The International Phonetic Alphabet: The Names of Symbols

In an earlier blog entry, I posted some charts outlining the International Phonetic Alphabet. Some of the symbols are different from the usual alphabet, and have special names. Here are some common ways of describing the symbols used for English vowels:

symbol	word	name
i	beat	i
ɪ	bit	lax i
e	bait	e
ɛ	bet	epsilon
æ	bat	ash
a		double-storey a
ə	about	schwa
ɜ		backwards epsilon
ä		a umlaut
ʉ		u barred
ɵ		o barred
ʌ	but	caret, upside down v
ɑ	bought	single-storey ɑ
u	boot	u
ʊ	book	lax u, upside down omega
o	boat	o
ɔ	bored	open o
ɒ		upside down single-storey ɑ
ɚ	after	schwa hook

Here are the phonetic descriptions of those same symbols:

symbol	word	vowels
i	beat	unrounded front close
ɪ	bit	unrounded front near-close
e	bait	unrounded front close-mid
ɛ	bet	unrounded front open-mid
æ	bat	unrounded front near-open
a		unrounded front open
ə	about	unrounded central mid
ɜ		unrounded central near-open
ä		unrounded central open
ʉ		rounded central close
ɵ		rounded central close-mid
ʌ	but	unrounded back open-mid
ɑ	bought	unrounded back open
u	boot	rounded back close
ʊ	book	rounded back near-close
o	boat	rounded back close-mid
ɔ	bored	rounded back open-mid
ɒ		rounded back open
ɚ	after	rhotic unrounded central mid

Here are the names of the symbols used for consonant sounds in English:

symbol	word	name
p	pen	p
b	ban	b
m	man	m
w	was	w
f	fan	f
v	van	v
θ	thin	theta
ð	that	eth
t	ten	t
d	do	d
n	not	n
s	see	s
z	zap	z
ɾ	water	r fishhook
l	laugh	l
ʃ	shop	long esh
ʒ	vision	long ezh
ɹ	run	upside down r
j	yet	j
k	can	k
g	get	g
ŋ	sing	engma
ʔ	often	gelded question mark
h	have	h

Here are the phonetic descriptions of those same symbols:

symbol	word	phonetic description
p	pen	voiceless bilabial plosive
b	ban	voiced bilabial plosive
m	man	bilabial nasal
w	was	labio-velar approximant
f	fan	voiceless labiodental fricative
v	van	voiced labiodental fricative
θ	thin	voiceless dental fricative
ð	that	voiced dental fricative
t	ten	voiceless alveolar plosive
d	do	voiced alveolar plosive
n	not	alveolar nasal
s	see	voiceless alveolar fricative
z	zap	voiced alveolar fricative
ɾ	water	alveolar flap
l	laugh	lateral alveolar approximant
ʃ	shop	voiceless postalveolar fricative
ʒ	vision	voiced postalveolar fricative
ɹ	run	postalveolar approximant
j	yet	palatal approximant
k	can	voiceless velar plosive
g	get	voiced velar plosive
ŋ	sing	velar nasal
ʔ	often	glottal plosive
h	have	voiceless glottal fricative

Rachel's English, words with 't' and t-glottalization

Rachel's English tells us not to pronounce the 't' near the end of such words as "twenty" and "wanted."

https://youtu.be/5svtIgYDJDI

I think her basic observation is correct.  People in England do pronounce the 't' in an audible way, but it is harder to hear a 't' sound in these words in casual speech by Americans.

One reason why we might not be able to hear the 't' sound is because the speakers are closing their vocal cords, shutting off all sound for a split second.  This is called t-glottalization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-glottalization

The British phonetician John Wells points out that it is quite common for both British and Americans to switch 't' for a glottal stop at the end of a syllable in some phonetic environments.

certain /sǝɹʔn/

winter /wɪnʔr/

http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/07/jarek-weckwerth-commenting-on-fridays.html

Checking on the website Forvo, we do find some speakers uploading these pronunciations even in quite careful readings.

https://forvo.com/

Some of the commenters below Rachel's video say that they can hear the 't' or pronounce it themselves, so maybe this glottal stop is what they hear or are saying.

Another possibility is that the speakers are making a 't' closure, but there are not releasing it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release

Canadian Raising or US and UK Lowering

In 15th century England, the words "like," "child," "fly" and "pie" were pronounced with a long vowel /i:/ as in the modern word "see."  By the time of the mid-16th century as part of the Great Vowel Shift, the pronunciation of this group of words had changed to have a vowel diphthong /əi/ starting with a mid central vowel as in the way Canadians pronounce the word "like" .

Similarly in 15th century England, words on the pattern of "out," "house" and "how" were pronounced with a long vowel /u:/ as in the modern word "food."  By the mid-16th century this had changed to /əu/ starting with a central vowel as in the way Canadians pronounce the word "out" now.

In the 17th century as the Great Vowel Shift progressed, the pronunciation of these words shifted in England and the urban parts of the United States to /laik/ and /aut/ starting with an open vowel rather than a mid one.

Canadians by and large continue to use the 16th century pronunciation /ləik/ and /eut/ starting with a mid vowel right up to the present day.  Some parts of Ireland and Scotland use a mid vowel in these words, and in the U.S. isolated communities on islands such as Martha's Vineyard continued to have speakers using the older pronunciation on into the 20th century.

In 1942, Martin Joos, a linguist from Wisconsin noted that if he said the word "like" /lə:i:/ with a drawn out vowel sound to people in Toronto, Canada, no one thought that was strange, but if he pronounced it as /laik/ with an open vowel in the American style, people accused him of drawling.  He also noted that Canadians pronounced the word "typewriter" as either /təipɹəidəɹ/ or as >/təipɹaidəɹ/.  The reason for this was that /əi/ was usually used before voiceless consonants such as "p," "t," "k," "f," "s" "th"/θ/ and "sh"/ʃ/, but "write" is written with a "t" but pronounced as a /d/.  The people who say /təipɹəidəɹ/ are using the mid-vowel to indicate the "t" in the spelling not the /d/ sound they actually pronounce.

I think Canadian linguist J.K. Chambers was the first to coin the term "Canadian Raising" in his 1973 article.  He notes that usually the diphthong is not raised at the end of a word, but some Canadians say "high school" as /həi sku:l/ keeping the mid vowel, perhaps because of the following "s".

Further Reading

Barber, Charles.  1997.  Early Modern English.

Chambers, J. K. 1973. "Canadian Raising". Canadian Journal of Linguistics. 18 (2): 113–135.

Joos, Martin. 1942. "A Phonological Dilemma in Canadian English." Language. April: 141-144.

Vocal Fry

Everyone's voice changes over the course of a day, depending on how you are feeling and what message you are trying to convey.  If you are happy, you may have a cheerful upbeat bounce to your voice.  If you are angry, you may almost growl.  If you get emotional, you may get all choked up, your voice catching as you try to speak.  That voice catching (breaking, cracking) is called 'vocal fry.'

Professional singers and actors train very hard to master vocal fry. If a singer is singing an emotional ballad, they want to convey that emotion, so they may devote considerable effort to learning how to add a raspy husky sound to their voice.

Your voice comes from your vocal cords.  If you vibrate your vocal cords smoothly, you get a nice clear sound coming out.  If you almost close your vocal cords, and breathe out just a little bit, the cords may vibrate, and you get this creaky sound coming out, vocal fry.  If you lower the the pitch of your voice at the end of a sentence, your voice might accidentally catch without your even intending it.

Here is Sean Connery playing James Bond in the movie Dr. No.  Notice how his voice catches as he introduces himself "Bond, James Bond":

https://youtu.be/b15-P12gIf0?t=75

There has been some debate about whether vocal fry indicates wealth or a rural country accent.  In Canada, comedian Steve Smith used a gravelly voice to create the down home character Red Green:

https://youtu.be/OKWoITk7GLo

By contrast, the character Loudermilk claims that fry indicates wealth:

https://youtu.be/WDfJn1kcQuU

Once you become aware of vocal fry, you start hearing it everywhere.  Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has a bit of fry in his voice at times, and countless singers use fry in their songs: Willie Nelson, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, etc.  Some people probably have naturally raspy voices.

There are actually many different ways to create this raspy effect.  Danish voice researcher Cathrine Sadolin has written books and websites on how singers can create different 'rough' vocal effects.  In her framework, vocal fry is called creaking.

https://cvtresearch.com/description-and-sound-of-creak-creaking/

Brendan Houdek of New York Voice Coaching explains how to use fry and other effects to recreate the voices of famous characters from movies and tv:

https://youtu.be/J9K74QEzntA

Valley Girls, Surfers and the Canadian Vowel Shift

In general, a lot of Canadians speak a variety of English that is fairly similar to General or Standard American English.  There are a few areas where the pronunciation of specific speakers is a bit different.  In this entry I'll look at the the Canadian vowel shift.  In future entries, I'll take a look at topics such as Canadian raising,  the cot caught merger (or low back merger), monophthong /e:/ and /o:/,  rhotic r, words with /or/, low vowel merger differences from British and American and vocal fry.

Valley Girls, Surfers and the Canadian Vowel Shift

Here is a chart showing the International Phonetic Alphabet chart symbols for the vowel sounds used in Canadian and California English.  Front vowels are pronounced with your tongue near the front of your mouth.  In close vowels, your mouth is fairly closed, while in open vowel you lower your jaw and open your mouth keeping your tongue low.  You can either round or unround your lips to create those two types of sounds.

	front unround			central unround	central round	back unround	back round
close	i beat				ʉ		u boot
near-close		ɪ bit					ʊ book
close-mid		e bait		ɘ	ɵ		o boat
mid				ǝ about
open-mid		Ɛ bet				ʌ	ɔ bored
near-open			æ bat	ɜ
open			a	ä		ɑ	ɒ bot, bought

Wikipedia has a vowel chart with audio that you can click on.

In 1979, Harold Woods completed a Ph.D. on Ottawa English (A socio-dialectology survey of the English spoken in Ottawa).  He noted that young Ottawa women were more likely to pronounce the words "that," "last," "glass" and "grass" with a lowered vowel compared to their older male counterparts.  He also noted that people tended to pronounce the word "milk" as /mɪlk/ in careful speech, but some speakers would say /mƐlk/ in less careful speech, a lowering of the vowel.  This seems to be the first report of people in the English speaking world moving towards lower front short/lax vowels.

In May, 1982, the American musician Frank Zappa released an album with the song "Valley Girl."  In it, Frank's daughter Moon Unit tried to imitate the accent of the young women she had met in the San Fernando valley of Los Angeles, California.  Just as seen in Ottawa, we hear lowering/backing of the front vowels, eg. "Andrea" gets pronounced /ändriǝ/, "really" becomes /ɹɪlɪ/, bitchin' becomes /bƐtʃɪn/.  Also, she moves the back rounded vowels forward, so "you know" becomes /jʉ nɵʉ/, "totally" becomes /tɵʉtǝli/, "spoon" becomes /spʉ:n/.  One thing that made this interesting was linguists at the time had been writing that Californians spoke General American without any special dialectal features.

Close on the heels of this song came movies and TV shows highlighting California valley girl, surfer or metalhead accents.  In August, the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High actor Sean Penn played Jeff Spicoli, a surfer, who pronounces "dude" as /dʉ:d/.  The TV series Square Pegs from September 1982 saw actress Tracy Nelson channeling a valley girl accent.  1983 saw the release of a Valley Girl movie starring the young Nicolas Cage.  When Cage began appearing in interviews in 1985-6, it turned out that even when not acting, he continued to use what sounds to be a surfer accent.

In 1986, the UC Berkeley linguist Leanne Hinton and her colleagues began studying the phenomenon.  They found that young Californians were fronting their back vowels in large numbers except in front of the consonants /ɹ/ and /l/.  They got conflicting results re. front vowels, but the urban Californians who fronted their back vowels did seem to be lowering their front vowels.  They mention that other researchers had found a similar lowering in Philadelphia and Detroit in the northeast U.S.

It's Not Just the Valley Girls: a Study of California English.

Back in Canada, in 1987, comedian Mike Myers born and raised in Toronto, began appearing on a CBC show It's Only Rock & Roll portraying Wayne Campbell a metalhead from the suburbs.  One of Wayne's catchphrases was "excellent" pronounced as /ɜksǝlɜnt/ lowering the front vowel.  In 1989, Keanu Reeves also raised in Toronto starred in the movie Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure using the same /ɜksǝlɜnt/ pronunciation.

In 1995, Canadian linguist Sandra Clarke and her colleagues suggested that a Canadian shift was under way (The Third Dialect of English: some Canadian evidence).  As Canadians merged the pronunciation of the words "cot" and "caught," this opened up space for the vowel in words such as "that" to move back, and for the vowels in words such as "milk" or "get" to move down.  They note the similarity of this trend to what was being described in California, and wonder if women newcasters in the two countries were involved in the change.

In 2007, the reality TV show Keeping up with Kardashians started airing on the E! network.  It is perhaps notable that the sisters who are the focus all seem to speak in the same Californian accent, pronouncing Kendall's name as /kændäl/ lowering both vowels.

In 2018, an Irish linguist based in Germany, Raymond Hickey suggested that young women all over the English speaking world were now engaging in Short Front Vowel Lowering (Yes, that's the best: Short Front Vowel Lowering in English Today).  Hickey suggests that the word "trap" was pronounced with quite a high vowel /trƐp/ in Received Pronunciation (RP i.e. Standard southern British) in the early 20th century, and in countries such as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.  Over the course of the 20th century, the vowel lowered until now it is pronounced /træp/ in RP.  In Dublin, Ireland, some young women who are working to speak a supra-regional form of English rather than a local dialect, are adopting the lower vowels for words such as "kit" and "dress."  He wonders if young Irish women travel to Canada or California, and bring back the lowered vowels.  Also, in the Irish English of these speakers, the fronting of the vowel in "goose," "boat" and "house" and the raising of "thought" and "choice" has created room at the bottom of the vowel space for the short front vowels to move into.

The International Phonetic Alphabet

Vowel sounds are made by putting your tongue in a certain position in your mouth so that the air from your lungs can flow out freely.  For open vowels such as /ɑ/ as in "bought" you open your mouth by lowering your jaw.  For close vowels, you keep your mouth more closed.  To make the front vowels such as /i/ as in "beat" you put the tip of your tongue near the front of your mouth.  To make a rounded vowel, such as /u/ as in "boot," you round your lips into a circle.

These are the main vowels in my dialect of English, Canadian.

	unrounded front	unrounded central	unrounded back	rounded back
close	i beat			u boot
near-close	ɪ bit			ʊ book
close-mid	e bait			o boat
open-mid	ɛ bet	ǝ about	ʌ but	ɔ bored
near-open	æ bat
open		(a)	(ɑ)	ɒ bot, bought

Wikipedia has an IPA vowel chart complete with sound files you can click on for each vowel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vowel_chart_with_audio

The International Phonetic Association also has the most recent version of the alphabet on their website.

People who speak English dialects pronounced vowels differently depending on where they are from while in general, they pronounce most consonants the same.  In Canada, from Ontario to British Columbia most English speakers use Standard Canadian English.  Standard Canadian is marked by the cot/caught merger, Canadian raising (starting the vowel high in words such as bite and about) and the Canadian shift (lowering short front vowels).

In Canada and some parts of the U.S., the words "bot" and "bought" are pronounced the same.  U.S. dialects often say the two words differently, eg. bot /bɒt/ vs. bought /bɔt/.  In Received Pronunciation in southern England, "bot" is pronounced /bɒt/ with more rounding than in North American English, and "bought" is pronounced /bɔːt/ with a slightly longer sound than in North American English.

Another feature of Canadian English is Canadian raising.  The word "bite" is pronounced /bǝit/ with the tongue starting in the middle of the mouth.  In Standard American, the tongue starts lower /bait/.  In Canada, the word "about" can be pronounced /ǝbʌut/ again with the tongue starting a bit higher than other dialects.  In Standard American, it is pronounced /əbaʊt/ with the tongue starting and finishing a bit lower.  In some parts of the American midwest, people also say these words in the Canadian way.

Recently, young speakers have been lowering the short front vowels in something which is called the Canadian shift, pronouncing words such as "bit," "bet" and "bat" with the tongue somewhat lower than their parents.  The same thing appears to be happening in California.

There is also a northern cities vowel shift.  In the U.S. in northern inland cities such as Chicago and Detroit, for the last hundred years there has been a vowel shift, raising the vowel in "bat" /bæt/ closer to /bɛt/, and fronting the vowel in "bot" /bɑt/ to /bat/.

Canadian English has 12 vowel sounds.  Japanese and Spanish have only 5 vowel sounds.  Danish is said to have 26 different vowel sounds.

Here are the consonant sounds found in Standard Canadian English, American English and Received Pronunciation:

	bilabial	labiodental	dental	alveolar	postalveolar	palatal	velar	glottal
voiceless plosive	p pen			t tan			k kid
voiced plosive	b bit			d dark			g gift
nasal	m man			n nap			ŋ sing
voiceless fricative		f fan	θthin	s sat	ʃ should			h help
voiced fricative		v van	ð that	z zap	ʒ vision
approximant	w was				ɹ run	j young	w was
tap/flap				ɾ water
lateral approximant				l lad

Wikipedia has a consonant chart with audio.

English also has two affricates made by stringing together two sounds, an alveolar plosive followed by a postalveolar fricative: /tʃ/ catch /dʒ/ judge

In bilabial sounds, you put your lips together or round them into a circle.  In labiodental sounds, you touch your upper teeth against your lower lip.  In dental sounds, you move the tip of your tongue close to the back of your upper teeth.  Your alveolar ridge is the hard red ridge just behind your upper teeth.  In postalveolar sounds you move your tongue close to the very back of your alveolar ridge where it goes up.  The hard palate is the roof of your mouth behind that.  Velar is the soft palate at the very back of the roof of your mouth.  Glottis is the opening between your vocal cords where your voice comes from.

To make a plosive, you close off the air with your tongue, breathe out, and then release the closure.  To make a nasal sound, you lower your velum so the air from your lungs goes out through your nose.  To make a fricative, you move your lips or tongue close, but not touching, so that the air becomes turbulent making a hissing sound.  In approximants, you keep your tongue fairly far from the roof of your mouth to make a smoother sound with no hissing.

The English 'r' sound is often made by bunching your tongue up, and moving it up closer to your postalveolar ridge, but not close enough to create hiss.  This sound is actually fairly rare in the world's languages.  Mandarin Chinese has a retroflex fricative /ʐ/ where you bend the tip of your tongue backwards, and make a hiss.  Hindi has a retroflex flap /ɽ/ bending the tip of your tongue backwards, and tapping it against the back of the alveolar ridge.  Spanish and Japanese have lateral alveolar flaps /ɾ / keeping the sides of the tongue down, while tapping the tip against the alveolar ridge.  Arabic and Italian have a trill where the tongue is brought close to the alveolar, but vibrates up and down due to the air passing through.

In Canadian English and Standard American, the 'r' sound is pronounced at the end of words, eg. bar, car, dare.  In Received Pronunciation and Boston English, the final 'r' is sometimes not pronounced, i.e. /bɑ:/, /kɑ:/, /dɛǝ/.

Youtube Channels for Learning English

Probably the most popular English teacher on Youtube would be Lucy Bella Simkins of England.  Her channel is called English with Lucy.  She is from Bedfordshire near Cambridge, studied in London and Spain, before returning to Cambridgeshire where she lives on a farm.  She covers a wide range of topics: national dialects, phrases for speaking politely, and especially likes teaching pronunciation.  Her own accent is Received Pronunciation, the south England standard.

Learn English with TV Series is another popular channel.  They show you a short scene from a movie with English subtitles, and then one of their teachers picks out phrases, and tries to explain what they mean in different words.  They also replay a few pieces of dialogue, showing with spelling how the pronunciation is different from the spelling.  The main teacher speaks American English.

Kendra's Language School has videos giving a phrase in languages such as Spanish, Japanese, Indonesian or Chinese, and then giving the English translation.  We don't see the teacher, and there is no explanation of the meaning apart from the translation.

mmmEnglish is a channel hosted by English Confidence Coach Emma of Australia.  The teaching style is somewhat similar to English with Lucy, and the two have even collaborated.  The teacher at Learn English with TV Series pronounces etc. as /eksetera/, but Emma tells us the word should be pronounced /etsetera/ with a 't.'  Interestingly Emma pronounces the letter H as /heich/ rather than /eich/. Emma has recently stopped posting videos to pursue a separate opportunity.

The BBC is the British Broadcasting Corporation, the United Kingdom's national TV and radio broadcasting service.  BBC Learning English is their channel for teaching English.  The videos do have a feel similar to a radio broadcast, professional presenters, but sometimes at quite an advanced level without so much explanation.

Speak English with Vanessa.  She is an American, a young mother.  She seems to really enjoy teaching, and likes to share amusing anecdotes as she takes us through common situations highlighting phrases, slang or idioms that might be useful.

Rachel's English.  Rachel is an American former opera singer who studied German and Spanish, but is now teaching English.  She talks about pronunciation, how to practice, how to do interviews and introductions and other topics.

Learn English with Rebecca * engvid.  Rebecca Ezekiel is probably an American.  In her videos, she talks about common mistakes and how to correct them.  She appears to be interested in teaching business clients and cross-cultural communication skills.

Easy English has short cartoons that show you conversations in context.  The voices seem to be reading from a script, and some of them are not native speakers, or might even be created using artificial intelligence.

Luke's English Podcast.  Luke Thompson is a teacher from England with a Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.  He was at one time an aspiring comedian, and sometimes does segments on jokes, along with more serious topics such as how to use chatgpt to study.