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Pronunciation can change over time. Dictionaries may list the most commonly used forms of words, but as language changes, dictionaries change as well. At best, any guide to suggested pronunciation can reflect the preponderance of usage. A word like immediately, for example, is variously pronounced by Americans as: ihMEEdeeuhtlee; uhMEEdeeuhtlee
So readers looking up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary may find, on seeing the pronunciation respelling, that the word is in fact already known to them orally. By the same token, those who hear an unfamiliar spoken word may see several possible matches in a dictionary and must rely on the pronunciation respellings to find the correct match. [4]
The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association.
Normally, pronunciation is given only for the subject of the article in its lead section. For non-English words and names, use the pronunciation key for the appropriate language. If a common English rendering of the non-English name exists (Venice, Nikita Khrushchev), its pronunciation, if necessary, should be indicated before the non-English one.
Square brackets are used with phonetic notation, whether broad or narrow [17] – that is, for actual pronunciation, possibly including details of the pronunciation that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document. Such phonetic notation is the primary function ...
Pronunciation: anti-dis-es-tab-lish-ment-ar-i-an-is-m Meaning: A political position that originated in 19th-century Britain opposing proposals for the disestablishment of the Church. Letters : 28
However, some of the lists are contaminated: for example, the Japanese list contains English words such as abnormal and non-words such as abcdefgh and m,./.There are also unusual peculiarities in the sorting of these lists, as the French list contains a straight alphabetical listing, while the German list contains the alphabetical listing of traditionally capitalized words and then the ...
The database is distributed as a plain text file with one entry to a line in the format "WORD <pronunciation>" with a two-space separator between the parts. If multiple pronunciations are available for a word, variants are identified using numbered versions (e.g. WORD(1)).