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12 years ago
The International Phonetic Alphabet is a system of phonetic notation designed with the intention of creating a standardized set of characters that each correspond to one and only one sound in spoken language. The need for such a notation system in linguistic studies comes from the difficulty of representing pronunciation in existing phonetic alphabets.
For instance, in English the Latin letter "a" can represent totally different sounds in different words, like "hat" and "sofa." In the IPA, the a in hat is represented as [æ], while the a in sofa is represented as [ə].
Likewise, different languages make use different sets of sounds, so the IPA has a larger number of characters than most phonetic writing systems. A familiar example would be that the standard Japanese language doesn't use the sounds usually represented by the English letters "r" and "l" (represented in the IPA as [ɹ] and [l]), such that native Japanese speakers sometimes substitute a sound that can vary between [ɾ] (close the the "dd" in "buddy") and [ɺ] (close the the "l" in "love"). These sounds, on the other hand, are rarely used in most dialects of English except possibly in certain unusual cases, so English speakers often have trouble with the Japanese リュウ (transliterated as "ryū"; IPA [ɾju]).
Of course, the IPA isn't perfect; the sound in Japanese that I've been describing can be represented by more than one IPA character, while Japanese speakers consider it a single sound. Likewise, there are sounds in some languages that don't have characters in the IPA. The system has been revised many times, and will surely be revised again in the future.
Nevertheless, the IPA is a remarkably complete system with which one can show pronunciation in any language, if not always with perfect accuracy. It takes some practice to get used to the symbols, since most of them are based on Latin characters that aren't necessarily used the way they are in English. The harder part is actually figuring out how to pronounce each character yourself, since they may require you to use your tongue, lips, vocal chords, and so forth in ways that you're not used to. If you're a big nerd like me, though, it can be a lot of fun, and there are sound clips online so you can practice.
-[kætduːm], for [fɝəˈfɪnɪti]
For instance, in English the Latin letter "a" can represent totally different sounds in different words, like "hat" and "sofa." In the IPA, the a in hat is represented as [æ], while the a in sofa is represented as [ə].
Likewise, different languages make use different sets of sounds, so the IPA has a larger number of characters than most phonetic writing systems. A familiar example would be that the standard Japanese language doesn't use the sounds usually represented by the English letters "r" and "l" (represented in the IPA as [ɹ] and [l]), such that native Japanese speakers sometimes substitute a sound that can vary between [ɾ] (close the the "dd" in "buddy") and [ɺ] (close the the "l" in "love"). These sounds, on the other hand, are rarely used in most dialects of English except possibly in certain unusual cases, so English speakers often have trouble with the Japanese リュウ (transliterated as "ryū"; IPA [ɾju]).
Of course, the IPA isn't perfect; the sound in Japanese that I've been describing can be represented by more than one IPA character, while Japanese speakers consider it a single sound. Likewise, there are sounds in some languages that don't have characters in the IPA. The system has been revised many times, and will surely be revised again in the future.
Nevertheless, the IPA is a remarkably complete system with which one can show pronunciation in any language, if not always with perfect accuracy. It takes some practice to get used to the symbols, since most of them are based on Latin characters that aren't necessarily used the way they are in English. The harder part is actually figuring out how to pronounce each character yourself, since they may require you to use your tongue, lips, vocal chords, and so forth in ways that you're not used to. If you're a big nerd like me, though, it can be a lot of fun, and there are sound clips online so you can practice.
-[kætduːm], for [fɝəˈfɪnɪti]
I like reading about this stuff, and I thought maybe other people would too. I guess I could get a blog, but... meh...