English Phonetics: IPA vs American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam-Webster (2005)
This page compares the pronunciation symbols, used in American Heritage Dictionary (AHD), Merriam-Webster (MW) Dictionary, and the symbols of International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
| 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 |
| IPA | AHD | MW | Sample Words |
- IPA = International Phonetic Alphabet
- AHD = American Heritage Dictionary, 3rd edition (1992), software version 4.0 (1995).
- MW = Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, software version 2.5 (2000)
IPA is used by Oxford dictionaries and basically all dictionaries around the world, except American. American dictionaries each cook up a idiosyncratic scheme. The Longman dictionary of American English uses IPA, a exception to the rule.
For a list of online dictionaries, see: Online English Dictionary Tools.
On Dictionaries
- American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam Webster Collegiate (2004)
- American Heritage Dictionary vs New Oxford American Dictionary (2006)
- 1913 Websters Dictionary and WordNet (2007)
- Problems of Open Source dict.org Dictionary (2008)
- Google Dictionary Shutdown (2011)
- List of Online Dictionaries. 2011
- English Phonetics: IPA vs American Heritage Dictionary vs Merriam-Webster (2005)
- Thumb-indexed dictionary