Xah Lee, 2005-01, 2010-08-06
This page gives a comparison table of pronunciation symbols for English, used by IPA, and American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
| IPA | AHD | MW | Sample Words |
|---|---|---|---|
| ɑː | ä | ä | dark, heart, park, car, hark, father |
| ɑ | ŏ | 'ä | dot, pot, hot, pop, bob, body |
| æ | a | a | dad, bad, at, bat, pal, pat, add, cat, fat |
| ɛ | ĕ | e | bet, pepper, desk,fetch, neck |
| eɪ | ā | ā | ray, A, H, eight, take, date, bake, pain |
| ɪ | ĭ | 'i | it, dig, pig, drink |
| iː | ē | ē | eat, pee, see, heat, beat |
| o | ō | ō | pole, dole, dough, oh |
| ɔː | ô | ȯ | walk, talk, saw, Paul |
| ɝ | û | ə | work, were, bird, dirt, nurse, stir, courage |
| ᴧ | ŭ | ə | but, butt, bud |
| ʊ | o͝o | u̇ | took, book, look, hook, cook, hood, foot, good, put |
| u | o͞o | ü | two, spook, shoot, hoot,goose, influence, |
| aɪ | ī | ī | die, kite, like, light, I, high, try |
| aʊ | ou | au̇ | vow, bow |
First column is the International Phonetic Alphabet. Second column is from American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition (1992), software version 4.0 (1995). The third column is from Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, software version 2.5 (2000).
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IPA is a phonetic alphabet sponsored by the International Phonetic Association to provide a uniform and universally understood system for transcribing the speech sounds of all languages. It is used, for example, by the series of English dictionaries published by Oxford. American are ignorant of phonetics. Their dictionaries often each cook up a idiosyncratic scheme. The Longman dictionary of American English uses IPA, a exception to the rule.
IPA uses this semicolon-like symbol “ː” (unicode name: MODIFIER LETTER TRIANGULAR COLON) to indicate a prolonged sound of the vow it follows. AHD and MW indicates the shorter version instead. AHD uses a breve above the vow, while MW uses a apostrophe.