IPA
(International Phonetic Alphabet) as a Tool in the SCA
Katrusha
Skomorkh
arathreel@gmail.com
What
can IPA do for me in the SCA?
How
many of you have heard a name mispronounced in court?
How
many of you have had your name mispronounced in court?
How
many of you have mispronounced a name in court?
Have
you ever been unable to figure out someone's phonetic interpretation
of a word/name before?
Have
you ever phonetically written out your name only to have it still
mispronounced?
Have
you cringed listening to a singer who just didn't know the proper
sound of the language they were singing?
Have
you ever tried to teach someone how to sing a song and had a
difficult time teaching them the ins and outs of the language?
Have
you tried to write a scroll but not known what the recipient's name
rhymed with?
Have
you tried to decipher a foreign poem but couldn't understand the
scansion, meter, or rhyme scheme?
Have
you wanted to further your persona by perhaps giving yourself a
proper accent?
IPA
(the International Phonetic Alphabet) can create a sense of
consistency through-out the SCA. Having everyone on the same page
when it comes to pronunciations without having to return to the
source (asking someone to pronounce their name again) or arguing over
someone else's phonetic interpretation of a word will save a lot of
time and make people feel more secure and confident in their tasks.
We
are a society that is all over the world. Many of us have accents.
Many of us choose various regions in which our persona is from that
are not where we are from and span large ranges of time. All of these
things factor into our pronunciations and our speech as a whole. A
lot of this happens because we are often all using the same set of
symbols (the Roman alphabet) that have varied sounds linked to them,
depending on who is speaking them.
What
is IPA? An Introduction to the International Phonetic Alphabet:
About
1,300 years ago, our alphabet we use today was first used. When our
alphabet was created, certain rules were instated to make it easier:
1.
Each symbold should represent a sound.
2.
No spoken sound should be represented by more than one symbol.
1,300
years ago, this was a very clever trick to help people sound out the
words that they were spelling. Now a days, it is much more difficult
as we have merged our language with many other languages and have had
to adjust the sounds our letters make. Unfortunately, for someone who
is new and trying to learn the English language, the learning curve
is much bigger than if we still followed these rules with our
alphabet.
The
International Phonetic Alphabet (commonly referred to as IPA) was
created about 100 years ago as a tool to help people with
understanding the sounds of language. What does IPA stand for?
International:
this alphabet can be applied to any language world round. Phonetic:
it is based on the sounds that are created in speech. Alphabet:
it follows similar rules to our own alphabet, using symbols that, by
putting them together, can create words.
IPA
was based off of the Latin alphabet due to the fact that, percentage
wise, more of the world recognizes the symbols in this alphabet and,
more importantly, has common ground on the sounds linked to the
symbols. As such, IPA can be used as a tool to create a generally
agreed upon set of symbols to transcribe sounds unambiguously. These
are just some of the exciting things that IPA can, and can not, do:
IPA
can not teach you another language. Although it will never teach you
to conjugate verbs or proper grammar, it can help you properly form
the sounds found in the language and help you to sound more fluent.
IPA
can be used to record regional variations of speech and accents.
IPA,
once used to transcribe something, is a standard measure to make
certain everyone pronounces it the same way, no matter what the
accent or language may be. It is important to remember, though, that
IPA is a very aural tool, meaning that just because you recorded it
does not mean that it was recorded properly. People will pronounce it
the way you heard it. It is known, though, that people who are
listening to a language that is not their own that may have sounds
that are not in their native language will merely find the closest
sound, unintentionally, to link to what they heard. It takes a lot of
practice trying to form all of the different sounds you will come
across, and even then you may not be able to hear the difference
between sounds. This is just part of the science of IPA.
Rules
from The Handbook of the International Phonetic Alphabet
The
Handbook
of the International Phonetic Alphabet
tells us that there are certain assumptions of speech behind the
notations used in IPA that are important to remember:
"-Some
aspects of speech are linguistically relevant, whilst others (such as
voice quality) are not.
-Speech
can be represented partly as a sequence of discrete sounds or
'segments'.
-Segments
can usefully be divided into two major categories: consonants and
vowels.
-The
phonetic description of consonants and vowels can be made with
reference to how they are produced and to their auditory
characteristics.
-In
addition to the segments, a number of 'suprasegmental' aspects of
speech, such as stress and tone, need to be represented independently
of the segments."
What
this means is that languages, such as Chinese, where the musical
tonality is very important to understanding what a word may possibly
be or mean, there are separate symbols to indicate those tones. But,
the difference between someone speaking with a raspy voice, such as
someone having a cold, it is impossible (nor necessary) to transcribe
such a sound quality. The symbols, such as for stress and tone, can
be linked to each different segment of speech, AKA the consonants and
vowels. The way we decipher the two is to understand the language and
anatomy used to create the sounds.
The
Anatomy and Language of a Consonant
To
understand how consonants are made, we first need to be able to look
at a diagram of the articulators. The language that will be seen used
throughout IPA is easy enough to define when you understand the
anatomy of your mouth and other sound creating instruments.
Bilabial
- using both lips
Labio-dental
- using one lip and teeth
The
rest use the tongue and another articulator:
Dental
- using the teeth
Alveolar
- using the gum ridge
Post-alveolar
- using the space behind the gum ridge, before the palate
Palatal
- using the hard palate
Velar
- using the soft palate
Glottal
- using the space between to vocal chords
Plosive
- blocking a sream of breath completely for a short time
Nasal
- letting air out of the nostrils while the soft palate remains low
and the oral cavity is blocked by lips or tongue
Trill
– sounds produced by vibrations of the articulator against the
place of articulation
Tap/Flap
– one articulartor is thrown against another
Fricative
- squeezing air through narrow openings
Lateral
fricative - squeezing air through narrow openings while the sides of
tongue are dropped
Approximant
- like a fricative, only the openings are more open, hence not
squeezing air
Lateral
approximant – the tongue makes solid contact on the roof of the
mouth while the sides of the tonge are closer to the teeth
Affricative
- created by joining plosives and fricatives
Voiced
vs Unvoiced - whether your vocal chords are creating sound as you
pass the air or not
Anatomy
and Language of Vowels
Vowels
in IPA are best understood by viewing the charts and considering how
the chart would overlap with its various points on a cross section of
the articulators. What we are really concentrating on here is tongue
placement and how open your mouth is.
The
language that we will traditionally see when looking at the vowel
charts are:
Close
- meaning that the mouth is as closed as it can be while still able
to allow air flow
Close-mid
-between closed and half way
Open-mid
– between open and half way
Open
- meaning that the mouth is at its most open
Front
- the sound produced is more towards the front of the mouth
Central
- the sound produced is more in the middle of the mouth
Back
- the sound produced is further in the back of the mouth
One
other thing to note, when viewing the charts, is that two symbols
will sit beside each other at the same point on a chart, much like
with the consonants chart. The symbol on the right is usually a sound
that is made where the lips are more rounded. The symbol on the left,
then, is a sound made where the lips are tighter and more stretched.
Consonant
Practical Use
[b]
as in boat
- bilabial voiced plosive
[p]
as in puppy
- bilabial unvoiced plosive
[d]
as in dream
- alveolar voiced plosive
[t]
as in took
- alveolar unvoiced plosive
[g]
as in garden
- velar voiced plosive
[k]
as in cat
- velar unvoiced plosive
[v]
as in very
- labio-dental voiced fricative
[f]
as in furry
- labio-dental unvoiced fricative
[ð]
as in they
- dental voiced fricative
[θ]
as in three
- dental unvoiced fricative
[z]
as in zoo
- alveolar voiced fricative
[s]
as in snake
- alveolar unvoiced fricative
[ʒ]
as in beige
- palatal voiced fricative
[ʃ]
as in shop
- palatal unvoiced fricative
[h]
as in hot
- glottal unvoiced fricative
[m]
as in manuscript
- bilabial voiced nasal
[n]
as in next
- alveolar voiced nasal
[ŋ]
as in sing-
velar voiced nasal
[w]
as in wet
- bilabial voiced glide
[ʍ]
as in where
- bilabial unvoiced glide
[r]
as in red
- alveolar voiced glide
[j]
as in yes
- palatal voiced glide
[l]
as in left
- alveolar voiced lateral
[ʤ]
as in judge
- voice affricative
[ʧ]
as in chair
- unvoiced affricative
Vowel
Practical Use
[i]
as in eat
- close front tense
[ɪ]
as in rich
- close-mid front lax
[e]
as in break
- close-mid front tense
[eɪ]
as in eight
- close-mid front tense diphthong
[ɛ]
as in friend
- open-mid front lax
[æ]
as in laugh
- open-mid front tense
[u]
as in too
–
close back lax
[ʊ]
as in wooden
- close-mid back lax
[o]
as in rope
– close-mid back tense
[oʊ]
as in code
- close-mid back tense diphthong
[ɔ]
as in awful
- open-mid back lax
[ɔɪ]
as in coin
- open-mid back diphthong
[ɑ]
as in calm
- open back lax
[ɑɪ]
as in time
– open back lax diphthong
[ɑʊ]
as in house
- open back lax diphthong
[ʌ]
as in double
- open-mid central stressed
[ə]
as in bananas
- mid central unstressed
[ɝ]
as in herd
- mid central stressed
[ɚ]
as in father
-
mid central unstressed
Resources
When
it comes to IPA, there are many good resources to keep on hand. When
learning a language, it is always good to keep around a dictionary.
Both Barron's and Longman are known to be IPA dictionaries, AKA the
pronunciation guide is written strictly in IPA. Make sure to open the
dictionary and make sure you recognize the symbols as being unique
IPA symbols for the sounds being used. You will get confused it you
try to look at a different style of phonetics.
Speaking
Clearly: Improving Voice and Diction
by Jeffery C. Hahner, Martin A. Sokoloff, and Sandra L. Salisch
This
book is written in the sense of English as a second language,
focusing on teaching IPA. If you are finding IPA to be overwhelmingly
confusing, this is a great book to start with as it is very
simplistic and clear in its teaching techniques. It should come with
a CD as well that will help you drill sounds to connect them to
different symbols.
Handbook
of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the
International Phonetic Alphabet
by the International Phonetic Association
This
book is much more academic, but it does give charts and examples of
texts for about 30 different languages and helps you with placement
and creation of phonemes. A great book for being able to get to know
all the sounds that have symbols in the International Phonetic
Alphabet.
Singing
Early Music: The Pronunciation of European Languages in the Late
Middle Ages and Renaissance
edited by Timothy J. McGee with A. G. Rigg and David N. Klausner
This
book is the academic book for learning the changes of pronunciations
through the years and it is done fully with the help of IPA for
standardization. For those wanting to learn proper pronunciations for
music or names for various regions, no matter how others pronounce
it, look into this book for the rules and clauses for how to work the
various sounds and how they changed through the centuries.
This
is, of course, a very small selection of books that can and will be
of use to you. These are merely the ones I like to use a lot. If you
find other books that are particularly useful to you, I would love to
hear about them. Please consider emailing me the title and author so
I can look at them as well!
