![]() ![]() If we go down a few rows, you’ll see a row for trills. For example, the first row is labeled ‘plosives.’ Plosives, which include sounds like /p-t-k-b-d-g/ are sounds that start with your mouth closed and end with a burst of airflow being released all at once. The manner of articulation has to do with the manner in which the air leaves your vocal tract. The rows are organized by something called the manner of articulation. Long story short, the columns indicate the consonant’s place of articulation. So, the left-most column (bilabial) requires movement of the lips (at the front of the mouth) while the right-most column (glottal) requires movement of the epiglottis (at the very back of the mouth). The cool thing about the order of the columns on the chart is that as you move from left to right on the, the place of articulation within the mouth moves from the front to the back. ‘Bilabial’ literally means ‘two lips,’ so consonants that belong to this category include sounds that require the lips to be touching (like b, p, m). ![]() ![]() For example, the column labeled bilabial contains bilabial consonants. This refers to where in your mouth movement needs to happen in order to make that sound. The columns are organized by something called the place of articulation. The IPA’s “Consonant Chart” is simply a table ![]() The Consonant Chart and Vowel Map are your keys to understanding the IPA. Consonants are sounds like b-d-g-p-t-k while vowels are sounds like a-e-i-o-u. So where should you start? You should start with (1) the Consonant Chart and (2) the Vowel Map. The IPA is but one single sheet of paper - but there’s a lot of information on it. That’s because while the IPA does rely on a lot of Greek letters and other symbols you might be unfamiliar with ( = the sh as in ‘ shine’), it does use most of the letters from the English alphabet. If you already know written English, you’re already halfway there to understanding IPA. The IPA is also quite useful for any curious mind who wants to be able to read the phonetic transcriptions in the dictionary - or any language learner who wants to better understand how to make specific sounds in their target language. The IPA is obviously helpful to professional phoneticians - but phoneticians aren’t the only ones who benefit from it. So, if there are three sounds, there will be three symbols - easy! For example, the word ‘thought’ in IPA would be written with exactly 3 symbols:, where θ represents the ‘th’ sound, ɔ represents the vowel sound, and t represents the ‘t’ sound. For example, there are only 3 distinct sounds in the word ‘thought’ - and yet we need 7 letters to write it in English! In IPA, this would never happen, as the number of symbols used to transcribe a word in IPA will always be exactly the same as the number of sounds that word contains. This, of course, is not the case for most languages - like English - where the connection between how we spell words and how we pronounce them is not transparent. This perfect 1:1 correspondence between symbols and their sounds is the real beauty of the IPA. You’ll notice that with the exception of the periods (which are used to demarcate syllables), there is exactly one symbol for each distinct sound in the word. The word ‘phonetics’ in IPA would be written like this. To get a taste of how the IPA works, let’s look at an example By the end of this article, you’ll have a much clearer sense for how IPA symbols are organized and how to understand their technical names! In the IPA, that lawnmower sound that you make with your lips is denoted by the symbol and goes by the technical name voiced bilabial trill. In addition to having unique symbols for each of these sounds, the IPA provides us with helpful technical terms that we can use to accurately identify and describe them. For example, clicks are very common in African languages, and that lawnmower sound is used in several Papua New Guinea languages. Even though we don’t use those sounds as part of the English language, they’re all real sounds used in the phonetic system of other languages. The sound you make to imitate a lawn mower - the IPA has a symbol for that. For example, the click sounds you make with your tongue? The IPA has a symbol for those. The main takeaway is this: if you can make a sound with your mouth - the IPA has a unique symbol to represent it. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? In the simplest of terms, the IPA is a single sheet of paper! But here’s what it does: it’s a set of symbols that represent all the possible sounds across human languages. Interested in the fascinating world of speech sounds? Then you need to know about the IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet! ![]()
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