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Introduction
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.

Part 2-2
2.3 Consonants (British English, American English, IPA Consonants, Burmese Consonants)
2.4 Non-English sounds

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2.3 Consonants

(a) British English (BBC)

These consonants can be arranged in table form as shown below. The layout of the symbols follows the principle that, where there are two consonants which differ only in voicing, they are placed side by side with the voiceless one to the left.

UKT: *ç "Phonetically a voiceless palatal fricative [ç] (U00E7) can also occur for the consonants in the sequence /hjuː/ -- <huge> /hjuːʤ/ [çʉːd̥ʒ̊]; <Hugh> (<Huw>) /huuː/ [çʉː]  . See Palatal.
   Some authors (notably North American) use non-IPA symbols. I have constructed the following table based on the table from Simon Fraser University, Canada www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/220/basic.sounds.English.220.gif (see the original) to show the different labeling and the non-IPA symbols:
/ʧ/ = /č/ , /ʤ/ = /ǯ/ , /ʃ/ = /š/ , /ʒ/ = /ž/, /j/ = /y/ .

* sonorant n. Linguistics 1. A voiced consonant regarded as a syllabic sound, as the last sound in the word <sudden>. -- AHTD

(a) Certain types of consonant have a distinction such as that between /t/ and /d/; this is commonly classed as a distinction between voiceless and voiced consonants, but the distinction is in fact much more complex. Consonants usually classed as voiceless are /p , t , k , f , θ , s , ʃ , h , ʧ/ , with voiced partners /b , d , g , v , ð , z , ʒ , ʤ/. Since the presence or absence of VOICING is often less important than some other phonetic features, it has been suggested that instead the terms FORTIS (equivalent to voiceless) and LENIS (equivalent to voiced) should be used. These terms imply that the main distinguishing factor is the amount of energy used in the articulation (fortis consonants being made with greater energy than lenis). These terms are not used in this dictionary, since the usefulness of this terminology is uncertain. Some of the characteristics of the two types of consonant are set out below.

(b) /p , t , k/ (UKT: See my note below) are typically accompanied by ASPIRATION (i.e. an interval of breath before the following vowel onset), especially when initial in a stressed syllable. Thus, <pin> is distinguished from <bin> very largely by the aspiration accompanying /p/. However, in the syllable-initial sequences /sp- , st- , sk-/ , /p , t , k/ lack such aspiration. When /l/, /j/, /w/ or /r/ (See my note below on non-Vargs) immediately follow /p , t , k/, they are devoiced and are pronounced as fricatives. Another characteristic of /p, t, k/ that is not marked in transcriptions is glottalization; when one of these consonants is followed by another consonant it is now usual to find that a glottal closure precedes the /p/, /t/ or /k/, particularly if the syllable in which they occur is stressed. Thus the pronunciation of <captain>, <rightful>, <Yorkshire>, which are phonemically /ˈkæp.tɪn/, /ˈraɪt.f^əl/, /ˈjɔːk.ʃəʳ/, could be shown (using the symbol [ʔ] for glottal closure) as [ˈkæʔp.tɪn], [ˈraɪʔt.fļ], [ˈjɔːʔk.ʃəʳ]. Similarly, in American English <mountain> has one pronunciation that could be represented as [maʊ̃.ʔn̩ ] = .

UKT: Note on /p, t, k/ compared to {pa.} {ta.} {ka.}
• In Myanmar and northern Indic abugidas, the consonants corresponding to English /p/ /t/ and /k/ are known as Vargs or groupables: pa-group -- labials; ta-group -- dentals; and ka-group -- gutterals.
• English has a pair of voiceless and a voiced consonant for each group:
  pa-group: English /p/ and /b/
  ta-group: English /t/ and /d/
  ka-group: English /k/ and /g/.
• Myanmar and northern Indics recognised 4 consonants for each group -- two voiceless and two voiced:
  pa-group: {pa.} | {hpa.} | {ba.} | {Ba.}
  ta-group: {ta.} | {hta.} | {da.} | {Da.}
  ka-group: {ka.} | {kha.} | {ga.} | {Ga.}
• English linguists would not recognise {hpa.}, {hta.}, and {hka.} as consonants in their own rights but only as as aspirated forms of /p/, /t/ and /k/.
• English /p/ is actually between Myanmar {pa.} and {hpa.}, with the result that when a native-English speaker pronounced <pin>, to the Burmese-Myanmar ear, it sounds somewhat like {hpin} meaning <anus> instead of <pin>.
• Similarly, English /t/ is between Myanmar {ta.} and {hta.}. Therefore, though my Myanmar name is spelled with {hta.}, the English spelling becomes TUN.

UKT: Note on non-Vargs /l/, /j/, /w/ and /r/ , together with /h/ correspond to Myanmar {la.}, {ya.}, {wa.} and {ra.} are classified as non-Vargs in Myanmar. When they (except /l/) follow any consonant they are said to form conjuncts. Only four conjuncts are allowed in Myanmar corresponding to /j/, /w/, /r/ and /h/. However, /l/ is not allowed to form a conjunct. Of /p , t , k/ , /p/ can be followed by /j/, /w/, and /r/, but not by /h/. We shall continue with this subject in Burmese consonants.

( c ) Voiceless consonants have a shortening effect on sounds preceding them within a syllable. Thus in the words <right> and <ride> ( /raɪt/ and /raɪd/ ) the diphthong is noticeably shorter in the first word than in the second; in the words <bent> and <bend> ( /bent/ and /bend/ ), both the vowel /e/ and the nasal consonant /n/ are shorter in the first word. This length difference is not always easy to observe in connected speech.

(d) The consonant /l/ has two different allophones in BBC English, the so-called "clear" and "dark" allophones. The "clear" one (which has an /ɪː/-like quality) occurs before vowels, the "dark" one (which has an /uː/-like quality) before consonants or before a pause.

UKT:
• English seems to have only one lateral consonant: the /l/ phoneme. The tongue is in contact with the alveolar ridge as for /t d n/ ( {ta.} {da.} {na.}) but the sides of the tongue are lowered to allow the passage of air, e.g.:

<lip>

/lɪp/

<pill>

/pɪl/

• The Myanmar equivalent {la.}, by combining with conjunct formers {ya.} {wa.} and {ha.}, can generate more laterals.

{la.} + {ya.} —> —> {lya.}
{la.} + {wa.} —> —> {lwa.}
{la.} + {ha.} —> —> {lha.}
{la.} + {ya.} + {ha.} —> —> {lhya.}
{la.} + {wa.} +  {ha.} —> —> {lhwa.}

• The paucity of laterals in English makes it almost impossible to transcribe Myanmar in English.

• The main difference between English and Burmese languages can be easily seen in the respective writing systems. English uses the alphabet system but Myanmar like Indic language scripts uses the abugida system. Myanmar syllable structure is CVÇ where Ç is the consonant with its inherent vowel {a.} killed. Killed-{la.} is not common in Burmese-Myanmar. However, it is found in words derived from Pali such as {pan:maal} pronounced as {pan:mun}. This makes it easy to transliterate words like <pill> /pɪl/. However, we must never forget that the end consonant is never pronounced in Burmese

(e) The consonants /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /ʧ/, /ʤ/, /r/ are usually accompanied by lip-rounding.

(b ) American English

The consonants of the American English model, at the phonemic level, may be represented by the same broad scheme used for British English above. Similarly, many of the distinguishing phonetic traits discussed for British English hold for American English as well: initial /p, t, k/ are normally aspirated except when immediately preceded by /s/. Glottalization preceding and, at times, replacing the plosives occurs often in rapid speech. There are, of course, numerous phonetic and phonological differences between British and American English, as there are within regional and social varieties within the two political entities. Two differences receive sufficient attention and have attained sufficient generality within the two varieties that they are represented here. One is phonetic: the "flapped" medial /t/ (as in <butter>) is transcribed as /t̬/ (see Section 2.1); the other is phonological: the presence (in American English) of postvocalic /r/ (as in <farmer> /ˈfɑːr.mɚ/ ). It should also be noted that the difference between "clear" and "dark" /l/ is much less marked in American than in the BBC accent, so that even prevocalic /l/ in American pronunciation sounds dark to English ears.

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IPA consonants

Consonants (Pulmonic)
IPA (revised to 1993, corrected 1996). See table given by IPA.

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Burmese Consonants

by UKT

The Burmese consonants that could be easily related to the English consonants are the following plosives and fricatives. The figure showing the place of formation of consonants was redrawn from an internet source. Please treat the figure only as a suggestion.

	voiceless voiced
Bilabial plosives pa-group -- labials	Burmese Romabama pa. hpa. ba. Ba English p   b
Alveolar plosives ta-group -- dentals	Burmese Romabama ta. hta. da. Da. English t   d
Velar plosives ka-group -- gutterals	Burmese Romabama ka. hka. ga. Ga. English k   g
Alveolar fricatives sa-group -- Myanmar sibilants ca-group -- Devanagari palatals	Burmese Romabama sa. hsa. za. Za. English s   z

The main difference between the Myanmar and the English consonants is for each English consonant there are two corresponding Myanmar consonants. For example, for [t] there are {ta.} and {hta.}. Transcribers usually add an [h] after or before the English letter: = ph , = ht , = kh . ( {hs.} is an exception, and generally transcribed with a single [s]). Romabama is more consistent by the placing the [h] before the English letter. In Romabama [h] following the first letter always indicates {ha.hto:} .

In the section on British English consonants, it is stated that "When /l/, /j/, /w/ or /r/ immediately follow /p , t , k/, they are devoiced and are pronounced as fricatives." In Myanmar the first consonant is the primary consonant, the second, and/or third following it are considered to be conjunct formers. Only four consonants can act as conjunct formers: {ya.} /j/ (corresponding to the English letter "y"), {ra.} /r/, {wa.} /w/ and {ha.} /h/ and as  {ya.pin.},  {ra.ris}, {wa.hswè:} and {ha.hto:} . The conjunct formers (i.e. second letter) have their shapes changed: , (or ) , , . The following are the some of the conjuncts formed from {pa.}:

{pa.} + {ya.} —> —> {pya.}
{pa.} + {ra.} —> —> {pra.} (normally pronounced as {pya.} -- Burmese-speakers hate to "roll" their tongues)
{pa.} + {wa.} —> —> {pwa.}
{pa.} + {ha.} —> —> not allowed, because addition of a {ha.hto:} is nothing but aspirating the consonant and ({pa.} by itself is already "aspirated".

{ta.} /t/, and {ka.} /k/ can also form conjunct. As with {pa.} {ha.hto:}  formation is not allowed.

The conjunct behaves as a single consonantal unit and behaves as a cluster. It can be the onset of a syllable. The consonants in the cluster do not behave as separate phonemes. However, devoicing does not takes place as in English. No strict comparison can be made between the English /l/ and its closest Burmese {la.} because of the absence of the 'LL' sound in English: a sound that is found in Welsh as a voiceless lateral fricative /ɬ/ (U026C). See Non-English sounds. That sound is present in Burmese as a conjunct consonant, {la. ha.hto:}  represented in Romabama as {lha.} or as <Hla> in Burmese names.

Most of the Myanmar syllables are of the form CVÇ (consonant letter - vowel letter - killed consonant letter). The killed-consonant in the CODA together with the vowel preceding it, is the RHYME.  The inherent vowel of the consonant in the coda  is killed by the virama or {a.thut} /ˈəθʌt/. The inherent vowel of Myanmar consonants is close to the English short [a] . See Pronouncing the letter A .

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2.4 Non-English sounds

In addition to the phonemes of English described above, most English speakers are aware of, and often attempt to pronounce, some sounds of languages other than English. The number of such sounds is small, since most foreign words and names are Anglicised so that they are pronounced with English phonemes. We find the voiceless velar fricative [x] in the Gaelic languages of Scotland and Ireland in words such as <loch> and names such as <Strachan>. The same sound is often used by English speakers for the German sound which is written [ch] (e.g. 'Bach' [bɑːx] ) and the Spanish sound spelt [ j ] (e.g. <Badajoz> [ˌhæd.əˈxɒθ] ). The voiceless lateral fricative [ɬ] is found (always represented in spelling with 'll') in Welsh words and names such as <Llanberis> ; we give the pronunciation of this sound as hl to indicate that it may be pronounced as a voiceless [ɬ] (U026C) (as many British English speakers do), but alternatively as a voiced one: thus /hlænˈber.ɪs/ . The dictionary lists a few names with more than one of these sounds (e.g. <Llanelli>). Most non-Welsh speakers are unlikely to pronounce more than one [ɬ] sound in a word, so we give the pronunciation as /θl/ for [ ll ] sounds after the initial one.

The other case which needs special attention is the pronunciation of French nasalised vowels. Many English speakers attempt to produce something similar to the French vowels /ɛ̃/, /ɑ̃/, /ɔ̃/ , /œ̃/ in words such as 'vin rouge', 'restaurant', 'bon marche', 'Verdun'.

Although many speakers do not get close to the French vowels, the principle adopted here is to use symbols for English vowels, with added nasalisation. The equivalents are:

UKT: It has been noted by many Myanmars studying French that, transcription of the French sounds in Burmese is far better than transcription in English.

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