<text, human language> (IPA) A system for recording pronunciation using only ASCII(?) characters.
a short "a", as in "at": the IPA vowel [f] ([ae] digraph) a_: "a" as in "father": IPA [a] a_- long "a", as in "sail": IPA [ei] au "ow", as in "cow": IPA [au] e short "e", as in "get": the IPA vowel "epsilon" e_- long "e", as in "Eve": IPA [i] i short "i", as in "sit": IPA [I] i_- long "i", as in "fine": IPA [ai] o_. as in "saw", "bought": the IPA vowel "turned c" o_- long "o", as in "bone": [o] or [ou] u_. short "oo", as in "foot": IPA [U] u_: long "oo", as in "shoot": IPA [u] * short "u" and also schwa, as in "hut", "but": the IPA vowel "schwa" (more or less) *r "er", as in "butter"; "ir", as in "sir": the IPA "rhotacized schwa"Consonants are generally as used in English, but note the following:
ch "ch", as in "cheap"; IPA [tS] j hard "j", as in "jump": IPA [d3] n_e "ng", as in "sing": the IPA symbol "eng" sh "sh", as in "should": IPA [S] th voiceless "th", as in "think": the IPA symbol "theta" t_eh_e voiced "th", as in "either": the IPA symbol "ethe" zh soft "j", as in "pleasure", "azure": IPA [3] y consonant "y", as in "yellow": the IPA semivowel [j]Other symbols:
' precedes stressed syllables - divides syllables; note: not the same as the "-" that occurs in some vowels, such as a_- and so on.(Note: IPA is not the pronunciation system used on some entries in this dictionary. That was inherited from the Jargon file, I don't know what it's called).
[Is the alphabet described here really the IPA? If not, what is it?]
(08 Dec 1994)