how it sounds, "coffee" would be something like "cwoffee."  Or, in IPA, [kɔfi].

ʊ      good, put

u:      blue, food 

aɪ      five, eye

• This and the next two are called "diphthongs," and they happen when we let the sounds around it influence the sound of our vowel.  It is very common for a vowel to become a diphthong, because the way they're formed in our mouth is so imprecise.

aʊ     now, out           

ɔɪ      boy, join

Example sound bites


Here are some entire words transcribed.  If anyone wants to practice some, say so in the comments and I'll give you some words to try out and correct/help you figure it out.  It takes some practice. :)


hustle: /hʌsl/

[hʌsɫ]

• Here's an important thing when transcribing: your transcription will either be in /slashes/ or [brackets].  Usually in brackets. The difference is, /slashes/ mean what your transcribing is the underlying form, what people think they're saying.  In English, people don't think of the dark l [ɫ] as a separate sound; they think of it as an /l/.  Brackets mean that your transcription is what people actually say.

recommend: [ɹɛkəmɛnd]


three: [θɹi]


transcribe: [tɹænskɹɑɪb]


strange: [stɹendʒ]


So, that's IPA!  Comment if you have any questions, or want to practice. 


Here's a handy-dandy website where you can type in IPA, and then copy-paste it over here.

"Yoshi" from Lilly to Dory

This is my friend Yoshi:

While we were in Mexico she was given this name by a Mayan fellow named Ricardo, who transformed it into "Yoshi" after having a great deal of trouble pronouncing her actual name, which is Chelsea.

I was thinking about this the other day, and I think I've figured out how he got "Yoshi" out of "Chelsea."

Let's start with the beginning: "Ch."  This is a sound that doesn't exist in the Mayan dialect of Tzotzil.  There is a sound similar to this, but it's softer.  Closer to a "sh" sound, or something in between the two.

(A note: when you see an "x" in written Mayan words, such as "uxmal" or "yaxchilan," it is pronounced with that "sh" -like sound.  The "x" comes from the Spanish conquistadores, who when documenting words they learned from the natives or the names of places would simply replace a sound they didn't know how to write with an "X."  In actual Mayan writing, this sound is usually represented by a "tz" combination, like the middle sound in "Tzotzil."  If you're wondering about the beginning "Tz" in "Tzotzil," this is pronounced more like a "D-z."  The whole word sounds more like "d-zo?-sheell" in English, with a glottal stop after the "o.")

So, Ricardo could have replaced the "Ch" with the "X" or "tz" sound, but instead he used a "y."  Why?  Well, that "X/tz" sound is never found at the beginning of a word in his dialect, but is often preceded by a vowel sound.  It was difficult for him to begin a word with this sound, so he replaced it with a sound that is used fairly often at the beginning of words in Tzotzil; "y".  Kind of like how Spanish speakers sometimes have trouble with beginning a word with an "s" sound followed by a consonant, like in "stop," or "scary."  Often they will add an "eh" sound to the beginning, so it sounds more like "eh-stop," and "eh-scary."  This is a familiar sound in Spanish: "escuela," "especial," "estudio," etc.

The next sound after "Ch" is "eh."  This is the part Ricardo had the most difficulty with.  Tzotzil is very fond of rounded vowels, like the "o" in "only" or the "a" in "always."  But it doesn't like those flat sounds like the "a" in "cat" or the "e" in "everyone" or "Chelsea."  It was much easier to turn that sound into the rounded "o" that he's used to.

The next part of her name is the "l."  Now, this is the interesting part.  The "l" in "Chelsea" is what is known in Linguistics as a "dark L."  It's the difference between the "l" sound in "lake" and the "l" sound in "milk."  The one in "milk" is the dark L.  It's something English speakers have trouble distinguishing; we think of them both as an "L."  But say the two words, "lake" and "milk" to yourself a few times, and you'll notice that in "milk" you really don't make an "L" sound at all.  It's the same in "Chelsea," which is why Ricardo had trouble.  There is no dark L in Tzotzil, or any Mayan dialect for that matter.  Instead of trying to replace it, he simply omitted the "l" sound altogether.

The next sound is "s," which is another sound that doesn't exist in Tzotzil at all.  Ricardo turned it into the previously mentioned "X/tz" sound, which to English speakers sounds closer to a "sh." (that's why we say it "Yoshi," but in actuality Ricardo pronounced it more like "Yo(X)ee")

The ending, "ea," (pronounced "ee") wasn't a problem for Ricardo at all; this is a sound familiar to Tzotzil, so he left it.

The spelling, "Yoshi" comes simply from our interpretation of Ricardo's pronunciation, which we likened to the name of the character from the "Mario" games :)

Love,
Lilly

"T" from Dory to Lilly

Did you know that the Hawaiian language doesn't have a t sound?  This is incredibly odd.  Weirder:  It's related to Samoan and Tongan, and they both have t's.  So does the ancestor language, Polynesian.

Also, Samoan doesn't have a k, but Hawaiian and Tongan do.

That is all.

Love, Dory

"Tea" from Dory to Lilly

So, something neato happened today! It worked together with a discussion Lilly and I had on her post "hot."  But before we get to that, we have to rewind to me doing my linguistics homework this morning.


We're talking about how languages evolve in class right now, and today we learned about one way to trace sound changes.  See, words usually aren't really spelled like they're pronounced, and obviously recordings came about only recently, so how do we tell how sounds change?  One way is to look at literature, especially verse and poetry, because that reflects what sounds rhyme at the time it was written.  For example, Mother Goose rhymes were written in the 1500s and 1600s, early in the era of Modern English.  Check it:


Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.


When you were little, did you ever wonder why that one/down rhyme doesn't rhyme at all? ("...maybe it was just me," says my professor.  "I mean, I grew up to be a linguist.")  WELL.  It used to rhyme.  That's one of the clues that historical linguists look at--that obviously used to rhyme, so what sound change does it reflect, and how can it be explained?


Our "one" is now pronounced "wun"[wən], but used to be [on]. Same with "down."  It's [down] now, but it used to be [don]...they used to rhyme.


So on the comments of Lilly's post "hot," we got into a discussion of the eytmology of the Modern English word "tea."  See, it's a borrowed word, because tea itself was imported from the Far East back in the day.  Here's the complicated etymology. I'll bold the important bits.

French thé, Spanish te, Italian tè, Dutch and German thee, Danish, Swedish te, modern Latin thea; < (perhaps through Malay te, teh) Chinese, Amoy dialect te, in Fuchau tiä = Mandarin ch'a (in ancient Chinese probably kia); whence Portuguese cha, obsolete Spanish cha, obsolete Italian cià, Russian čaj, Persian, Urdu chā (10th cent.), Arabic shāy, Turkishchāy. The Portuguese brought the form cha (which is Cantonese as well as Mandarin) from Macao. This form also passed overland into Russia. The form te (thé) was brought into Europe by the Dutch, probably from the Malay at Bantam (if not from Formosa, where the Fuhkien or Amoy form was used). The original English pronunciation /teː/ , sometimes indicated by spelling tay, is found in rhymes down to 1762, and remains in many dialects; but the current /tiː/ is found already in the 17th cent., shown in rhymes and by the spelling tee.

So, not a ton of room for linguistic hypothesis here, cuz they've got it pretty well covered.

BUT GUESS WHAT?  I, all by myself, found an example of the older pronunciation, "tay" [te].  I was doing the aforementioned Linguistics homework of finding evidence in older literature in English of sound changes.  So I was doing a bit of light reading, Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock, written in 1713. AND LOOK.

Soft yielding minds to water glide away,

And sip the Nymphs, their elemental tea.

The graver prude sinks downward to a Gnome,

In search of mischief still on earth to roam.

The light coquettes in Sylphs aloft repair,

And sport in flutter in the fields of air.

--Canto 1, lines 61-66

Oh hey, in that second line, "tea" would have to be pronounced [te] to rhyme!  And as you can see here, and I'll attest to for the rest of the poem, Pope keeps a very strict rhyme scheme, so this isn't just a slant rhyme or bad poetry.  He only seems to slip up in a few places, and they're instances like this, where they rhymed perfectly (for his dialect).

The old pronunciation [te], which ultimately comes from the Far East, is still reflected in some cognates in other languages.  If you go back and look at the etymology, the French "thé," the Spanish "te", and the Italian "tè", all still have this pronunciation.  Cool, eh?


Some more rhymes in The Rape of the Lock that reflect old pronunciations:

What though no credit doubting wits may give?

The fair and innocent shall still believe.

--Canto 1, lines 38-39

Not with more glories, in th' ethereal plain,

the sun first rises o'er the purpled main,

Than issuing forth, the rival of his beams

Launched on the bosom of the silver Thames.

--Canto 2, lines 1-4

fyi, The Thames is the river running through London, and it's pronounced "Temz" [tɛmz].

neat, huh? :)

I'm going to go make some [te] now. Cheers!

p.s.: I brought "The Beast," my British Literature anthology, out of its comfortable retirement as a bookend for this hypothesis.  Be grateful, and impressed.

Love, Dory

"Finals Week" from Dory to Lilly

Ok, so this isn't really a hypothesis.  But it's to let y'all know that I might be scarce for the next couple weeks, as I have Dead Week now and then Finals Week coming up.  Much of my brainpower will be going in that direction, but I shall hypothesize here if I can!  I will also comment on Lilly's posts, though, if I can.

Love, Dory