Pronunciation respelling for English

Pronunciation respelling is a type of notation system used to convey pronunciation of words, in a language which doesn't have a phonemic orthography (such as English). Respelling systems are meant to be easy for native readers to understand, but do not represent phonetic differences between English accents or dialects. English dictionaries have used various respelling systems to convey phonemic representations of the spoken word since at least the early nineteenth century, and most American and some British dictionaries continue to do so.

More sophisticated phonetic systems have been developed, such as James Murray's scheme for the original Oxford English Dictionary, and the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which replaced it in later editions and has been adopted by many British and international dictionaries. The IPA system is not a respelling system because it uses symbols such as "ð" and "θ" which are not used in English spelling. Most current British dictionaries [Such as "The Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation" [http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/the-week/334926/mind-your-language.thtml Mind your language] , by Dot Wordsworth, in The Spectator, November 7 2007.] use IPA for this purpose. The pronunciation which these dictionaries refer to is the so-called Received Pronunciation, which is based upon educated speech in southern England.

Traditional respelling systems

The following chart matches the IPA symbols used to represent the sounds of the English language with the phonetic symbols used in several dictionaries, a majority of which transcribe American English.

The following consonant letters have the same values in IPA and all other systems listed: b, d, f, g, k, l, m, n, p, s, t, v, w, z.

These works adhere (for the most part) to the one-symbol-per-sound principle. Other works not included here, such as "Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language" (unabridged, 2nd ed.), do not, and thus have several different symbols for the same sound (partly to allow for different phonemic mergers and splits).

"The full titles of abbreviated column headings in the following table are viewable in interactive media (as opposed to hard copy). Hover over the abbreviations to see the full titles."

The first native (not learner's) English dictionary using IPA may have been the "Collins English Dictionary" (1979), and others followed suit. The "Oxford English Dictionary", 2nd edition (OED2, 1989) used IPA, transcribed letter-for-letter from entries in the first edition, which had been noted in a scheme by the original editor, James Murray.

While IPA has not been adopted by popular dictionaries in the United States, there is a demand for learner's dictionaries which provide both British and American English pronunciation. Some dictionaries, such as the "Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary" and the "Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English" provide a separate transcription for each.

British and American English dialects have a similar set of phonemes, but some are pronounced differently; in technical parlance, they consist of different phones. Although developed for RP, the Gimson system being phonemic, it is not far from much of General American pronunciation as well. A number of recent dictionaries, such as the "Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary", add a few non-phonemic symbols /IPA|^r i u ^əl ^ən/ to represent both RP and General American pronunciation in a single IPA transcription.

Clive Upton updated the Gimson scheme, changing the symbols used for five vowels. He served as pronunciation consultant for the influential "Concise Oxford English Dictionary", which adopted this scheme in its ninth edition (1995). Upton's reform is controversial: it reflects changing pronunciation, but critics say it represents a narrower regional accent, and abandons parallelism with American and Australian English. In addition, the UCL linguist John C Wells said that he could not understand why Upton had altered the presentation of "price" to IPA|prʌɪs. [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english.htm]

The in-progress 3rd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary uses Upton's scheme for representing British pronunciations. For American pronunciations it uses an IPA-based scheme devised by Prof. William Kretzschmar of the University of Georgia.

ee also

*
* IPA chart for English
* International Phonetic Alphabet for English
* International Phonetic Alphabet
* General American phonology
* A Wikipedia pronunciation respelling key
* English pronunciation of Greek letters
* Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English
* bRitic

References

*Citation
last=Emsley
first=Bert
title=Progress in Pronouncing Dictionaries
journal=American Speech
volume=15
issue=1
year=1940
month=February
pages=55–59
doi=10.2307/452729
id=JSTOR stable URL|0003-1283(194002)15%3A1%3C55%3APIPD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
* Wells, John (2001). " [http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english-uni.htm IPA transcription systems for English] ", at "University College London Department of Phonetics and Linguistics" site. Retrieved 2006-08-16.
*
* Antimoon.com. " [http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-trans.htm Introduction to phonetic transcription] ", at "Antimoon.com". Retrieved 2006-08-16.
* Oxford English Dictionary. " [http://www.oed.com/about/oed3-preface/pronunciation.html Pronunciation] ", from the Preface to the Third Edition. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
* Oxford English Dictionary. " [http://www.oed.com/help/pronunciation-2e.html Key for Second Edition Entries] ", from the OED website. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
* Oxford English Dictionary. " [http://www.oed.com/help/pronunciation-3e.html Key to New Edition Entries] ", from the OED website. Retrieved 2006-09-10.

External links

* Merriam-Webster Online [http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/pronguide_intro.htm Pronunciation Overview] , [http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/pronguide.htm Pronunciation Guide] , [http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/MWOL%20Pronunciation%20Guide.pdf Guide to Pronunciation]
* [http://unicode.org/notes/tn29/UTN29-DictionarySymbols.pdf The use of Phonetic and other Symbols in Dictionaries: A brief survey]
* [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/_/pk.htm List of pronunciation key]