TIL

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Association

IPA

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.

These pages are in Arial Unicode MS font. Please remember that not all Unicode fonts are alike. Myanmar characters are in gif picture format and you do not need any Myanmar font to read it. Myanmar spellings in both Myanmar script and in Romabama and are included. Romabama spellings are within { }, and words within < > are regular English words.

IPA -- the association
IPA -- the alphabet
IPA Consonants (Pulmonic)
English Consonants
IPA Vowels
English Vowels
British English
American English
Great Vowel shift

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UKT: The following edited excerpt is from Univ. Manitoba: Writing things the way they sound

The initials IPA are used for both the International Phonetic Alphabet and for the International Phonetic Association which created it. It should usually be clear which one is being referred to.

IPA -- the association:

• founded in France in 1886
• most original members were language teachers. (Until 1897, its name was the Phonetic Teachers' Association.)
• published the first version of its alphabet in 1888.

IPA -- the alphabet

Guiding principle: one sound = one symbol
• a different symbol for each distinctive sound
• the same symbol should be used for that sound in every language which uses it
• simple symbols for major sounds (from the roman alphabet where possible)
• diacritics for more minor modifications

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IPA Consonants (Pulmonic)

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

UKT:

• Retroflex sounds are also called Apico-palatal sounds.
http://www.ancientscripts.com/phonetics.html

• I have identified Burmese {ña.} as /ɲ/ (U0272) because it is:
-- similar to Spanish ñ. Since Spanish ñ and French gn has been identified with palatal nasal /ɲ/ (U0272)
      http://clauchau.free.fr/L/phonalph.html#nasals
-- close to or identical to Mon ny which is described as alveo-palatal nasal
      http://www.albany.edu/anthro/mon/phonol.html

• I have identified the Burmese {ng} as /ŋ/ (U014B -- the so-called "Latin small letter Eng") velar nasal.
-- see the phonemes of Mon (ng) in http://www.albany.edu/anthro/mon/phonol.html

• Please note that the cell corresponding to Bilabial approximant is EMPTY. This is inconsistent with the table of English Consonants in DJPD16.

• Consonants in yellow cells can be identified with Burmese phonemes.

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English Consonants

From: DJPD16 (Daniel Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary 16th ed) pg.x.

English 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: Note that English w is identified with /w/ in this table. This cell is empty in IPA Consonant chart.

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IPA Vowels

UKT: It is usual to present the IPA vowels in a trapezoid. However, there are also diagrams like the one on the lower right.

UKT: I have redrawn the above after DJPD16 p.xx. DJPD16 had reproduced it from IPA.
Click on the above to get a larger figure.	http://www.ancientscripts.com/phonetics.html

UKT: The following is from http://www.ancientscripts.com/phonetics.html

Even though they look like English, don't be tempted to pronounce the symbols as if they were English letters. For instance, the symbol [i] really sounds like the 'ee' in "reed" (UKT: {I} -- English Capital I. Or {i}). The symbol [e] doesn't sound like the 'e' in 'be', but more like French 'être' (UKT: {E} -- English Capital E. Or {e}).

UKT: Burmese speakers should note that English script is not as phonetic as Myanmar script making the English vowels very inconsistent. "In fact, omitting vowels from English orthography could serve to make it more phonetic without the problem of vowel representation, as the vowels differ greatly among the different dialects of English." -- direct quotation from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad. For example, in
   "Many non-Semitic languages such as English can be written without vowels and read with little difficulty,"
omitting the vowels would give
   "Mny nn-Smtc lnggs sch `s `nglsh cn b wrttn wtht vwls `nd rd wth lttl dffclty." -- and still be fairly legible.

When you say a vowel, you unconsciously change your tongue and lip into an unique configuration characterized by three attributes:

• Unrounded vs rounded. This feature applies to your lip. If you say [u] as like "room", you'll notice that your lips forming a circle and you look like you're about to kiss someone. On the other hand, if you say [i] as in "feet" your lips are straight. That's why before you take a picture in America you will tell the people you're about to capture on film to say "cheese", because [ i ] {i} makes the lips look like smiling.

• High to low. You probably never noticed this, but when you say a vowel part of your tongue will raise toward the roof of your mouth while other parts will stay near the bottom. The height of your tongue's peak determines the vowel you say. The sound [i] like in "feet" forces your tongue higher up than, say, the sound [a] as in "father".

• Front, central, and back. This same peak that I just described above can also change in position in your mouth. When the peak is closest to your teeth, it is in front. Toward the throat is back. Between the two is, obviously, central. With [ i ] {i}, the peak of the tongue is a little bit behind your teeth, while with [u] {u}  the peak of the tongue is at the back of your mouth, near where the hard palate changes to the soft palate. If you can't picture it, try feeling around with your finger.

UKT: If you are a Burmese-speaking Myanmar, the illustrations given above may make very little sense. At least, that is what I found with myself when I try to emulate the illustrations myself -- showing that my English pronunciation though perfectly understandable to the Americans and Canadians is just different from theirs!.

• Vowels can be long or short. A long vowel is denoted by a colon ( : ) after the vowel. The best example in English of long vs short can be found in cases like "sad" (long) and "sat" (short). Notice how the 'a' (phonetically [æ]) sounds longer in "sad" than in "sat". So, "sad" is transcribed as [sæ:d] while "sat" is [sæt]

UKT: Burmese speaking Myanmars should note that the above examples are not appropriate for a native Burmese speaker, because the examples of syllables given would involve the use of virama or {a-thut}. Note that the {a-thut} is used to make the Burmese syllables end in vowels.
   <sat> is [sæt] is best represented in Myanmar {ak-hkara} as: {hsak}
Burmese involves short, normal and very long vowels which are sometimes thought to be three tones of the same syllable by the English speakers, e.g.
   {e.} | {e} | {e:}

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English Vowels

By English, we mean both British English and American English.

Few realised that English is not an easy language. The vowels keep on changing from place to place and from time to time. If only we were to put less emphasis on the pronunciation, learning English would be a lot easier. Because of the fickleness of the English vowels, transcription of English into other languages is never unsatisfactory. This I am learning from personal experience in transcribing English into Myanmar -- a task I have to do in corresponding via email with most of the TIL staff. Let's see what would happen if we were to remove the vowel letters, a e i o u, from the English-script.

Direct quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abjad
"Many non-Semitic languages such as English can be written without vowels and read with little difficulty. (For example, the previous sentence could be written:
   Mny nn-Smtc lnggs sch `s `nglsh cn b wrttn wtht vwls `nd rd wth lttl dffclty.
and still be fairly legible.) In fact, omitting vowels from English orthography could serve to make it more phonetic without the problem of vowel representation, as the vowels differ greatly among the different dialects of English."

You may continue reading about the changes during centuries in Great Vowel Shift.

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British English

UKT: This section is from DJPD16 (Daniel Jones English Pronouncing Dictionary, 16 ed,. Cambridge University Press 2003.)

British English (BBC accent) is generally described as having short vowels, long vowels and diphthongs. There are said to be seven short vowels, five long ones and eight diphthongs. At the end of this section some attention is also given to triphthongs.

A few comments on individual vowels and vowel symbols are needed. The pronunciation of any language is constantly changing, and a dictionary such as DJPD16 should reflect such changes. However, there is a general reluctance among users of phonemic transcription to change the symbols used too frequently, as this causes existing teaching materials and textbooks to become out of date. The following remarks apply chiefly to BBC pronunciation.

(a) The length of long vowels and diphthongs is very much reduced when they occur in syllables closed by the consonants /p , t , k , ʧ , f , θ , s , ʃ/. Thus /iː/ in <beat> has only about half the length of /iː/ in <bead> or <bee>; similarly /eɪ/ in <place> is much reduced in length compared with /eɪ/ in <plays> or <play>.

(b) The vowel /æ/, classified as a short vowel, is nevertheless generally lengthened before /b , d , g , ʤ , m , n/. Thus /æ/ in <bag> is considerably longer than /æ/ in <back> .The quality of this vowel is now more open than it used to be, and the symbol /a/ might one day be considered preferable. We have retained the /æ/ symbol partly because it is phonetically appropriate for the corresponding American vowel.

(c) The vowel /ʌ / (U028C) used to be a back vowel, and the symbol was chosen for this reason. This is no longer a back vowel, but a central one. Alternative symbols could be considered in the future.

UKT:
• According UNIL /ʌ / is a back vowel.
• According to Simon-Fraser Univ, www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/220/basic.sounds.English.220.gif (see the original) /ʌ /  is a "stressed lax mid-central neutral" vowel.

(d) Among younger speakers, the /uː/ (U0075 U02D0) vowel has moved to a more front quality, with less lip-rounding, particularly when preceded by /j/ (U006A) as in <use>.

(e) Among the diphthongs, there seems to be a progressive decline in the use of /ʊə/, with /ɔː/ taking its place ( e.g. the pronunciation of the word <poor> as /pɔː/ is increasingly common).

UKT:
• The entry in DJPD16 for <poor>: / pɔːʳ , pʊəʳ (us) pʊr /
• To a Myanmar, <poor> sounds like:
   something between {po-wa:} and {pu-wa:}, but not .