Update: 2005-04-10 04:48 AM -0400

ENGLISH PRONOUNCING DICTIONARY

Daniel Jones. Edited by Peter Roach, James Hartman and Jane Setter. Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Scanned by Maung Kan Tun and edited by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Not for sale. Prepared for students of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, MYANMAR.

UKT:
• This file is more than a scanned copy. It contains my additions from various sources.
• The font used is Arial Unicode MS. The Myanmar characters are in gif-glyphs and you'll not need any special font.

Contents
Editors' preface to the 16th Edition
Reference

Introduction

Part 1
1.1 What is the English Pronouncing Dictionary?
1.2 Whose pronunciation is represented?
1.3 How are the pronunciation chosen?
1.4 Regional accents
1.5 Pronunciation of foreign words
1.6 Usage notes
1.7 Syllable divisions

Part 2-1
Principles of transcription
2.1 Phoneme principle
2.2 Vowels and diphthongs (British English, English [a] and Bama [a], American English)
Part 2-2
2.3 Consonants ( British English, American English, IPA Consonants, Burmese Consonants)
2.4 Non-English sounds |
Part 2-3
2.5 Stress | 2.6 Syllable divisions | 2.7 Assimilation | 2.8 Treatment of /r/ ( linking r, intrusive r) | 2.9 Use of /i/ and /u/ | 2.10 Syllabic consonants | 2.11 Optional sounds | 2.12 Elision

Part 3
Explanatory notes by UKT
See The International Phonetic Alphabet by clicking on ipachart_ucla.htm. You can hear the pronunciation by going on line and clicking on the symbol.

Pronouncing the letters

Vowel letters
A | AE | AEO | AI and AY | AU and AW
Myanmar AYE | athut
E | EA | EE | EI | EO | EOU | EU/EW | EY
I | IE | IEU | IO
O | OA | OEU | OI/OY | OO | OU | OW
U | UE | UI | UOU | UY

Consonant letters
pronounce_b-c-d
B | C | CC | CCH | CH | CK | CQU | D
Phonetics [ b] | [ c]
Myanmar { ba.} | { cha.} | { da.}

pronounce_f-g-h
F | G | GG | GH | GU | H
Myanmar {ga.}

pronounce_j-k
J | K

pronounce_l-m-n
L | LL | M | MN
Myanmar {ma.}

pronounce_p-q-r
P | PH | Q | R | RRH

pronounce_s-t
S | SC | SCH | SH
T | TH | TZ

pronounce_v-w-x-y-z
V | W | WH
X | XC | Y | Z

Silent letters

Editors' preface to the 16th Edition

The English Pronouncing Dictionary (EPD) was first published in 1917 , perhaps the greatest work of the greatest of British phoneticians, Daniel Jones (born in 1881). Jones was Professor of Phonetics at University College London from 1921 until his retirement in 1949. He was still an occasional visitor to the Department in 1967 when Peter Roach was there as a postgraduate student of phonetics, though he died in December of that year. The dictionary was preceded by a now forgotten work by Michaelis and Jones (1913) in which the phonemic transcription was presented first and the corresponding spelling followed it. The last edition in which Jones was directly involved was the 12th, and the 13th was substantially revised by his successor as Professor of Phonetics at University College, A. C. Gimson. From the 13th edition, Gimson was assisted by Dr. Susan Ramsaran, and in her preface to the 14th edition she notes that they had been making plans for a 15th edition at the time of Gimson's death. After this, the publishing rights were acquired from the original publishers, J. M. Dent & Sons, by Cambridge University Press.

With the publication of the 15th Edition in 1997, the EPD entered the computer age. The type-set text of the 14th Edition was converted into a computer database, and the task of editing was carried out by a team of phonetics experts who worked by transferring the data of the developing new edition in electronic form between universities in Reading, Leeds, Kansas and Hong Kong, and the University Press in Cambridge. Despite the complexity of this operation, the process of updating and adding to the previous edition has been made more efficient, and has enabled this 16th Edition to be prepared much more rapidly. Versions of the database are available electronically, and are currently being used by language researchers in both academic and commercial institutions. For details of licensing the database, see the Cambridge Dictionaries website: www.dictionaries.cambridge.org

The English Pronouncing Dictionary has been in use for over 80 years, and during that time it has become established as a classic work of reference, both for native speakers of English wanting an authoritative guide to pronunciation and for users of English as a foreign or second language allover the world.

Above all, the aim of the Dictionary is to include information which is relevant to the needs of contemporary users and which is presented in the clearest possible way. This aim has informed both the choice of vocabulary covered and the range of pronunciations shown. The 15th edition saw a massive injection of 18,000 new words. Large numbers of terms connected with science and technology were added, as were hundreds of people and places which had acquired fame or notoriety in recent years. The more cosmopolitan nature of modern life was reflected in the increase of geographical names as well as a significant number of items of international cuisine. Personal names, both first names and family names, were based on census reports and statistical analysis, and many subject areas such as literature and law were revised and updated. For the first time, U.S. spellings and vocabulary items were included.

This 16th edition builds on that work, its wordlist fully updated with items which have become current since 1997. Another major feature is the addition of over 150 information panels ( A-B, C, D-G, H-M, N-P, R-S, T-W) explaining phonetics terminology and discussing the relationship between spelling and pronunciation.

Perhaps the most significant development of the 16th edition, and the one which truly takes it into the 21st century, is that it is now available with a CD-ROM which contains spoken pronunciations of every headword. The CD-ROM gives both linguists and learners of English a wealth of other features, from advanced search options on both alphabetic and phonetic characters, the ability to record the user's own voice and compare it with the spoken pronunciation on the CD-ROM, and a large number of interactive exercises.

In the Preface to the 15th Edition we thanked the many people who had contributed to our work, and our debt to them remains. Above all, we are very grateful to Liz Walter, our Commissioning Editor at Cambridge University Press who oversaw the production of the 15th Edition and has continued to advise and encourage us through the work on the 16th.

PETER ROACH, University of Reading
JAMES HARTMAN, University of Kansas
JANE SETTER, University of Reading

Reference

UKT: Please note that the digitization of some parts of DJPD16 has been undertaken to make a comparative study of the Burmese and English languages. The reader is advised to take my notes as my view at the time of the study which may change as the study progresses. To facilitate the study of Burmese, I have devised a system of transcription of Burmese in Roman script which I have named Romabama.

• AHTD. American Heritage Talking Dictionary.

• ANTIM: www.antimoon.com

• DJPD16 (Daniel Jones Pronouncing Dictionary, 16 ed. -- Scanned from printed book

Please also note that I have to identify every phonemic or phonetic symbol including the diacritical marks given in the original book. The task is not easy since the print was quite small. The symbols you are finding in this digitized version are in Unicode font, and the reader should note that I could have made mistakes in the reproduction. I have included the Unicode number for future checking and editing.
As an example: the entry for the word <cradle> is given as /kreɪ.dl/ in DJPD16. The lower case "l" has a diacritical mark below. In the small print it looks like a "combining vertical line below" (U0329). It certainly is not a "combining cedilla" (U0327). However, when I reproduced it using Arial Unicode MS font, the diacritical mark became shifted with U0329 but not with U0327: [ l̩ ] and [ ļ ]. Suspecting that what DJPD16 has given might be a cedilla, I searched the Internet using Google with the search string "cedilla in pronunciation". One of the results was http://www.chlewey.org/cs/as-en.html . The website gave the example of <cradle> where it was stated that "l" was "l cedilla" with Unicode x13C. Looking into the XP character map shows that x13C is U013C which gives [ ļ ]. Though I haven't yet made up my mind, as a temporary measure I will take what DJPD16 has given as U013C.
One remark must be made about brackets:
• Angle brackets < >.In the printed book a word being referred to is generally within inverted commas. However, in this digitized version, the inverted commas have been replaced with angle brackets < >.
• Square brackets [ ]. In the original printed version square brackets [ ] were used to indicate the phonetic transcription. In this digitized version I have retained the original square brackets, but have introduced more square brackets to highlight single letters and digraphs.

• PTK (Phonemic Transcription Key) www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/index.html

• SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/home.htm

• U Hoke Sein, The Universal Burmese-Englsh-Pali Dictionary, 1st ed., {meiz~zu-tha.ka. sa-pé}, Yangon, 1981