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EyeSeeYou Posted 20 years ago
Speech & Pronunciation

Unifying phonetic symbols

I wonder why dictionaries and/or books on phonetics don't unify the symbols used for phonetics to avoid confusion. The symbol /a/ can also be found as /a: /, some books even equal /^/ to shwa!.

I'm only talking about AmE, since I understand I cannot expect AmE and BrE symbols to be all unified.
  

Top answer

This has been done. The phonetics as of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are considered standard and can be used for virtually all existent languages. The IPA phonetics are used in most high quality dictionaries, especially pronunciation dictionaries, and in materials designed for professional linguists.

— Englishuser

  • This has been done.
  • The phonetics as of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are considered standard and can be used for virtually all existent languages.
  • The IPA phonetics are used in most high quality dictionaries, especially pronunciation dictionaries, and in materials designed for professional linguists.
  • Even though a unified way of transcribing speech exists, not all dictionaries include IPA-transcriptions of entries.
  • This is due to the fact that many people have not learned how to read the IPA symbols, and thus many everyday dictionaries (especially those whose target group is native speakers of English) use a simplified version of the IPA in their transcriptions which basically means that you will need to check how the symbols are to be interpreted in your dictionary in particular.
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2 Answers
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This has been done. The phonetics as of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are considered standard and can be used for virtually all existent languages. The IPA phonetics are used in most high quality dictionaries, especially pronunciation dictionaries, and in materials designed for professional linguists. Even though a unified way of transcribing speech exists, not all dictionaries include
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And SAMPA allows you to type the equivalent of IPA even when you don't have access to a font which has all the IPA symbols.



CJ
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