Help:IPA/English

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Throughout Wikipedia, the pronunciation of words is indicated by means of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The following tables list the IPA symbols used for English words and pronunciations. Please note that several of these symbols are used in ways that are specific to Wikipedia and differ from those used by dictionaries.

If the IPA symbols are not displayed properly by your browser, see the links below.

If you are adding a pronunciation using this key, such pronunciations should generally be formatted using the template {{IPAc-en}}. The template provides tooltips for each symbol in the pronunciation. See the template page for instructions.

Video Help:IPA/English

Key

If the words given as examples for two different symbols sound the same to you (for example, if you pronounce cot and caught the same, or do and dew, or marry and merry), you can pronounce those symbols the same in explanations of all words. The footnotes explain some of these mergers. (See also Dialect variation below.)

If there is an IPA symbol you are looking for that you do not see here, see Help:IPA, which is a more complete list. For a table listing all spellings of the sounds on this page, see English orthography § Sound-to-spelling correspondences. For help converting spelling to pronunciation, see English orthography § Spelling-to-sound correspondences.

Notes

The IPA stress mark (') comes before the syllable that has the stress, in contrast to stress marking in pronunciation keys of some dictionaries published in the United States.
Words in SMALL CAPITALS are the standard lexical sets. Words in the lexical sets BATH and CLOTH may be given two transcriptions, the former either with /?:/ or /æ/, the latter with /?/ or /?:/.

Maps Help:IPA/English

Dialect variation

This key represents diaphonemes, abstractions of speech sounds that accommodate General American, Received Pronunciation (RP) and New Zealand (and to a large extent also Australian, Canadian, Irish (including Ulster), Scottish, South African and Welsh, but see below) pronunciations. Therefore, not all of the distinctions shown here are relevant to a particular dialect:

Many speakers of American and Canadian English pronounce cot /'k?t/ and caught /'k?:t/ the same. You may simply ignore the difference between the symbols /?/ and /?:/, just as you ignore the distinction between the written vowels o and au when pronouncing them.
Some speakers from Northern England do not distinguish the vowel of square /'skw??r/ and nurse /'n?:rs/. If you speak such a dialect, ignore the difference between the symbols /??r/ and /?:r/.
In New Zealand English, the vowels of kit /'k?t/ and focus /'fo?k?s/ have the same schwa-like quality. If you are from New Zealand, ignore the difference between the symbols /?/ and /?/.
In contemporary New Zealand English and some other dialects, the vowels of near /'n??r/ and square /'skw??r/ are not distinguished. If you speak such a dialect, ignore the difference between the symbols /??r/ and /??r/.
In Scottish English and Ulster English, the vowels of foot /'f?t/ and goose /'?u:s/ are not distinguished. If you speak either of those dialects, ignore the difference between the symbols /?/ and /u:/.
In Northern England English, the vowels of foot /'f?t/ and strut /'str?t/ are not distinguished. If you are from Northern England, ignore the difference between the symbols /?/ and /?/.
In Welsh English and some other dialects, the vowels of strut /'str?t/ and focus /'fo?k?s/ are not distinguished. If you speak such a dialect, ignore the difference between the symbols /?/ and /?/.
In dialects with l-vocalization (such as Cockney, Estuary English or New Zealand English), /l/ after certain diphthongs such as /??/ (as in oil /'??l/) may not be distinguished from the /?l/ sequence in words such as treacle /'tr?k?l/ or bubble /'b?b?l/. If you speak such a dialect, read /l/ as /?l/ whenever it seems appropriate.
Depending on the dialect, vowels can be subject to various mergers before /l/, so that e.g. fill /'f?l/ and feel /'fi:l/ or pull /'p?l/ and pool /'pu:l/ may not be distinguished. See English-language vowel changes before historic /l/ for more information.
In many dialects, /r/ occurs only before a vowel; if you speak such a dialect, simply ignore /r/ in the pronunciation guides where you would not pronounce it, as in cart /k?:rt/.
In other dialects, /j/ (yes) cannot occur after /t, d, n/, etc., within the same syllable; if you speak such a dialect, then ignore the /j/ in transcriptions such as new /nju:/. For example, New York is transcribed /nju: 'j?:rk/. For most people from England and for some New Yorkers, the /r/ in /j?:rk/ is not pronounced; for most people from the United States, including some New Yorkers, the /j/ in /nju:/ is not pronounced and may be ignored. (See yod-dropping.)

On the other hand, there are some distinctions which you might make but which this key does not encode, as they are seldom reflected in the dictionaries used as sources for Wikipedia articles:

The vowels of kit and bit, distinguished in South Africa. Both of them are transcribed as /?/ in stressed syllables and as /?/ or /?/ in unstressed syllables.
The difference between the vowels of fir, fur and fern, maintained in some Scottish and Irish English but lost elsewhere. All of them are transcribed as /?:r/.
The vowels of north and force, distinguished in Scottish English, Irish English and by a minority of American speakers. Both of them are transcribed as /?:r/.
The vowels of pause and paws, distinguished in Cockney and by some Estuary English speakers. Both of them are transcribed as /?:/ or /?:r/, depending on the word.
The vowels of bad and lad, distinguished in many parts of Australia. Both of them are transcribed as /æ/.
The vowels of manning and Manning, distinguished in some parts of the United States. Both of them are transcribed as /æ/.
The difference between the vowels of pain and pane found in some English, Welsh, and Newfoundland dialects. Both of them are transcribed as /e?/.
The difference between the vowels of holy and wholly found in Cockney and many Estuary English speakers. Both of them are transcribed as /o?/.
The vowels of spider and spied her, distinguished in many parts of Scotland. Both of them are transcribed as /a?/.
The vowels of rider and writer, distinguished in many parts of Canada and some parts of the United States. Both of them are transcribed as /a?/.
The vowels of powder and pouter distinguished in many parts of Canada and some parts of the United States. Both of them are transcribed as /a?/.

Other words may have different vowels depending on the speaker.

The pronunciation of the /æ/ vowel in most dialects of Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England and Wales has always been closer to [a]. BBC English has moved away from the traditional near-open front realization [æ] towards almost fully open front realization [a], and both the Oxford English Dictionary and the 2014 edition of Gimson's Pronunciation of English transcribe the vowel in lad, bad, cat, trap with /a/.

For more extensive information on dialect variations, you may wish to see the IPA chart for English dialects.

Note that place names are not generally exempted from being transcribed in this abstracted system, so rules such as the above must be applied in order to recover the local pronunciation. Examples include place names in much of England ending -ford, which although locally pronounced [-f?d] are transcribed /-f?rd/. This is best practice for editors. However, readers should be aware that not all editors may have followed this consistently, so for example if /-f?d/ is encountered for such a place name, it should not be interpreted as a claim that the /r/ would be absent even in a rhotic dialect.

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) | English Pronunciation ...

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Other transcriptions

If you feel it is necessary to add a pronunciation respelling using another convention, then please use the conventions of Wikipedia's pronunciation respelling key.

To compare the following IPA symbols with non-IPA American dictionary conventions that may be more familiar, see Pronunciation respelling for English, which lists the pronunciation guides of fourteen English dictionaries published in the United States.
To compare the following IPA symbols with other IPA conventions that may be more familiar, see Help:IPA/Conventions for English, which lists the conventions of eight English dictionaries published in Britain, Australia, and the United States.