Wikipedia:IPA for English
The pronunciation of English words in Wikipedia is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using the following transcription, which is not specific to any one dialect. For a more complete key to the IPA, see Wikipedia:IPA, which includes sounds that do not occur in English. If the IPA symbols do not display properly on your browser, see the links at the bottom of this page.
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Key
(Words in small capitals are the standard lexical sets. Words in the lexical sets bath, cloth and into are given two transcriptions, respectively one with /ɑː/ and one with /æ/, with /ɒ/ and /ɔː/, and with /ʊ/ and /uː/.)
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Notes
- ^ If the two characters ‹ɡ› and ‹
› do not match and if the first looks like a ‹γ›, then you have an issue with your default font. See Rendering issues. - ^ Although the IPA symbol [r] represents a trill, /r/ is widely used instead of /ɹ/ in broad transcriptions of English.
- ^ /hw/ is not distinguished from /w/ in dialects with the wine-whine merger, such as RP and most varieties of GenAm.
- ^ A number of English words, such as genre and garage, are pronounced with either /ʒ/ or /dʒ/.
- ^ In most dialects, /x/ is replaced by /k/ in loch and by /h/ in Chanukah.
- ^ In non-rhotic accents such as RP, /r/ is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. In some Wikipedia articles, /ɪər/ etc. may not be distinguished from /ɪr/ etc. When they are distinguished, the long vowels may be transcribed /iːr/ etc. by analogy with vowels not followed by /r/. If you notify us of this on the talk page, we will correct it.
- ^ a b c d Note that many speakers distinguish these rhotic vowels from non-rhotic vowels followed by an R: our /ˈaʊər/ from plougher /ˈplaʊ.ər/, hire /ˈhaɪər/ from higher /ˈhaɪ.ər/, loir /ˈlɔɪər/ from employer /ɨmˈplɔɪ.ər/, mare /ˈmɛər/ from mayor /ˈmeɪ.ər/.
- ^ /ɒ/ is not distinguished from /ɑː/ in dialects with the father-bother merger such as GenAm.
- ^ /ɔː/ is not distinguished from /ɑː/ (except before /r/) in dialects with the cot-caught merger such as some varieties of GenAm.
- ^ Commonly transcribed /əʊ/ or /oː/.
- ^ /ɔər/ is not distinguished from /ɔr/ in dialects with the horse-hoarse merger, which include most dialects of modern English.
- ^ /ʊər/ is not distinguished from /ɔr/ in dialects with the pour-poor merger, including many younger speakers.
- ^ In dialects with yod-dropping, /juː/ is pronounced the same as /uː/ after coronal consonants (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /θ/, and /l/) in the same syllable, so that dew /djuː/ is pronounced the same as do /duː/. In dialects with yod-coalescence, /tj/, /dj/, /sj/ and /zj/ are pronounced /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/, so that the first syllable in Tuesday is pronounced the same as choose.
- ^ This phoneme is not used in the northern half of England and some bordering parts of Wales. These words would take the ʊ vowel: there is no foot-strut split.
- ^ a b In some articles /ɜr/ is transcribed as /ɝː/, and /ər/ as /ɚ/, when not followed by a vowel.
- ^ Pronounced [ə] in Australian and many US dialects, and [ɪ] in Received Pronunciation. Many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ɪ̈] and a reduced [ə]. Many phoneticians (vd. Olive & Greenwood 1993:322) and the OED uses the pseudo-IPA symbol
ɪ[1], and Merriam–Webster uses ə̇. - ^ Pronounced [ə] in many dialects, and [ɵw] or [əw] before another vowel, as in cooperate. Sometimes pronounced as a full /oʊ/, especially in careful speech. (Bolinger 1989) Usually transcribed as /ə(ʊ)/ (or similar ways of showing variation between /əʊ/ and /ə/) in British dictionaries.
- ^ Pronounced [ʊ] in many dialects, [ə] in others. Many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ʊ̈] and a reduced [ə]. The OED uses the pseudo-IPA symbol
ʊ[2]. - ^ Pronounced /iː/ in dialects with the happy tensing, /ɪ/ in other dialects. British convention used to transcribe it with /ɪ/, but the OED and other influential dictionaries recently converted to /i/.
- ^ It is arguable that there is no phonemic distinction in English between primary and secondary stress (vd. Ladefoged 1993), but it is conventional to notate them as here.
- ^ Full vowels following a stressed syllable, such as the ship in battleship, are marked with secondary stress in some dictionaries (Merriam-Webster), but not in others (the OED). Such syllables are not actually stressed.
- ^ Syllables are indicated sparingly, where necessary to avoid confusion, for example to break up sequences of vowels (moai) or consonant clusters which an English speaker might misread as a digraph (Vancouveria, Windhoek).
See also
- To compare these symbols with dictionary IPA conventions you may be more familiar with, see Help:IPA conventions for English, which lists the conventions of eight English dictionaries published in Britain, Australia, and the US.
- To compare these symbols with non-IPA American dictionary conventions you may be more familiar with, see pronunciation respelling for English, which lists the pronunciation guides of fourteen English dictionaries published in the US.
- For differences among national dialects of English, see the IPA chart for English dialects, which compares the vowels of Received Pronunciation, General American, Australian English, New Zealand English, and Scottish English, among others.
- For use of the IPA in other languages, see Wikipedia:IPA for a quick overview, or the more detailed main International Phonetic Alphabet article.
- If your browser does not display IPA symbols, you probably need to install a font that includes the IPA. Good free IPA fonts include Gentium (prettier) and Charis SIL (more complete); download links can be found on those pages.
- For a guide to adding pronunciations to Wikipedia articles, see the documentation for the IPA template.
- For help on getting the screen reader JAWS to read IPA symbols, see Getting JAWS 6.1 to recognize "exotic" Unicode symbols.
