Update: 2004-04-01 11:53 AM -0500

TIL

Pronouncing the letters

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 .
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pronounce_u
U | UE | UI | UOU | UY

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letter U

p555. The vowel letter [u] has several strong pronunciations linked to spelling. 'Short' pronunciations include /ʌ/ and /ʊ/.

UKT: One of the first problem faced by a Myanmar ESL learner is pronouncing the letters [ut] in <put> /pʊt/ and <but> /bʌt/. The corresponding sounds in Bama are /ʊt/ and /ʌt/.

'Long' pronunciations include /uː/ and /juː/. In 'short' pronounced /ʌ/, the [u] is generally followed by a consonant letter which ends the word, or a double consonant before another vowel. Words containing /ʊ/  which end with a consonant sound often have two consonant letters finally, a notable exception being <put> /pʊt/, e.g.:

UKT: While keeping in mind that there are no {ba.thut} and {la.thut} spellings in Myanmar, if we are to transliterate <tub> and <bull> in Myanmar, we would transliterate respectively as: and

The 'long' pronunciations usually mean the [u] is followed by a single consonant letter and then a vowel, e.g.:

In word initial position, the 'long' pronunciation is almost always pronounced /juː/, e.g.:

However, there are exceptions to these guidelines, e.g.:

When [u] is followed by [r], the strong pronunciation is one of several possibilities:
/jʊə , jɔː (us) jʊr/ , /ʊə , ɔː (us) ʊr/ , /ɜː (us) ɝː/ , or /ʌ (us) ɝː/ , e.g.:

In weak syllables

The vowel letter [u] is realised as one of /jə/, /jʊ/, /ə/ or /ʊ/ in weak syllables, e.g.:

It may also result in a syllabic consonant, e.g.:

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letters UE

p556. The vowel digraph [ue] is most commonly pronounced as /juː/ or /uː/. The /j/ sound is not always present in US English where it is found in British English. In general, the /j/ is dropped in US English where it appears in British English following an alveolar consonant such as /t/, /d/ or /n/ (UKT note: IPA /t/, /d/ , /n/ correspond to Myanmar alphasyllabary row 4 ), e.g.:

UKT: Compare the pronunciation of <due> with:
• <Tuesday> /ˈʧuːz.deɪ/ -- Refer to T
Note that from IPA representation [Tue] of /ˈʧuː-/, <Tuesday> in Myanmar script would be beginning with {chu:}.

Another possible pronunciation is /juː.ə/ or /jʊə/, e.g.:

In addition

Other sounds are associated with the digraph [ue], e.g.:

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p556. There are several pronunciation possibilities for the vowel digraph [ui]. The most common is likely to be /uː/, e.g.:

A similar pronunciation is /juː/ in British English, realised as /uː/ in US English, e.g.:

In addition

Other sounds are associated with the digraph [ui], e.g.:

It should also be noted that [ui] may follow [q], producing the sound /kwɪ/ or /kwaɪ/.

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letters UOU

p570. The vowel letter combination [uou] has only one possible pronunciation: /ju.ə/ , e.g.:

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letters UY

p572. The vowel digraph [uy] has two possible pronunciations /aɪ/ and, at the end of words where it is usually preceded by the letter [q], /wi/, e.g.:

An exceptional case is the word <Gruyère>, borrowed from French.

UKT notes

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