Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
pronunciation; terminology; symbols. Featured on Meta We’re (finally!) going to the cloud! More network ...
I believe the powers that be have changed the symbols to encode the RP pronunciation of "boat" from /boʊt/ to /bəʊt/ recently. Everybody has to learn a new symbol for this vowel just because a few more RP speakers now use something closer to /əʊ/ than /oʊ/. Probably most world English speakers haven't changed their pronunciation.
IPA symbols that are also English letters can take their English names (e.g. s /ɛs/ "ess"). However, you may instead choose to describe the represented phone, when the English pronunciation differs greatly from the IPA one (e.g. j perhaps "palatal approximant" rather than "jay"). ə is the schwa, as already pointed out.
In order to keep the pronunciation as simple as possible, they've chosen to represent an American dialect with fewer vowels than in their regular dictionary, and treat the words cot and caught as having the same vowel, as they do in the West. This means that they can't use the symbol /ɔr/ for port, because /ɔ/ isn't one of the symbols they use.
To answer your last question first: Use a dictionary that follows a widely-accepted standard; that's what IPA is for. If you really want to use Merriam-Webster's pronunciation guidance, you'll need to refer to their own notes. Going back to the source of your table: I wouldn't trust it.
There are a fair number of IPA symbols--certainly more than the number of phonologically distinct vowel sounds in any language--but certain IPA symbols like e, a, u, ə are commonly used for vowels that would be more accurately described with another symbol (such as ɛ, ɑ, ʉ, ɐ) just because the first symbol is more familiar.
Apparently, caret is the most common American pronunciation of the circumflex character ^ (says this comment). Note that ^ is used to mark the CONTROL KEY, in which case it is pronounced control (e.g., ^Y stands for Ctrl+Y, which you read control-Y). Share. Improve this answer.
@endolith: you would need over a hundred vowel symbols to represent sounds completely unambiguously. IPA has diacritics you put on vowels that tell you to raise, lower, back, or front them (showing that the ear can distinguish between many more vowels than the 25 or so basic IPA symbols for vowels) but these diacritics see relatively little use.
Popular phonetic symbols, e.g., KK and DJ, are based on IPA, but not IPA. One more example, the phonetic symbol of Merriam-Webster dictionary is totally different from IPA. – chenzhongpu
pronunciation; symbols. Featured on Meta More network sites to see advertising test . We’re (finally ...