Zelda Wiki:Pronunciation Guide

Key

These are the keys for IPA and English pronunciation respelling, an alternative to IPA that does not represent dialects or accents.

• To display a formatted English pronunciation respelling when defining pronunciation, use Template:Respell.

IPA Respelling symbol(s) Examples Consonants /b/ b but, web /d/ d do, odd, Dharma /ð/ dh this, breathe, father /dʒ/ j joy, gin, edge, educate, adjust /f/ f fool, leaf, enough, phylum, sapphire /ɡ/ g get, egg, ghost, guess /h/ h ham, ahead, who /j/ y yes, onion, fjord /k/ k cat, kill, skin, thick, queen, acquaint, school /l/ l left, bell /m/ m man, ham, bomb /n/ n no, on, gnarl, knife, pneumonic /ŋ/ ng ringer, sing, sink /ŋɡ/ ng-g finger /p/ p spin, tip, hiccough /ɹ/ r run, very, rhyme, wrench /s/ s or ss see, pass, city, scent, castle, psych, klutz /ʃ/ sh she, leash, machine, mission, ocean, conscience, emotion, sure /t/ t two, sting, bet /θ/ th thing, teeth, Matthew /tʃ/ ch chair, teach, hatch, bastion, nature, kitsch /v/ v voice, have, of, Stephen /w/ w we, penguin /ʍ/ wh whale, Juan (alternatively /hw/) /z/ z zoo, rose, xylophone, dessert /ʒ/ zh vision, azure, pleasure, beige, Zhivago Stress /ˈ/ Represented by capitalizing the syllable. intonation (/ˌɪn.tɵˈneɪ.ʃən/)

IPA Respelling symbol(s) Examples Vowels /iː/ ee eve, bead, feed, receive, people, unique, thief /ɪ/ i or ih bid, pretty, sieve, busy, build, crypt /ɛ/ e bed, said, thread, friend /æ/ a bad, plaid /ɑː/ ah or aa father, braatwurst, palm /ɒ/ o cot, swat /ɔː/ aw sauce, straw, caught, talk, broad, thought /ʌ/ u bud, honey, flood, southern /ʊ/ oo good, put, wolf /uː/ oo food, move, shoe, soup, through Diphthongs /eɪ/ ay fate, Mae, laid, straight, gaol, bay, suede, great, vein, feign, weight, hey /(j)uː/ ew beauty, feud, pew, view, mute, cue, impugn, Hugh, puisne (some words variably have /juː/ or /uː/) /ɪə/ eeə theatre /aɪ/ eye ride, lie, sky, dye, thigh, heist, height, sign, buy, samurai, Mayan /aʊ/ ow pout, how, bough, Taoist, sauerkraut /ɔɪ/ oy hoist, boy /oʊ/ oh or oe poke, soap, hoe, soul, throw, though, folk, yeoman, mauve, beau R-colored vowels /ɪɹ/ irr Sirius, mirror, lyrics /ɪəɹ/ eer dear, beer, serious, pier /ɛɹ/ err merry, bury /ɛəɹ/ air chair, Mary, prayer, bear, their, where /æɹ/ arr character, marry /ɑːɹ/ ar bar, starry, h'earth, sergeant /ɒɹ/ orr moral, warrant, Lawrence /ɔːɹ/ or or awr born, wart, dinosaur, drawer /ʌɹ/ urr hurry, thorough, flourish /ɜːɹ/ ur fern, third, furry, myrtle, earth, worm, scourge (alternatively /ɝː/) /ʊəɹ/ oor boor, tour /(j)ʊəɹ/ eur Europe, cure (some words variably have /jʊəɹ/ or /ʊəɹ/) /aɪəɹ/ yre mire, pyre, fiery /aʊəɹ/ owr scour, sour Reduced vowels /ə/ ə Rosa’s, above, even, talon, precious, circus /ɨ/ i or ih savage, captain, roses, business, foreign, rabbit, lettuce (alternatively /ᵻ/) /i/ ee posse, coffee, valley, deli, Charlie, happy /ɵ/ o melody /ʉ/ oo tomorrow (alternatively /ᵿ/) /əɹ/ ər runner, grammar, author, colour, Arthur, martyr, (alternatively /ɚ/)

Using IPA for Standard American English

IPA, as it applies to Standard American English, consists of only a fraction of the symbols available in IPA.

Some Helpful Rules

Here are a few tips to get you started. Always remember the following while using IPA.

• First and foremost is not to rely on existing notions of how a word is spelled. Take a moment to review the following examples and note how the spelling in English is drastically different from the spellings in IPA.
  • Picture
  • Leisure
  • Portion
  • Caught
  • Context
  • Fight

• Each syllable needs at least one vowel.

• Approximants modify vowels around them.

• The symbols ə and ʌ are both Central-Mid vowels. The difference is that the ʌ is used in the stressed syllable.
  • Butter

Glossary

• Articulators: Speech organs involved in making a sound, such as the lips, teeth, and tongue.
• Voiced: A sound in which the vocal cords vibrate. Examples are /v/, and /ð/ as in These. Note that the use of articulators in these examples are exactly the same as in the voiceless examples below, but the vocal cords vibrate.
• Voiceless: A sound in which the vocal cords do not vibrate. Examples are /f/, and /θ/ as in teeth. Note that the use of articulators in these examples are exactly the same as in the voiced examples above, but the vocal cords do not vibrate.
• Manner of Articulation: How articulators are involved in making a sound make contact. In Standard American English, there are only seven.
• Places of Articulation: Where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active articulator (typically part of the tongue) and a stationary articulator (typically part of the roof of the mouth). In Standard American English, there are only eight.

Classifications

Consonants:

The phonemes /r/ and /ɹ/ are interchangeable; /ʍ/ is present only in varieties that have not undergone the wine-whine merger.

• Manner of Articulation:
  • Stops: A consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The sound is produced at, and cannot be made after, the initial expulsion of air.
  • Fricatives: Sounds produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. Examples of these are /f/ (produced by joining the teeth and lip) and /θ/ (produced by joining the teeth and tongue).
  • Affricates: Consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative.
  • Nasals: A sound produced in the nose, where the oral cavity acts as a resonance chamber for the sound but the air does not escape through the mouth.
  • Approximants: Speech sounds in which the articulators approach each other but not narrowly enough to create turbulent airflow.
  • Glides (Semivowels): A sound that is phonetically equivalent to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary.

• Places of Articulation:
  • Bilabial: A consonant articulated with both lips.
  • Labio dental: A consonant articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
  • Inter dental: A consonant produced by placing the blade of the tongue against the upper incisors.
  • Alveolar: A consonant articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge.
  • Alveo-palatal: A consonant articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate.
  • Palatal: A consonant articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the middle part of the roof of the mouth.
  • Velar: A consonant articulated with the back part of the tongue against the back part of the roof of the mouth.
  • Glottal: A consonant articulated with the glottis.

Vowels:

Note that /a/ and /o/ as they appear in this image correlate to /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, respectively.

• Classifications:
  • High, Mid, and Low: The vertical position of the tongue relative to either the roof of the mouth.
  • Front, Central, and Back: The position of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel relative to the back of the mouth.
  • Rounded and Unrounded: Whether or not the lips are rounded.