4. IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

This week I took a closer look at IPA. It was first developed in 1886, last revised in 2015. It is a consistent and universal notation for representing speech sounds. And it mainly uses Roman characters (some Greek) and modifications (e.g. upside-down symbols).

Although IPA symbols tend to “suggest” the sound they represent, this is not always the case (esp. attention to vowels!) Even more, some “consonant-looking symbols” can represent vowels (e.g., [y]) and the other way around (e.g., [ʋ]). Some symbols are very close, but it is important to form each correctly, e.g., [z] and [ʒ]; [a] and [ɑ]; [ɾ] and [r].

Benefits: It is used and understood worldwide. It is totally consistent: 1:1 sound to symbol correspondences. It allows us to overcome, e.g., different spellings but the same sound: 

English: this [ðıs] 'this’ Spanish: boda [boða] 'wedding’ Turkmen: aдak [aðak] 'foot’ (O’Grady & Archibald, 2021: 15) Also, in a single language. For example, in English the segment [k] can be represented by: <c>, as in cat, <k> , as in key, <ck>, as in deck, <ck> , as in school, <q>as in queen , <qu> as in etiquette , <x> which can represent [ks], as in relax.

Therefore, we avoid to be confused by identical spellings that represent different sounds: English: e.g., read [rid] vs. read [rɛd] bow [bow] vs. bow [baw] cough: [ɑf] rough: [ʌf] through: [u] though: [ow] And the other way around (different spellings, same sound): there , they're , their = [ðεɹ] To, too, two = [tu] You’re, your = [jʊr] And many more…!

In conclusion, in IPA, things that sound different are transcribed differently. Things that sound the same are transcribed the same way. Each IPA symbol represents one segment. And most importantly, we are talking sounds, not letters.  

-View or download the IPA chart at: https://www.internationalphoneticassoci ation.org/content/full-ipa-chart 

-Clickable versions with audio: https://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/c harts/IPAlab/IPAlab.htm http://www.ipachart.com/

-Clickable version with video: https://www.seeingspeech.ac.uk/ipa-charts/?chart=1