The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is an invaluable resource for conlangers, linguists, and language learners! Let’s start on our journey of learning both this tool, and the field of linguistics!
1) Preface:
An essential part of phonetics, linguistics, and in fact learning languages, is the International Phonetic Alphabet (more commonly known as the IPA).
Instead of saying that a sound in a language is the “English long <i>”, or that the French or German <r> sound is a “Guttural English <r>”, the IPA provides a more exact science for determining such pronunciations.
It’s a sort of linguistic shorthand that details almost exactly how to pronounce any possible sound, similar to saying O₂ instead of just “oxygen”.
I’ve found that it makes language learning orders of magnitude more simpler than going by a writer’s personal transcription of such sounds.
Throughout this series, “<>” will denote a grapheme, or how a particular sound is written in a language, while “[]” will denote its actual phonetics according to the IPA.
2) IPA Chart of Common Consonant Sounds:
3) Places of Articulation:
The IPA consonant chart is split into columns and rows. We’re going to go over the columns first. They represent “Places of Articulation”. Basically, where a sound is produced in your mouth.
Sounds like [w], [m], [p], and [b] are all made with the lips, and they’re called “Labial consonants”.
Sounds like [f] and [v] are made with both the lips and teeth, and are called Labio-Dental consonants. You may notice that sometimes when you say “infant”, you’re not pronouncing an [n] at all! Instead, you’re making a n-like sound with your lips against your teeth: a Labio-Dental nasal!
Sounds like <th> as in “thistle”, and <th> as in “that” are made purely with your teeth, and so are called Dental consonants. They may be written the same in the Latin alphabet, but they’re different in the IPA. We’ll get into why later…
Sounds like [t], [d], [n], [s], and [z] are all pronounced using what’s called the Alveolar Ridge, a place right behind your teeth where pizza burns your mouth.
Sounds like <sh>, <ch>, and <j> are all pronounced right behind the Alveolar Ridge, and are thus called Post-Alveolar.
The Retroflex place of articulation is not found in English, but it’s a set of consonants pronounced wth the tongue curled back.
The Palatal place of articulation is right in the middle of your mouth. It’s used for the Spanish <ñ>, and the English <y> as in “yet”.
The Velar place of articulation is pronounced using the soft palate, right behind the hard palate used for Palatal sounds. It’s used for [k], [g], <ng>, and the Scottish <ch> as in “loch”.
The Uvular place of articulation is pronounced using the uvula, the little teardrop thing hanging in your mouth. We don’t have any sounds in English that have a Uvular place of articulation, but languages like Arabic does. It has a [q] sound that sounds like a farther back [k].
Similar to the Uvular place of articulation, English has no consonants that use the Pharyngeal place of articulation, which uses the throat itself. However, Arabic has a [ħ], and a [ʕ].
Back in familiar territory, the last common place of articulation is the Glottal, which uses the opening between vocal chords. In English, glottal consonants include the so-called fricative [h] and the plosive, which is the stop between “uh” and “oh”.
4) Manners of Articulation:
In addition to the places of articulation which take up the columns of the chart, there are also manners of articulation which take up the rows. The manner of articulation is not where a sound is produced, but how it’s produced.
The Nasal manner of articulation as in the English [m], [n], and <ng> are made by blocking off the oral cavity and using the the nasal cavitiy.
The Plosive manner of articulation as in the English [p], [t], and [k] is made by completely stopping air at a specific point in the mouth, and closing off the nasal cavity.
The Fricative manner of articulation as in the English [f], <th>, and [s] is made by partially constricting airflow at a specific point in the mouth.
The Affricate manner of articulation as in the English “cats”, “kids”, and “eighth” begins as a Plosive but quickly transitions into a Fricative (there’s more nuance, but that’s the basic idea).
The Approximant manner of articulation as in the English [w], <r>, and <y> occurs when a constriction tighter than a plosive but looser than a fricative is made in the mouth, producing a sonorous vocalization.
The Tap or Flap manner of articulation as in the English “butter” and the Spanish “pero” is similar to a very brief Plosive, where the lips or tongue taps a place of articulation.
The Trill manner of articulation as in a horse “pppph” or the Spanish “perro” occurs when two parts of the mouth vibrate together at a very rapid rate.
The Lateral manner of articulation as in the English [l] or the Portuguese “mulher” occurs when air moves around both sides of the tongue to get out (where the name “Lateral” comes from).
5) IPA Chart of Click Consonants:
6) Voicing:
One of the most important distinctions made in the International Phonetic alphabet is between voiced and unvoiced pairs of consonants.
An easy way to tell this distinction is to say, while feeling your throat:
fffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvvfffffffffffvvvvvvvvvvvffffffffvvvvvv
The sounds [f] and [v] are made with exactly the same manner of articulation, and in the same place of articulation, but on the [v] sound, your vocal chords are vibrating, so you can feel a bit of a rumble. However, on the [f] sound, your vocal chords aren’t vibrating.
This is called “voicing” a consonant. Other pairs like [f] and [v] include:
- [p] and [b]
- [s] and [z]
- [k] and [g]
This is why in any given cell on the IPA chart, there’s likely to be a multiple of 2 official letters: unvoiced, and voiced variants.
Now, you may notice that the Nasals like [m] or [n] don’t have unvoiced variants in the above chart. Well, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have these counterparts, it’s just rarer for the Approximants, Trills, Taps, Laterals, and Nasals to have them (together these sounds are called “Resonants” or “Sonorants”, while the rest are called “Obstruents”). However, they’re found in languages like Old English, Icelandic, and Welsh.
Though English spells both the voiced dental fricative and the unvoiced dental fricative the same as <th>, on the IPA chart they have their own separate letters like any other consonant: [θ] and [ð].
Now, without looking at the IPA chart, let’s see if you can identify the voiced or unvoiced variants of the following sounds:
- [d]
- [p]
- [z]
- <ge> (as in genre)
- [m]
7) Labialization:
You may be wondering why there’s no “w” in the IPA chart shown above, but there is a w-looking letter [ɰ]. Well, “w” may be found on other IPA charts, but the reason it’s not included here is because it isn’t a perfect sound composed of one place of articulation, and one manner of articulation.
Sometimes, sounds are co-articulated, which means that they utilize two different places of articulation. The two most common are labialized consonants, velarized consonants, and palatalized consonants. Let’s take a look at the former first.
A labialized consonant utilizes the lips (and the soft palate for non-velar sounds) in addition to the other place of articulation for the consonant. The letters <qu> in English represent a labialized [kʷ] sound. Some dialects of English like mine labialize sounds like inital <r>: [ɹʷ] like “run”. The same word “run” without the labialization sound (as it would be at the end of a word) seems a little strange to my ears.
The reason why “w” is not shown on the above IPA chart is because it is actually a labialized velar approximant, [ɰʷ].
8) Palatalization:
A palatalized consonant utilizes the hard palate to give it a [j]-like quality. Imprecise examples, since they are more often analyzed as not being coarticulated, include the English “pure”, “tune”, and “cure”.
Now, you may be wondering what the difference is between the palatalized [nʲ] in “tenure”, and the Palatal [ɲ] in “Español”. Well, remember that palatalization is a “coarticulation”. This means that the [nʲ] is pronounced both with the alveolar ridge, and the hard palate. However, [ɲ] is pronounced solely with the hard palate.
9) Velarization:
A velarized consonant utilizes the soft palate in addition to the other place of articulation. An example in English would be the “dark-l” as in “full” or “mold”, which is a velarized [lˠ]. This contrasts with the unvelarized [l] as in “clear”.
Languages like Irish feature velarization and palatalization prominently in their sound systems.
10) Syllabic Consonants:
When a consonant forms a syllable of its own, we call it “syllabic”. Examples in English include:
- bottle (syllabic “l”)
- axolotl (syllabic “l”)
- button (syllabic “n”)
- mutton (syllabic “n”)
- rhythm (syllabic “m”)
Sometimes, a syllabic consonant is written as a vowel in IPA notation. These are called “semi-vowels”. The two most common examples are [w] (technically [ɰʷ]), and [j].
- Syllabic [w] is the vowel [u].
- Syllabic [j] is the vowel [i].
Also, for the sake of completion, here are the rest of the major semivowels:
- Syllabic [ɥ] is the vowel [y].
- Syllabic [ɰ] is the vowel [ɯ].
- Syllabic [ʕ̞] is the vowel [ɑ]
11) Learning the IPA:
The only way to be “fluent” in the IPA, as with any other language, is practice. Look over the characters on the IPA chart, and when you find an unfamiliar one, do the following exercise:
1.Is it voiced or unvoiced? (unvoiced consonants generally go on the left, voiced on the right!)
2.What’s its place of articulation?
3.What’s its manner of articulation?
4.Sound it out!
See if you can identify the sounds associated with the following symbols on the IPA chart:
- [ð] (Voiced Dental Fricative)
- [ʃ] (Unvoiced Post-alveolar Fricative)
- [c] (Unvoiced Palatal Plosive)
- [x] (Unvoiced Velar Fricative)
- [q] (Unvoiced Uvular Plosive)
- [ʀ] (Voiced Uvular Trill)
12) Alternative Terminology:
- Plosives may be called “Stops”
- Palatal, Velar, and Uvular sounds may be lumped together as “Dorsal” consonants.
- “Coronal” sounds are generally those at the Dental, Alveolar, and Post-Alveolar places of articulation.
- Sounds from the Velar place of articulation and backward may be lumped together as “Gutteral” consonants.
- Fricatives may be called “Spirants”.
13) Conclusion:
In our next lesson, we’ll cover vowels on the IPA chart!
Get ready to learn why [y] is always a vowel, but not the one you think!