In the video “Module 4 – Tour of Sounds”, Amy mentions that there are
multiple phonetic alphabets, and that we will be using the Americanist Phonetic
Alphabet within this class. I wanted to learn a little more about the different
kinds of phonetic alphabets and they came to be, as well as supplying a few
resources to help use them. I hope you find this both interesting and useful!
If you have ever opened a
dictionary or searched for a definition of a word online, you have almost
certainly seen a phonetic alphabet used to represent how the word is
pronounced. And unless you are a linguist, it’s likely that you have very
little idea how to interpret the individual symbols, much less that they are not
universally consistent. The two most commonly seen phonetic alphabet systems
are the International Phonetic Alphabet and the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet.
The International
Phonetic Alphabet was preceded by a few early attempts at creating a set of
phonetic symbols, most notably Visible Speech, The Organic Alphabet, and Broad
Romic. Visible Speech was developed in 1867 by Alexander Melville Bell (the
father of Alexander Graham Bell) and was specifically designed for use by the
deaf. The symbols used in the alphabet “resembled the position and movement of
the vocal organs to produce the sounds” (Brown). Out of Visible Speech came The
Organic Alphabet, created by Henry Sweet, an English Phonetician. Henry Sweet
also created Broad Romic, which used letters that were from (or closely
resembled) the Roman alphabet.
In 1886, the
International Phonetic Association was formed and created the first version of
the International Phonetic Alphabet in 1888. The principles underlying the
creation of this alphabet are listed below. The International Phonetic
Association has had many internal debates regarding these principles, and
created many iterations of the alphabet. An interesting debate near the
conception of the alphabet was whether different languages should have their
own phonetic alphabets or if they should all follow the same, centralized
alphabet.
- Each sign should have its own distinctive sound.
- The same sign should be used for the same sound across all languages.
- As many ordinary Roman letters should be used as possible, and the usage of new letters should be minimal.
- International usage should decide the sound of each sign.
- The look of the new letters should suggest the sound that they represent.
- Diacritics should be avoided when possible, as they are difficult to write and hard to see.
In our class on American
Indian Languages, we study and are (slightly) more familiar with the
Americanist Phonetic Alphabet. This is because the Americanist Phonetic
Alphabet was actually designed in order to transcribe the very languages that
we are studying! The International Phonetic Alphabet on the other hand was
created in order to help French speakers learn English, and the earliest versions
of it were not meant to write non-European languages (Hinton 214). However, it
is interesting to note that both alphabets were designed by English speakers,
likely due to the rampant inconsistencies and “silliness” inherent within the
English language. Simply read Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité’s “The Chaos”, and you
will quickly understand why English linguists felt the need to make a new
alphabet!
For those of us that will
go on to study linguistics, we will become incredibly familiar with the
intricacies of these phonetic alphabets, and likely decide on some preferred
method. For the rest of us, these alphabets could quite easily remain the
enigmatic symbols we see in Webster’s dictionary or when using Wikipedia.
However, there are many simple resources that can be used to help an Average
Joe read the complex phonetic transcriptions. I have included links to some of
my favorites, split into those that deal with the International Phonetic
Alphabet and those that deal with the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet. If you
ever run into a word you simply do not know how to pronounce, but you are given
a phonetic spelling, these resources could be very helpful, as well as far more
accurate than looking up pronunciation videos on YouTube!
Links
The Chaos by Dr. Gerard Nolst
Trenité
IPA Pronunciation Guide
with Audio Examples
APA Symbols
References
Brown, A. 2012. International Phonetic Alphabet. The
Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics.
Hinton, Leanne.
1996. Flutes of Fire: Essays on California Indian Languages.
Berkeley: Heyday Books.
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