ASCII IPA (American only)

by Markus Laker, with some additions by Bob Cunningham
 
ASCII IPA is a way to represent speech using a computer keyboard. This is a simplified version showing American pronunciations only.

Contents

What is this?

On the newsgroup alt.usage.english we often want to represent the way we speak. It's dangerous to make statements such as "bother rhymes with father" or "father sounds like farther" because, for many people, those statements aren't true. Besides, nobody knows how you say bother and farther.

To get round the problem, we use a notation called ASCII IPA. We all agree on what sound each symbol represents, regardless of our own accents. ASCII IPA is similar to the International Phonetic Alphabet used in modern dictionaries, but it uses the symbols available on most computer keyboards.

[For a full description of the International Phonetic Alphabet, see the Web site of the International Phonetic Association at http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html. The IPA symbols shown on this page are from the 1979 revision of the International Phonetic Association's IPA Chart. For that reason, some of the symbols shown may not be the same as those shown in later revisions of the Phonetic Association's chart. In particular, 'turned-t' is no longer used for the sound in 'tsk tsk', and lowercase iota is no longer used. (BC)]

This page is an introduction to ASCII IPA; whether you already know conventional IPA or not, you should find ASCII IPA easy to learn here. If you don't, please contact the webmaster and suggest how this page might be improved.

Not every ASCII IPA symbol is shown here, only those used most often on alt.usage.english. Other ASCII IPA symbols are used in descriptions of other languages and on other newsgroups, such as the linguistics group sci.lang.

Each word in the following tables is used to demonstrate a particular sound. Don't worry if other parts of the words sound different from the way they're pronounced in your part of the world; the idea is to demonstrate the sounds themselves, not the words they form.

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Let's get started!

For a quick look at ASCII IPA symbols, see page ASCII IPA in a nutshell. Come back here if you want more.

Reading ASCII IPA is easier than writing it. For one thing, no one will know if you make a mistake. I suggest you learn to read it and then, when you can start to read words without constantly referring to the tables below, start to write.

Reading ASCII IPA

ASCII IPA looks like this: /bIt/. The /slashes/ are just a way of keeping the ASCII IPA in and the English spelling out. All you have to do is to look up the three symbols "b", "I" and "t" in the tables below. You'll find that /b/ and /t/ are just what you expect them to be, assuming that you grew up speaking English, and /I/ is the vowel in it and bridge. Put it all together and you get the word bit.

Here's a more complicated example: /'fA:D@/. What are all those symbols? Well, the apostrophe (') is a stress marker: it says that the following syllable is stressed. The colon (:) lengthens the preceding vowel. The at-sign (@) represents a schwa, the neutral, unstressed vowel in the words about and lemon. Put it all together and you get the way I [Markus Laker] - a Brit who drops his R's - say father. The word schwa, by the way, is pronounced /SwA:/.

You'll find it easier to learn ASCII IPA if you remember the following points:

  1. In English spelling, some sounds are represented by combinations of letters, such as the "th" in thin. This never happens in ASCII IPA. One sound corresponds to one symbol. The "th" in thin, for example, is represented by the symbol /T/.

  2. In English spelling, some letters change their sounds depending on what follows. The "a" in mat changes if you add an "e", making mate. The "a" and the "g" in rag both change if you add an "e", making rage. In this respect, ASCII IPA is a good deal easier than English spelling because each symbol always represents the same sound.

    (Actually, that's only nearly true. There are a handful of symbols that do change the preceding symbol, but always in a predictable way. The only one you'll meet in the early days is the colon ":", which we've already described. You'll find the others in the other symbols table.)

  3. Conversely, some sounds are represented in two or more ways in English spelling. Consider the first consonants in the words cat and kitty or fun and phone. Again, ASCII IPA is easier: there's only one way of representing each sound.

  4. In English spelling, the sound of a word doesn't depend on whether it's written in capital letters or not. ASCII IPA is different, and one of the most common mistakes is to get the case of a symbol wrong. For example, /tin/ represents the word teen and /TIN/ represents thing.

  5. Sometimes, sounds that we think of as a unit are really two or even three sounds in a row. For example, say the word cold slowly to yourself. Although we hear it as a single sound and write it with a single letter, the "o" is really a glide from one sound to another. Which two sounds those are depends on your accent. Similarly, the vowel in cake is, very roughly, a glide from the vowel in egg to the vowel in leek.

    These two-in-one vowel sounds are called diphthongs. Three-in-one vowel sounds are called triphthongs. There's a table of them further down.

For practice in reading IPA, try following the Interlinear transliterations.

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Writing ASCII IPA

Writing ASCII IPA is easy once you can read it fairly fluently.

To represent a word in ASCII IPA, you have to break it down into its component sounds. The word cat, for example, has the "k" sound from kick, the "a" sound from pan and the "t" sound from hit. All you do is to find the relevant sounds in the tables below, pick the corresponding symbols, and write them one after another inside a pair of /slashes/. So the ASCII IPA for cat is /k&t/.

For longer or more complex words, use an apostrophe (') to indicate that the following syllable is stressed. Use a colon (:) to indicate that the previous vowel is lengthened. You can learn how to use the rest of the other symbols table from other people as and when you need it.

Sometimes you should use [square brackets] rather than slashes when you write ASCII IPA. But don't worry about that now; learn the symbols and how to use them, and then read the little essay near the end of this page.

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About the sound files

If you are able to listen to sound files, I [Bob Cunningham] recommend that you emphasize use of the sound files to associate each symbol with a sound. Don't be concerned about whether or not the example words are pronounced as you would pronounce them. An example word has the sole purpose of illustrating the sound associated with a symbol, so all that matters is that the speaker is pronouncing the word with the correct sound of the symbol. I'd like to call particular attention to the section that is headed Focus on vowel sounds. The sounds presented in that section should be the most reliable and authoritative guide for associating sounds with symbols. (BC)

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The Symbols

Consonants and vowels

The consonant symbols [b], [d], [f], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [r], [s], [t], [v], [w], and [z] have their usual English values. In other words, they always have the same sound in English spelling, and that's the sound they have in ASCII IPA, too.

The following table lists the other sounds most often used in ASCII IPA. It shows each ASCII IPA symbol, some words that use that sound, the way that American speakers typically pronounce those words (don't worry if that's not the way that you pronounce them), and the IPA symbol and name. Numbered links in the table lead to sound samples, the number identifying the speaker.

The section Focus on Vowel Sounds, further down this page, gives additional information about English language vowel sounds. The links <+> provide quick access to, and return from, the relevant line of that table. (MB)

Symbols in the table (click on a blue arrow to return here): A a D E e g I i j N O o R S T t! U u V V" Z & @ ? *

ASCII
symbol
Sound Example Pronunciation IPA
symbol
A
/A/ 4 5
Ah
Cart
Father
Farther
All
Bother
Caught
Cot
Hot
Sorry
(Note 1)
/A:/ 2 3
/kArt/ 2 3
/'fA:D@r/ 2 3
/'fArD@r/ 2 3
/A:l/ 3
/bA:D@r/ 3
/kA:t/ 3
/kA:t/ 3
/hA:t/ 3
/sA:ri:/ 3
 
IPA symbol
(script a)
<+>
uparrow
a /a/ 4 5 Chicago pop
Boston park
(Note 2)
/pap/
/pa:k/
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
D   This /DIs/ 3 IPA symbol
(edh)
uparrow
E /E/ 4 5 End
Get
Merry
Mary
(Note 3)
/End/ 3
/gEt/ 3
/mEri:/ 3
/mEri:/ 3
IPA symbol
(epsilon)

<+>
uparrow
e /e/ 4 5 Eight
Chaos
/eIt/ 3
/'keIA:s/ 3
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
g   Get /gEt/ 3
IPA symbol uparrow
I /I/ 4 It
Bridge
/It/ 3
/brIdZ/ 1 3
IPA symbol or IPA symbol
(iota)

<+>
uparrow
i /i/ 4 5 Eat /i:t/ 3 IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
j   Yes /jEs/ 3 IPA symbol uparrow
N   Hang /heIN/ 3 IPA symbol
(eng)
uparrow
O /O/ 4 5 Court
Oil
  /kO:rt/ 3
 
IPA symbol
(open o)
<+>
uparrow
o /o/ 4 5 No
Old
Omit 
/noU/ 3
/oUld/ 3
/oU'mIt/ 3
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
R Equivalent to /@r/, /r-/, or even /V"r/ IPA symbol
(right-hook
schwa)
uparrow
S   Ship /SIp/ 3 IPA symbol
(esh)
uparrow
T   Thin /TIn/ 3 IPA symbol
(theta)
uparrow
t!   tsk-tsk or tut-tut /t! t!/ 3 IPA symbol
(turned t)
uparrow
U /U/ 4 Pull
Butch
/pUl/
/bUtS/
IPA symbol
(upsilon)
<+>
uparrow
u /u/ 4 5 Ooze /u:z/ 3 IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
V /V/ 4 5 Shun
Up
 /SVn/ 3
/Vp/ 3
IPA symbol
(turned v)
<+>
uparrow
V" /V"/ 4 Fern
Hurl
/fV"rn/
/hV"rl/
IPA symbol
(reversed
epsilon)
<+>
uparrow
Z   Beige /beIZ/ 3 IPA symbol
(yogh)
uparrow
& /&/ 4 5 Ash
Cat
Marry
(Note 3)
/&S/ 3
/k&t/ 3
/'m&ri/
IPA symbol
(ash)
<+>
uparrow
@ /@/ 4 5 Lemon /'lEm@n/ 3 IPA symbol
(schwa)
<+>
uparrow
?   Uh-oh /'V?oU/ 3 IPA symbol
(glottal)
uparrow
*   Pedal
(Note 4)
/pE*@l/ IPA symbol
(fish-
hook r)
uparrow

Note 1: The word pronunciations are not heard in every part of the United States. They are the ones in my [Bob Cunningham's] idiolect and probably are typical of the pronunciation of most speakers west of the Rocky Mountains. (BC)

Note 2: The reference to 'Chicago pop' first appeared in Mark Israel's AUE FAQ, and I [Bob Cunningham] believe it was copied from there by Markus Laker for inclusion in his ASCII IPA guide. Some AUE readers have expressed disagreement with the Chicago pronunciation of 'pop' with [a]. I have no opinion on the subject, having no knowledge of how 'pop' is pronounced in Chicago. I suggest that you use your own knowledge or your own judgement about whom to believe. In any case, example words should not be relied upon in general to illustrate pronunciation. First priority should be given to listening to the sound files to learn the pronunciation associated with any symbol. Example words are to be regarded as crutches for the benefit of those who do not have sound cards. (BC)

Note 3: Some U.S. speakers do not distinguish between "Mary", "merry", and "marry" 3. Among those who use the same vowel in 'Mary', 'merry', and 'marry', not all of them have the common vowel /E/ in the three words. One reader has said that he pronounces all three with /&/. (BC)

Note 4: A short tap of the tongue used by some U.S. speakers in "pedal", "petal". If you distinguish"pedal" [3] from "petal" [3], then you do not use this sound.

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Affricates, diphthongs and triphthongs

A diphthong is a glide between two pure vowel sounds but which is normally considered as a unit. The vowels in cake, dive, bone are diphthongs.

A triphthong is a glide between three vowels - again, normally considered as a unit. The vowels in fire and power are triphthongs.

An affricate is a plosive consonant immediately followed by a fricative or spirant. In simple English, it's a consonant that momentarily stops the air flow through your mouth followed by a second consonant that you pronounce by forcing the air through a small gap. The two consonants in charge are affricates.

Observant readers will notice that /hw/ doesn't belong in this table at all.

Symbols in the table (click on a blue arrow to return here): tS dZ eI oU aI aU Oi

ASCII
symbol
Example Pronunciation IPA
symbol
 
tS Chin
Butch
/tSIn/ 0 3
/bUtS/ 1
IPA symbol uparrow
dZ Jet
Bridge
/dZEt/ 0 3
/brIdZ/ 1
IPA symbol uparrow
eI Gate /geIt/ 0 IPA symbol or IPA symbol uparrow
oU Stone cold /stoUn koUld/ 1 3 IPA symbol uparrow
aI Dive /daIv/ 0 3 IPA symbol or IPA symbol uparrow
aU Out /aUt/ 0 3 IPA symbol uparrow
OI Oil /OIl/ 0 3 IPA symbol uparrow

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Other symbols

ASCII
symbol
Effect IPA symbol (Note 1)
- Previous consonant syllabic as in "bundle" /'bVnd@l/ or /'bVndl-/,
"button" /bVt@n/ or /bVtn-/
IPA symbol
(vertical line below)
~ Previous vowel nasalised, or previous consonant velarised
IPA symbol or IPA symbol
(tilde above or overlaid)
: Previous sound lengthened
IPA symbol
(triangular colon)
; Previous sound palatalised
IPA symbol
(modifier small j)
<h> Previous sound aspirated
IPA symbol
(modifier small h)
' [apostrophe] Following syllable has primary stress
IPA symbol
, [comma] Following syllable has secondary stress
IPA symbol

Note 1: The IPA symbol in question is shown in black. The arbitrarily-chosen gray symbol indicates positioning only.

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Slashes or square brackets?

If you read alt.usage.english for long, you'll sometimes see ASCII IPA written between /slashes/ and you'll sometimes see it between [square brackets]. Which is right? This apparently simple question baffled me [Markus Laker] for months. Here is the understanding that I, as a non-linguist, eventually reached, along with four useful words that interested amateurs - like me - will find useful.

  • A phone is a simple vowel or consonant, such as a [p].
  • A phonetic transcription is concerned with phones - it attempts to write down the sounds that are actually made, regardless of what they mean.
  • A phoneme is a sound that distinguishes one word from another.
  • A phonemic transcription is concerned with the meanings of sounds. It is not concerned with differences between sounds unless they affect meaning.
Phonetic transcriptions are enclosed in square brackets.

Phonemic transcriptions are enclosed in slashes.

Here's an example. In English English, cold is pronounced /k@Uld/. This is true for all English accents, even those that sound very different from RP (Received Pronunciation or 'BBC English'). In many English accents, however, the presence of the [l] changes the [@U] to [oU], and the word comes out as [koUld]. But it's still correct to write it phonemically as /k@Uld/ because the change from [@U] to [oU] doesn't affect the meaning. In fact, all words in the same class - soul, pole, sold -- undergo the same change and we aren't normally even conscious of it.

A second example: phonemic transcriptions - which use slashes - don't distinguish between the four [t] sounds in tot, bottle, button, and don't know. Phonetic transcriptions - which use square brackets - do attempt to distinguish. The scheme shown on this page can't make all these distinctions (although the [t] in don't know would be replaced by a [?]). More elaborate distinctions are possible using the full definition of ASCII IPA at Evan Kirshenbaum's Web site, although they aren't often used on alt.usage.english. Evan's definition is also available in a PDF version for those who have the Acrobat reader. He has stated "The PDF file is the one that should be treated as authoritative (to the extent that any of this is)."

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Focus on vowel sounds

Symbols in the table (click on a blue arrow to return here): A a % E e I i O o U u V V" & @

ASCII
Symbol
Sound Articulatory
Description
Comments
IPA
Symbol
 
A 4 5 {low,bck,unr,vwl}
This sound requires opening your mouth wide and feeling resonance at the back of your mouth.
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
a 4 5 {low,fnt,unr,vwl}

Also in diphthongs: "dive" /daIv/ (yes, folks, the sound traditionally called "long i" is actually a diphthong!), "out" /aUt/. Typically, [a] is not distinguished phonemically from [A]; but if you use in "ask" a vowel distinct both from the one in "cat" and the one in "father", then [a] is what it is.

IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
(none) 4 5 {smo,cnt,ntl,vwl}

There is no ASCII IPA symbol for the IPA 180-degree-rotated lowercase 'a', which corresponds to the central vowel that is midway between open-mid and open. I've added sound files for this vowel because at least one AUE person has said that he thinks he may use a central open vowel. The rotated lowercase 'a' is slightly higher than open. It seems reasonable to guess that the difference between it and a fully open central open might be similar to the difference between /&/ and /a/, since they are the same difference apart on the openness scale. Anyway, for what it's worth, there it is. If you want to use it, I suggest you use one of Evan Kirshenbaum's ad hoc symbols (/$/ or /%/) for it and define it in your accompanying text. (BC)

IPA symbol uparrow
E 4 5 {lmd,fnt,unr,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
e 4 5 {umd,fnt,urd,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
I 4 {smh,sft,unr,vwl}   IPA symbol or IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
i 4 5 {hgh,fnt,unr,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
O 4 5 {lmd,bck,rnd,vwl}
The [O] sound requires rounded lips, but lips making a a bigger circle than for [o]. If you do not use the same vowel sound in "caught" as in "court", then you are one of the North American speakers who use [O] only before [r]: you do not round your lips for "all" and "caught", and you should use some other symbol, such as [A] or [a], to transcribe the vowel. (Note 1)
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
o 4 5 {umd,bck,rnd,vwl}
If you are one of the few speakers who distinguish such pairs as "aural" and "oral", "for" and "four", "for" and "fore", "horse" and "hoarse", "or" and "oar", "or" and "ore", then you use [O] for the first and [o] for the second word in each pair; otherwise, you use [O] for both.
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
U 4 {smh,sbk,rnd,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
u 4 5 {hgh,bck,rnd,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
V 4 5 {lmd,bck,unr,vwl}
U.S. speakers tend not to use [V] in words (such as "hurry") where the following sound is [r]: they would say /'h@ri/. [3] And some U.S. speakers, especially in the eastern U.S., substitute [@] for [V] in all contexts. If you do not distinguish "mention" /'mEn S@n/ from "men shun" [3] /'mEn SVn/, then you should use [@] and not [V] to transcribe your speech.
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
V" 4 {lmd,cnt,urd,vwl}
Many U.S. speakers substitute [@] for [V"], so they would say /f@rn/, /h@rl/ [3]. Many other U.S. speakers pronounce "fern" with no vowel at all: /fr:n/, /hr:l/. If you are one of the few speakers who distinguish such pairs as "pearl" and "purl" (using a lower, more retracted vowel in "purl"), then you can transcribe "pearl" /p@rl/ and "purl" /pV"rl/.
IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
& 4 5 {smo,fnt,unr,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow
@ 4 5 {mid,cnt,urd,vwl}   IPA symbol
<+>
uparrow


Articulatory descriptions:

 
bck back part of tongue
cnt tongue at its central position between front and back
fnt front part of tongue
hgh tongue at its highest position
lmd 'low mid', tongue between middle and low positions
low tongue at its lowest position
mid tongue between open-mid and lower-mid positions
ntl 'neutral' (neither rounded nor unrounded)
rnd lips rounded
sbk 'semi-back', tongue between lower-mid and low positions
sft 'semi-front', tongue between central and front positions
smh 'semi-high', tongue between upper-mid and high positions
smo 'semi-open', tongue between open-mid and open positions
umd 'upper mid', tongue between middle and high positions
unr lips unrounded
vwl vowel

In these abbreviations the term 'open' equals 'low'. If 'close' had been used, it would equal 'high'. (BC)

 

Note 1: The remarks concerning the pronunciation of [O] were taken verbatim from Mark Israel's AUE FAQ. Some AUE contributors have expressed the opinion that the remarks are too sweeping a generalization, and that there are American pronunciations of 'caught' and 'court' that don't follow the guidelines given by the remarks. (They happen to apply exactly to my [Bob Cunningham's] idiolect.) In any case, if you are able to listen to the auditory pronunciations, you should ignore such explanatory remarks and should also ignore example words. You should give priority to listening to the sound files. Example words and explanatory notes are crutches for the benefit of those who don't have sound cards. (BC)

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Speakers

Many thanks to those who've kindly provided sound samples:

0 Markus Laker, who was born in 1965 in South London and moved down to the south coast of England in 1983 (see also Credits).
1 Bill T <e-mail>, a Mid-Western speaker from Dallas, Texas, USA.
2 A doctor in Michigan (an upper Mid-Western state), USA.
3 Bob Cunningham, who was born in 1922, spent his youth in California, Utah, Nevada, Washington, and the U.S. Merchant Marine, and has lived in Southern California since 1946 (see also Credits).
4

The sound samples were copied with permission of the copyright owners from the compact disk 'Sounds of the IPA', which is copyright 1995 by Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London. Permission to use them has been granted under the condition that they will not be used in any commercial way, and in particular will not be used to produce any further CD using the sounds. To read about - or buy - the CD or cassette called 'Sounds of the IPA', go to http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/cassette.htm. (BC)

5

The sound samples are from the Online Phonetics course at the University of Lausanne (http://www.unil.ch/ling/page30184.html), permission to use them having been obtained from that organization. (BC)

The University of Lausanne Phonetics Course is now at http://www.unil.ch/ling/page30184.html. (MB)

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Credits

ASCII IPA was developed by a team of alt.usage.english and sci.lang members led by Evan Kirshenbaum <e-mail>.

The material in the Consonants and vowels and Other symbols tables is taken from the alt.usage.english FAQ written by Mark Israel. He and Evan Kirshenbaum made many helpful suggestions and corrections during the production of this page.

This page is for the most part the work of Markus Laker. In early 1999 Bob Cunningham added the large number of pronunciation examples that are marked 3. He also added the indexes to individual characters and some linkages to other programs at his Web site, and made some other minor changes to suit his own taste. On 2 June 2000 he added the material in the 'Focus on vowel sounds' section. Bob writes: Let me call attention to the fact that I've tried to leave all of Markus Laker's comments as he wrote them. My intent has been to flag with initials 'BC' any comments that I've added. I hope I've found all of them. Any comments that are not so tagged should be assumed to be by Markus Laker. (BC)

Mike Barnes made a number of changes to the presentation of this page, in May 2002.

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Help to complete this page!

You'll have noticed that some of the symbols in the tables above don't have sound samples. That's because they don't occur in the contributors' dialects. If your dialect or language uses one of these sounds and you have a multimedia computer, please send to the webmaster a recording (see Recording Suggestions) of yourself saying one or more of the words shown. If you send a sample, please say how you'd like yourself named or described.

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