Throughout Wikipedia, the pronunciations of English words are conveyed by means of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); for a basic introduction to IPA, see Wikipedia:IPA/Introduction. In particular, the following tables list the relevant transcription for various English diaphonemes; for a more complete key, see Wikipedia:IPA, which includes sounds that do not occur in English. (If the IPA symbols are not displayed properly by your browser, then see the links at the bottom of this page.)
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.
Therefore, not all of the distinctions shown here are relevant to a particular dialect:
If, for example, you pronounce cot/ˈkɒt/
</noinclude> and caught/ˈkɔːt/
</noinclude> the same, then you may simply ignore the difference between the symbols /ɒ/
</noinclude> and /ɔː/
</noinclude>, just as you ignore the distinction between the written vowels o and au when pronouncing them.
In many dialects, /r/
</noinclude> occurs only before a vowel; if you speak such a dialect, simply ignore /r/
</noinclude> in the pronunciation guides where you would not pronounce it, as in cart/ˈkɑrt/
</noinclude>.
In other dialects, /j/
</noinclude> (a y sound) cannot occur after /t/
</noinclude>, /d/
</noinclude>, /n/
</noinclude>, etc., all within the same syllable; if you speak such a dialect, then ignore the /j/
</noinclude> in transcriptions such as new/njuː/
</noinclude>. For example, New York is transcribed /njuː ˈjɔrk/
</noinclude>. For most people from England, and for some New Yorkers, the /r/
</noinclude> in /ˈjɔrk/
</noinclude> is not pronounced and may be ignored; for most people from the United States, including some New Yorkers, the /j/
</noinclude> in /njuː/
</noinclude> is not pronounced and may be ignored.
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 difference between the vowels of fir, fur and fern in Scottish and Irish English.
The vowels of bad and had in many parts of Australia and the Eastern United States.
The vowels of spider and spied her in some parts of Scotland and North America.
Other words may have different vowels depending on the speaker. Bath, for example, originally had the /æ/
</noinclude> vowel (as in cat), but for many speakers, it now has the /ɑː/
</noinclude> vowel (as in father). Such words are transcribed twice, once for each pronunciation: /ˈbæθ, ˈbɑːθ/
If your browser does not display IPA symbols, you probably need to install a font that includes the IPA. Good free IPA fonts include Gentium (prettier) and Charis SIL (more complete); download links can be found on those pages.
↑If the two characters ⟨ɡ
</noinclude>⟩ and ⟨
</noinclude>⟩ do not match and if the first looks like a ⟨γ
</noinclude>⟩, then you have an issue with your default font. See Rendering issues.
↑The IPA value of the letter ⟨j
</noinclude>⟩ is counter-intuitive to many English speakers. However, it does occur with this sound in a few English words, such as hallelujah and Jägermeister.
↑Although the IPA symbol [r]
</noinclude> represents a trill, /r/
</noinclude> is widely used instead of /ɹ/
</noinclude> in broad transcriptions of English.
↑Although spellt "wh" in modern English, this sequence developed historically from the sequence "hw" in Old English. The phoneme /hw/
</noinclude> is not distinguished from /w/
</noinclude> in the many dialects with the wine–whine merger, such as RP and most varieties of GenAm.
↑A number of English words, such as genre and garage, are pronounced with either /ʒ/
</noinclude> or /dʒ/
</noinclude>.
↑In most dialects, /x/
</noinclude> is replaced by /k/
</noinclude> in most words, including loch. In ugh, however, it is often replaced by /ɡ/
</noinclude> (a spelling pronunciation), and in Chanukah by /h/
</noinclude>
↑ In non-rhotic accents like RP, /r/
</noinclude> is not pronounced unless followed by a vowel. In some Wikipedia articles, /ɪər/
</noinclude> etc. may not be distinguished from /ɪr/
</noinclude> etc. When they are distinguished, the long vowels are sometimes transcribed /iːr/
</noinclude> etc. by analogy with vowels not followed by /r/
</noinclude>. These should be fixed to correspond with the chart here.
↑ 8.08.18.28.38.4 Note that many speakers distinguish monosyllabic triphthongs with R and disyllabic realizations: hour/ˈaʊər/
</noinclude> from plougher/ˈplaʊ.ər/
</noinclude>, hire/ˈhaɪər/
</noinclude> from higher/ˈhaɪ.ər/
</noinclude>, loir/ˈlɔɪər/
</noinclude> from employer/ɨmˈplɔɪ.ər/
</noinclude>, mare/ˈmɛər/
</noinclude> from player/ˈpleɪ.ər/
</noinclude>.
↑/ɒ/
</noinclude> is not distinguished from /ɑː/
</noinclude> in dialects with the father–bother merger such as GenAm.
↑Many speakers, for example in most of Canada and much of the United States, have a different vowel in price and ride. Generally, an [aɪ]
</noinclude> is used at the ends of words and before voiced sounds, as in ride, file, fine, pie, while an [ʌɪ]
</noinclude> is used before voiceless sounds, as in price and write. Because /t/
</noinclude> and /d/
</noinclude> are often conflated in the middle of words in these dialects, derivatives of these words, such as rider and writer, may be distinguished only by their vowel: [ˈɹʷaɪɾəɹ], [ˈɹʷʌɪɾəɹ]
</noinclude>. However, even though the value of /aɪ/
</noinclude> is not predictable in some words, such as spider[ˈspʌɪɾəɹ]
</noinclude>,[ރެފަރެންސް ބޭނުންވޭ] dictionaries do not generally record it, so it has not been allocated a separate transcription here.
↑ 12.012.1Transcribed as /e/
</noinclude> by many dictionaries.[1]
↑Pronounced the same as /ɛr/
</noinclude> in accents with the Mary–marry–merry merger. Often transcribed as /eə/
</noinclude> by British dictionaries and as /er/
</noinclude> by American ones. The OED uses /ɛː/
</noinclude> for BrE and /ɛ(ə)r/
</noinclude> for AmE.[2]
↑/ɔː/
</noinclude> is not distinguished from /ɒ/
</noinclude> (except before /r/
</noinclude>) in dialects with the cot–caught merger such as some varieties of GenAm.
↑Commonly transcribed /əʊ/
</noinclude> or /oː/
</noinclude>.
↑/ɔər/
</noinclude> is not distinguished from /ɔr/
</noinclude> in dialects with the horse–hoarse merger, which include most dialects of modern English.
↑/ʊər/
</noinclude> is not distinguished from /ɔr/
</noinclude> in dialects with the pour–poor merger, including many younger speakers.
↑In dialects with yod dropping, /juː/
</noinclude> is pronounced the same as /uː/
</noinclude> after coronal consonants (/t/
</noinclude>, /d/
</noinclude>, /s/
</noinclude>, /z/
</noinclude>, /n/
</noinclude>, /θ/
</noinclude>, and /l/
</noinclude>) in the same syllable, so that dew/djuː/
</noinclude> is pronounced the same as do/duː/
</noinclude>. In dialects with yod coalescence, /tj/
</noinclude>, /dj/
</noinclude>, /sj/
</noinclude> and /zj/
</noinclude> are pronounced /tʃ/
</noinclude>, /dʒ/
</noinclude>, /ʃ/
</noinclude> and /ʒ/
</noinclude>, so that the first syllable in Tuesday is pronounced the same as choose.
↑This phoneme is not used in the northern half of England, some bordering parts of Wales, and some broad eastern Ireland accents. These words would take the ʊ
</noinclude> vowel: there is no foot–strut split.
↑ 20.020.1In some articles /ɜr/
</noinclude> is transcribed as /ɝː/
</noinclude>, and /ər/
</noinclude> as /ɚ/
</noinclude>, when not followed by a vowel.
↑Pronounced [ə]
</noinclude> in Australian and many US dialects, and [ɪ]
</noinclude> in Received Pronunciation. Many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ɪ̈]
</noinclude> and a reduced [ə]
</noinclude>. Many phoneticians (vd. Olive & Greenwood 1993:322) and the OED use the pseudo-IPA symbol ɪ
</noinclude> [3], and Merriam–Webster uses ə̇
</noinclude>.
↑Pronounced [ə]
</noinclude> in many dialects, and [ɵw]
</noinclude> or [əw]
</noinclude> before another vowel, as in cooperate. Sometimes pronounced as a full /oʊ/
</noinclude>, especially in careful speech. (Bolinger 1989) Usually transcribed as /ə(ʊ)/
</noinclude> (or similar ways of showing variation between /əʊ/
</noinclude> and /ə/
</noinclude>) in British dictionaries.
↑Pronounced [ʊ]
</noinclude> in many dialects, [ə]
</noinclude> in others. Many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ʊ̈]
</noinclude> and a reduced [ə]
</noinclude>. The OED uses the pseudo-IPA symbol ʊ
</noinclude> [4].
↑Pronounced /iː/
</noinclude> in dialects with the happy tensing, /ɪ/
</noinclude> in other dialects. British convention used to transcribe it with /ɪ/, but the OED and other influential dictionaries recently converted to /i/.
↑It is arguable that there is no phonemic distinction in English between primary and secondary stress (vd. Ladefoged 1993), but it is conventional to notate them as here.
↑Full vowels following a stressed syllable, such as the ship in battleship, are marked with secondary stress in some dictionaries (Merriam-Webster), but not in others (the OED). Such syllables are not actually stressed.
↑Syllables are indicated sparingly, where necessary to avoid confusion, for example to break up sequences of vowels (moai) or consonant clusters which an English speaker might misread as a digraph (Vancouveria, Windhoek).
