Help:Pronunciation respelling key - Wikipedia Help:Pronunciation respelling key From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Wikipedia information page Wikipedia information page This is an information page. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, but rather intends to describe some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms, customs, technicalities, or practices. It may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. Shortcuts H:RESPELL H:PRK This page contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. The following pronunciation respelling key is used in some Wikipedia articles to respell the pronunciations of English words. It does not use special symbols or diacritics apart from the schwa (ə), which is used for the first sound in the word "about". Contents 1 Key 1.1 Syllables and stress 2 When to use and when not to use 3 See also 4 Notes Key Both the IPA and respelling for English on Wikipedia are designed to record all distinctive sounds found in major varieties of English. That is, we record differences found in some varieties but not in others, such as those between "father" and "farther", "wine" and "whine", and "cot" and "caught". This does not mean these differences are, or must be, always distinguished; if you speak a dialect that does not distinguish "father" and "farther", for example, simply ignore the difference between FAH-dhər and FAR-dhər. For a more thorough discussion of the sounds and dialectal variation, see Help:IPA/English. Vowels Rspl. Example(s) IPA a[1] bat /æ/ ah father /ɑː/ air bear, Mary /ɛər/ ar farther /ɑːr/ arr marry /ær/ aw bought /ɔː/ ay bait /eɪ/ e[1] bet /ɛ/ eh[2] prestige ee beat /iː/ happy, serious /i/ eer beer, nearer /ɪər/ err merry /ɛr/ ew[3] cute, beauty, dew /juː/ ewr[3] cure, lure /jʊər/ eye[4] item, yikes /aɪ/ i[1] bit /ɪ/ ih[5] historic ire hire /aɪər/ irr mirror /ɪr/ o[1] bot /ɒ/ oh boat /oʊ/ oir coir /ɔɪər/ oo boot, you /uː/ influence, fruition /u/ oor poor, tourist /ʊər/ or horse, hoarse, pour, forum /ɔːr/ orr moral /ɒr/ ow bout, vow /aʊ/ owr flour /aʊər/ oy choice, boy /ɔɪ/ u[1] but /ʌ/ uh[6] frustration ur bird, furry /ɜːr/ urr hurry /ʌr/ uu[1] book /ʊ/ uurr courier /ʊr/ y[4] bite, bide /aɪ/ ə about, comma /ə/ ər letter /ər/ Consonants Rspl. Example(s) IPA b buy /b/ ch[7] church, nature /tʃ/ d dye, ladder /d/ dh thy, this /ð/ f fight /f/ g go /ɡ/ gh[8] guess, guitar h high /h/ j jive /dʒ/ k kite, sky, lock /k/ kh loch, Chanukah /x/ l lie, sly /l/ m my /m/ n nigh /n/ ng ring, singer /ŋ/ nk[9] sink /ŋk/ p pie, spy /p/ r rye, try /r/ s sigh /s/ ss[10] ice, tense sh shy /ʃ/ t tie, sty, latter /t/ tch[7] church, natural /tʃ/ th thigh /θ/ v vine /v/ w wine /w/ wh whine /hw/ y you /j/ z zoo /z/ zh pleasure /ʒ/ Syllables and stress Syllables are separated by hyphens ("-"). The stress on a syllable is indicated by capital letters. For example, the word "pronunciation" (/prəˌnʌnsiˈeɪʃən/) is respelled prə-NUN-see-AY-shən. In this example, the primary and secondary stress are not distinguished, as the difference is automatic. In words where primary stress precedes secondary stress, however, the secondary stress should not be differentiated from unstressed syllables; for example, "motorcycle" (/ˈmoʊtərˌsaɪkəl/) would be respelled as MOH-tər-sy-kəl, as MOH-tər-SY-kəl would incorrectly suggest the pronunciation /ˌmoʊtərˈsaɪkəl/. When to use and when not to use As designated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation, the standard set of symbols used to show the pronunciation of English words on Wikipedia is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The IPA has significant advantages over this respelling system, as it can be used to accurately represent pronunciations from any language in the world, and (being an international standard) is often more familiar to European/Commonwealth and non-native speakers of English. On the other hand, the IPA (being designed to represent sounds from any language in the world) is not as intuitive for those chiefly familiar with English orthography, for whom this respelling system is likely to be easier for English words and names. So, while the IPA is the required form of representing pronunciation, respelling remains optional. It should not be used for representing non-English words or an approximation thereof. See documentation for {{Respell}} for examples and instructions on using the template. Sometimes another means of indicating a pronunciation is more desirable than this respelling system, such as when a name is intended to be a homonym of an existing English word or phrase, or in case of an initialism or a name composed of numbers or symbols. When citing a homonym, it should not be enclosed in the {{respell}} template. In such cases, an IPA notation is usually nevertheless needed, but not necessarily so; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Other transcription systems for further discussion. Respelling should also be avoided when a respelled syllable would be the same as an existing word that is pronounced differently. "Maui" /ˈmaʊi/ respelled as MOW-ee, "metonymy" /mɛˈtɒnɪmi/ as meh-TON-im-ee, and "cobalt" /ˈkoʊbɒlt/ as KOH-bolt are susceptible to being misinterpreted as /ˈmoʊi/, /mɛˈtʌnɪmi/, and /ˈkoʊboʊlt/, because of the words "mow", "ton", and "bolt", so only IPA should be provided for such words, if any. Particularly, respelling /aʊ/ could prove problematic as there are a variety of monosyllabic words spelled with "ow" and pronounced with /oʊ/: blow, blown, bow, bowl, flow, flown, glow, grow, grown, growth, low, mow, mown, own, row, show, slow, snow, sow, sown, stow, strow, throw, tow, and trow. There is no universal solution to this problem ("ou" also varies as in loud, soup, soul, and touch), so respelling a word including /aʊ/ may be best avoided altogether; however, sometimes the benefit of respelling may outweigh the disadvantage, especially for longer words, so exercise discretion. See also Help:IPA/Conventions for English Help:IPA/English {{Respell}}: the template and instructions for adding pronunciation respelling Pronunciation respelling for English Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation Notes ^ a b c d e f /æ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʌ, ʊ/ (a, e(h), i(h), o, u(h), uu) are checked vowels, meaning never occurring at the end of a word or before a vowel. When a checked vowel is followed by a consonant and a stressed vowel, which is rare nonetheless, it is acceptable in some cases to attribute the following consonant to the same syllable as the checked vowel, as in bal-AY, even though in IPA it is customary to attribute it to the following syllable, as in /bæˈleɪ/. However, when the following consonant is a voiceless plosive (/p, t, k/) pronounced with aspiration (a slight delay in the following vowel), it must be attributed to the same syllable as the following vowel, as in ta-TOO, because tat-OO may result in a different pronunciation than intended (compare "whatever" whot-EV-ər, whut-, wherein /t/ is not aspirated and may be glottalized or flapped). Similarly, when a vowel is followed by /s/, one or more consonants, and a stressed vowel, the syllabification must be retained, as in fruh-STRAY-shən, because frus-TRAY-shən may result in a different pronunciation than intended. ^ /ɛ/ in syllable-final positions may be respelled eh instead of e when otherwise it may be misinterpreted as another sound such as /i(ː)/ or /eɪ/. ^ a b ew and ewr are for when /juː/ or /jʊər/ takes place right after a consonant within the same syllable. When /juː/ or /jʊər/ begins a syllable (e.g. "youth", "Europe", "value"), use yoo(r)—unless it is subject to yod-dropping or yod-coalescence: "Lithuania" LITH-ew-AY-nee-ə. ^ a b /aɪ/ is respelled eye when it begins a syllable or is preceded by /j/ and otherwise y. When y is followed by a consonant within the same syllable, place an e after the consonant as necessary: "price" PRYSE, "tight" TYTE. ^ /ɪ/ in syllable-final positions may be respelled ih instead of i when otherwise it may be misinterpreted as another sound such as /aɪ/. ^ /ʌ/ in syllable-final positions is respelled uh instead of u to better distinguish it from /u(ː), ʊ/. ^ a b /tʃ/ after a vowel in the same syllable is respelled tch instead of ch to better distinguish it from /k, x/. ^ /ɡ/ may be respelled gh instead of g when otherwise it may be misinterpreted as /dʒ/. ^ /ŋk/ is respelled nk rather than ngk, since the assimilation is mandatory, except beyond a syllable boundary: "tinker" TING-kər. ^ /s/ may be respelled ss instead of s when otherwise it may be misinterpreted as /z/: "ice" EYESS, "tense" TENSS (compare eyes, tens). v t e International Phonetic Alphabet keys Adyghe Afrikaans Albanian Amharic Arabic Modern Standard Egyptian Hejazi Lebanese Tunisian Armenian Assamese Asturian Australian languages Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bengali Berber Breton Bulgarian Burmese Catalan Chinese Mandarin Cantonese Taiwanese Hokkien Wu Corsican Czech Danish Dari Dutch English Old English Emilian-Romagnol Esperanto Estonian Extremaduran Fijian Finnish Franco-Provençal French Galician Georgian German Standard Alemannic Colognian Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hawaiian Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Inuktitut Inupiaq Irish Isan Italian dialects Japanese Kazakh Khmer Korean Kurdish Kyrgyz Lao Latin Latvian Ligurian Lithuanian Lombard Luxembourgish Macedonian Maithili Malagasy Malay Malayalam Maltese Manx Māori Marathi Marshallese Mauritian Creole Mayan Mongolian Mirandese Nahuatl Navajo Neapolitan Nepali Northern Thai Norwegian Occitan Odia Persian Piedmontese Polish Portuguese Punjabi Quechua Romanian Romansh Russian Sanskrit Sardinian Scottish Gaelic Serbo-Croatian Shan Sicilian Slovak Slovene Spanish Swahili Swazi Swedish Tagalog Tai Lue Tajik Tamil Tatar Telugu Thai Tibetan Tigrinya Turkish Turkmen Ukrainian Urdu Uzbek Venetian Vietnamese Walloon Welsh West Frisian Xhosa Yiddish Zulu Comparisons IPA conventions for English English dialects Wikipedia pronunciation respelling Other English pronunciation respellings Introductory guides Symbols For English speakers Manual of Style: Pronunciation Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Help:Pronunciation_respelling_key&oldid=1016691242" Categories: Wikipedia information pages Wikipedia pronunciation Hidden categories: Help pages with short description Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Help page Talk Variants Views Read View source View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages অসমীয়া भोजपुरी Bahasa Indonesia Jawa ଓଡ଼ିଆ Scots Simple English Тоҷикӣ اردو 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 8 April 2021, at 15:34 (UTC). 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