Successive revisions include the creation of a separate table for vowels and the inclusion of letters for sounds found in African languages like and, clicks you can sound out with a clap of the tongue against the top and/or bottom of the mouth (or sounds you’ve probably made before when doing an impression of a horse’s trot). The newly revised alphabet was unveiled at the dawn of the 20th century. The IPA was initially a Eurocentric venture dedicated to European phonology, but linguists’ endless curiosity soon broadened the scope to include languages such as Arabic. And that, no, the word does not originally come from English. Bush met Tony Blair and denounced the French for having no word for “entrepreneur.” So, let’s imagine someone sits down and explains to the former president that entrepreneur exists in both languages and is read in American English and in French. Political myth (political mirth?) states that George W. Pushing it even further: which one of the following words rhymes with enough: though, through, plough, or dough or cough? The IPA will tell you that cough (UK, US ) is the only word on the list that vaguely rhymes with enough (UK, US ). But how do we know where to spot them? Well, the IPA transcription in any dictionary will help us: daughter in US English is and laughter is. Silent Letters: Who Needs ‘Em?Įnglish has an incredible amount of silent letters. So which is which? Well, in the US the verb is read and the noun can either be or, depending on the meaning. Consider “tear,” which can either be the verb, “to tear” or one of two differently pronounced nouns.

This is not only valuable across different regional variations, but serves a practical purpose to any individual speaker. So whereas in common spelling, the same word can be read differently by different readers, in IPA these words will always be read with a great degree of accuracy, including the idiosyncrasies typical of each dialect and accent.

But if we want to include dialects, we will have to find as many variations of the IPA as these words require. Notice how the little diacritic “ˌ” points to a stressed syllable right after it pops up! Extremely helpful for language learners. It is read in British English and in American English. Let’s begin with English and the word “dictionary,” with possible IPA spellings. The model used for the IPA was a phonetic script created for English in 1847 by Isaac Pitman and Henry Ellis. The intention was systematic and the result led to a succession of changes in an attempt to incorporate sounds from other non-European languages. The International Phonetic Association inaugurated and furthered the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of writing using letters and diacritics to sound out speech. These and other concerns led linguists at the end of the 19th century to create a writing system that would represent all of the phonemes in European languages with considerable accuracy. Still remember that moment when the teacher wrote “through” on the blackboard and you froze in a deep state of shock? Who would’ve thought such a simple sound could be represented alphabetically in such a monstrous way? The Birth Of The IPA If that weren’t bad enough, many languages have a standard spelling that resembles a madman’s joke. If writing as we speak is the goal we strive for, why not legitimize the use of different spelling options for different accents? Every time a language’s spelling is reformed to achieve more accurate phonetic representation - such as when European Portuguese dropped “ph” for “f” - a tsunami of complaints washes our cultural shores.

Words spell out to phonetic alphabet