Lesson 2: Phonetics and Phonology
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
International Phonetic Alphabet (or IPA) is needed to write down the sounds of languages in a consistent fashion, and its aim is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. In furtherance of this aim, the IPA provides the academic community worldwide with a notational standard for the phonetic representation of all languages.
It was originally developed by British and French phoneticians under the auspices of the International Phonetic Association, established in Paris in 1866. The alphabet has undergone a number of revisions during its history, including some major ones codified by the IPA Kiel Convention (1989). Most letters are taken from the Roman Alphabet or derived from it, some are taken from the Greek Alphabet, and some are apparently unrelated to any standard alphabet. The sound-values of the consonants that are equal to those in the Latin Alphabet in most cases correspond to English usage [p], [b], [t], [d], [k],[g], [m], [n], [f], [v],[s], [h],[z], [l], [w].
Concerning the vowel symbols, they are identical to those in the Latin Alphabet ([a], [e],[i], [o],[u]) and match roughly to the vowels of Italian and Spanish: [i] is like the vowel in ‘meet’ while [u] is like the vowel in ‘food’ etc. Most of the other symbols that are shared in the Latin Alphabet like [j], [r], [c] and [y] correspond to sounds those letters represent in other languages, [j] has the sound value of English ‘y’ in yoke (= German); whereas [y] has the Scandinavian or Old English value of the letter (=German y or ü, Greek Ү or French u). The general principle is to employ one symbol for one speech segment, avoiding letter combinations such as ‘sh’ and ‘th’ in English orthography. Letters that have shapes that are modified Latin letters usually correspond to a similar sound.
For example, all the ‘retroflex consonants’ have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonants but with a rightward pointing hook coming out of the bottom. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA signs to transcribe slightly modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols used for suprasegmental features such as stress, tone etc.
