Typed by : Mister Özgün Öztekin ( SalviaSage )
Date of last revision : 2024 - 06 - 12
Word count : ~ 26, 000
Paragraph count : ~ 391
Chapter count : 20
Relevant Links and Other Works by Mister Özgün Öztekin ( SalviaSage ) :
The Discourse on the Phonology of the English Language and a Critique :
https://gist.github.com/SalviaSage/5cd6cea8f7084349a998f85f4bc69334
Credits :
https://wikipedia.org
http://graphemica.com
https://home.unicode.org
https://canipa.net/doku.php
https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
Hosted online at the following URL :
https://gist.github.com/SalviaSage
Ontario, Canada, 21st century.
Unpublished.
Typed in British English spelling as a Markdown document ( .md ), original copy.
This document is subject to change.
Signed ;
𝓞. 𝓞𝔃𝓽𝓮𝓴𝓲𝓷
[TOC]
Articulatory phonetics is a scientific subject that explains how different sounds are pronounced by humans. It deals with the explanations of these sounds and their categorisations. It explains how these sounds are produced, where they are produced, and other related topics.
In this scientific document, I try to explain everything I learned and discovered regarding this subject matter. I use a logical method that doesnʼt invalidate itself. Some of the writings here are my unique findings and reports. They may not necessarily be found in other literature. Furthermore, some of the content here is in contrast with the explanations given by other sources.
I must say that the literature on the subject of articulatory phonetics is quite extensive. On websites such as Wikipedia, a lot of information can be found. I have learned a lot from this website myself. However, sadly, certain things with regard to this scientific subject are missing in the literature or are wrong. And if it isnʼt necessarily wrong, it just fails to be precise. This became more apparent to me as I continued my studies in phonetics. After I progressed in my studies, I started to see mistakes with the International Phonetic Alphabet, and I decided to develop a Unicode phonetic alphabet of my own. I named that project “ The Translingual Phonetic Alphabet ”. I also wrote the document “ Independent Explanations on Articulatory Phonetics: A Criticism of the International Phonetic Alphabet ”.
As the title of this work makes it apparent, it is supposed to be an independent scientific document that sheds light on a scientific subject. I donʼt necessarily have to accept the arguments and explanations given in other sources; instead, I have done my own research. I try to explain this subject matter myself. I aim for this document to be the authoritative scientific work on the subject of articulatory phonetics. It aims to document everything extensively with regard to this subject. It uses extensive English vocabulary to make explanations, as well as some of my own words to achieve this goal. In keeping with the scientific tradition, the words are derived mainly from Greek and Latin words. I felt the need to create and use new descriptive words to make accurate and full explanations. However, I define these words to try to eliminate confusion. I consider this work to be my greatest scientific literary work, and it is also the longest by word count. I also aim to translate this work into different languages if I have the time to do so. I do have the tools and the capacity to make my own translations.
This document gives examples from the International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA ) phonetic notation using square brackets [ ]. The Translingual Phonetic Alphabet ( TPA ) phonetic notation is marked with curly brackets { }.
The Translingual Phonetic Alphabet is based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. It can be considered a derivative of it. The IPA has full Unicode support, and more phonetic characters in conformity with the IPA are being added to Unicode. I do not have the rights to Unicode or the International Phonetic Alphabet. I believe there is nothing here with regards to my works that I can patent or claim. The rights to those works belong to their respective authors. However, my literary works as well as my science project, the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet, constitute my own ( authorʼs ) intellectual property, and I want my intellectual property preserved and attributed to me.
I must underline the complexity of this subject. To have accurate explanations, we have to dig deep. I want to give you a sense of how many different combinations of sounds there can be. Through my research, I have found and numbered the total number of individual sounds ( phones ) to be about one hundred and fifty. All of which can be represented in the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet and in Unicode. There are enough Latin letters and their variations in Unicode to make an alphabet based on that, and I did exactly that. There are about one hundred and thirty consonants ( contoids ), depending on the most inclusive ways of counting. There are twenty vowels ( vocoids ) plus the four semi - vowels. There also exist secondary articulations whereby another motion is being committed within the vocal tract while an articulation is taking place at the same time. Seeing this forced me to introduce the concept of plain phones and complex phones. Phone is the Greek word for sound. This complexity arises from the human beingʼs excellent capacity for language and sound production. However, we do know that there are limitations to these mixes and matches and that not everything can be combined. It is the subject of articulatory phonetics to make correct explanations with regard to these sounds.
In comparison to my twenty vowels, the International Phonetic Alphabet has over thirty vowels. The website Wikipedia lists it as having thirty - three vowels. I believe that is too many, not demonstrated, not factual, and superfluous. I also believe that their vowels are quite wrong, and I give good criticism of that vowel system in this work. I had to put a lot of effort into trying to create a new factual vowel chart, and I did so successfully. The consonants of the IPA are quite good and factual. However, they have fewer consonants than the TPA. This stems from the fact that they do not count nor take into account all of the possible consonant sounds that can be articulated in the vocal tract. I tried to identify every single sound that could be pronounced. I also believe I created a very factual, universal phonetic system that works with all languages. I believe minute differences in pronunciation and accents have no place in a universal phonetic notation system, and I try to demonstrate the reasons for that in this work.
CHAPTER ONE ( Ⅰ ) : Anatomy and Introduction ; The Definitions of the Places of Articulations ( POA )
In order to understand articulatory phonetics, we need to understand and study the human anatomy to some extent. The parts of the body that we are concerned with are located in the head and the throat ( Lat. ɢᴜᴛᴛᴜʀ ). Collectively, we call the parts of the body where speech is realised “ the vocal tract ” ( Lat. ᴛʀᴀᴄᴛᴜꜱ ᴠᴏᴄᴀʟɪꜱ ).
The vocal tract starts at the glottis. The glottis is an organ located within the throat. It is a V - shaped opening that we have control over, and it plays a very important role in speech. The entirety of the areas located above the glottis constitute the vocal tract. These include the epiglottis, the tongue ( Lat. ʟɪɴɢᴜᴀ ), the uvula, the hard palate ( Lat. ᴘᴀʟᴀᴛᴜᴍ ), the soft palate ( Lat. ᴠᴇʟᴜᴍ ), the alveolar ridge, the teeth ( Lat. ᴅᴇɴᴛᴇꜱ ), the oral tract ( Lat. ᴛʀᴀᴄᴛᴜꜱ ᴏʀᴀʟɪꜱ ), the lips ( Lat. ʟᴀʙɪᴀ ) and the nasal tract ( Lat. ᴛʀᴀᴄᴛᴜꜱ ɴᴀꜱᴀʟɪꜱ ). It is a mistake to exclude the nasal cavity from the vocal tract. The nasal cavity is, in fact, a part of the vocal tract. Even if the external nose is not a part of it, the nasal cavity is connected to the oral cavity at the back of the mouth at the soft palate, not at the uvula. The uvula looks like a small tongue that hangs down from the soft palate. The first place of articulation is the glottis, and the last, most upper place of articulation is the nasal cavity. There are about twenty places of articulation. The epiglottis is a flap that is located above the glottal opening, and it has an important role in swallowing. It acts like a slide during the function of swallowing, closes the glottal opening, and prevents choking. The esophageal opening is located just under the glottis ( behind the glottis ). It can be difficult to see in photographs because it is normally closed and hidden. During swallowing, the epiglottis covers the glottis to prevent choking, and the food ( Lat. ʙᴏʟᴜꜱ ) slides into the esophagus.
The esophagus is behind the trachea and goes down to the stomach. The windpipe ( Lat. ᴛʀᴀᴄʜᴇᴀ ) is larger and wider in comparison to the esophagus and is located in front of the esophagus in the throat. It goes down towards the lungs ( Lat. ᴘᴜʟᴍᴏɴᴇꜱ ) and eventually forks into two pathways. One goes to the left lung ( Lat. ᴘᴜʟᴍᴏɴɪꜱ ꜱɪɴɪꜱᴛᴇʀ ) and the other goes to the right lung ( Lat. ᴘᴜʟᴍᴏɴɪꜱ ᴅᴇxᴛᴇʀ ).
The palate has to be correctly separated into two parts: the hard palate ( Lat. ᴘᴀʟᴀᴛᴜᴍ ) and the soft palate ( Lat. ᴠᴇʟᴜᴍ ). This is because, in the anterior part of the palate, there is some kind of bony structure right above it, while that isnʼt the case for the posterior soft palate, which arcs downwards and is mobile. It can be moved up and down and is done so during speech, and it plays an important role in the pronunciation of certain consonants and sounds.
The lungs, the diaphragm, and the trachea also have secondary involvement. Although their primary function is breathing, they have to be put into the picture to explain “ pulmonic sounds ”. Furthermore, the jaw ( Lat. ᴍᴀxɪʟʟᴀ ) also plays a secondary role and needs to be put into the picture to define vowels accurately. I insist that the first place of articulation is the glottis, going upwards and gradually ending with the lips and the nasal cavity. It is a mistake to start ordering these sounds, starting from the lips and going down.
We have amazing muscular control over the organs located in the vocal tract. Many of these organs are mobile, and we control them. Using them, we can direct the airflow in different directions, such as out of the mouth or out of the nose. We can hold our breath ( close the glottal opening ) and utilise different ways to pronounce sounds. There are different mechanisms of production for sounds, as well as different places of articulation and manners of articulation. I believe I have defined these crucial concepts very well in this document, and I have written about them.
Some important information can be obtained from photographs of the glottis in its open and closed states. However, they are excluded from this document.
The default position of the glottis is typically the position of the glottis during breathing and the pronunciation of voiceless consonants. The vocal cords are spread apart, and there is a wide opening between them. The vocal cords do not vibrate. The air freely passes inward and outward. In comparison, during speaking or singing, the vocal cords are being brought together and are being caused to vibrate, contract, and relax successively. This all happens very fast, and human beings have amazing control over the organs located here. I believe the frequencies with which these vocal cords vibrate were measured in hertz, but that is excluded from this document.
Also of importance is the complete glottal closure. The white and gray vocal cords can be brought together in full to block off the airway fully. This is what happens physically in the body when a person holds their breath. We have the ability to close off the air coming in and out of the lungs at the glottis. This motion is in fact utilised in the pronunciation of ejective consonants and implosive consonants. These two categories of consonants are a series of consonants whereby the complete closure of the glottis is necessary in order to pronounce them. While the ejective consonants can only be voiceless, the implosive consonants can be voiced or voiceless consonants. More on this particular subject later.
With the glottis being the first place of articulation, there are about twenty different places of articulation. Currently, I define about twenty places of articulation in the TPA, and I have demonstrable evidence for all of these. However, I believe there may still be one or two more than what I managed to discover. We need to have this many places of articulation to make accurate explanations of speech sounds. World languages back up this claim, for example; in the Arabic language, aside from having consonants that are articulated at the glottis, some consonants are articulated at the location of the epiglottis. There are also consonants that are articulated at the uvula further above, as well as consonants that are articulated at the velum ( soft palate ). They are all distinct from one another and have separate letters for them in the Arabic alphabet. For example, the word for “ dog ” is pronounced with a consonant at the velum ( kalb ), while the word for “ heart ” is pronounced with a consonant at the uvula ( qalb ). There is no difference in the way they are pronounced except for this slight difference in the places of articulation, and this language makes distinctions between various different sounds that are pronounced in the throat.
I believe I have to touch up on a very important matter here. In the above example, we saw how two different places of articulation can change the meaning of a word. But under some circumstances, having a slightly different place of articulation or a different pronunciation will not change the meaning of a word. This is what constitutes the difference between a phone and a phoneme. For example, in the Turkish language, there are the palatal plosive and the velar plosive. Both of them are employed in pronunciation, even if there may not be separate letters for them in its writing, and even if its speakers may not be aware of it. This distinction, however, is phonetic and not phonemic, as substituting the palatal for the velar and vice versa will never give us another word. The study of these sounds as they pertain to languages is not phonetics but instead another topic called phonology.
To make accurate explanations of articulatory phonetics, we need to have about six main categories of places of articulations and at least twenty sub - categories. I reject any number below twenty. Each category names specific parts of the anatomy of the vocal tract. The word place of articulation refers to the exact spot where the sound is articulated. Below is a complete list of these places of articulation, compiled by myself.
Pharyngeal ( articulated at the pharynx just below the tongue )
Lingual ( articulated with the tongue )
Dental ( articulated with the teeth )
Labiodental ( articulated with the teeth and the lips )
Labial ( articulated with the lips )
Nasal ( articulated at the nasal cavity )
Pharyngeal divides into two groups called
Epiglottal ( articulated at the epiglottis ) and
Glottal ( articulated at the glottis )
Lingual is accurately divided into five sub - categories. Because the tongue is so versatile and flexible, it needs to be defined further. These divisions are the root of the tongue ( Lat. ʀᴀᴅɪx ), the back of the tongue ( Lat. ᴅᴏʀꜱᴜᴍ ), the blade of the tongue, which is the main top part of the tongue ( Lat. ʟᴀᴍɪɴᴀ), the tip of the tongue ( Lat. ᴀᴘᴇx ), and the tip of the tongue together with the underside of the tongue ( Lat. ᴀᴘᴇx - ꜱᴜʙᴀᴘᴇx ). The adjectival words for these words are defined as follows; radical, dorsal, laminal, apical, and apical - subapical. These parts of the tongue are then placed on the palate at the roof of the mouth or various other positions in the mouth. That gives us about fourteen different places of articulation and combinations that the tongue can utilise out of the twenty places of articulation that we already identified. This makes the tongue the hotbed of human speech sounds.
The places of articulation with regards to the tongue :
UVULA (UVULAR)
SOFT PALATE (VELAR)
HARD PALATE (PALATAL)
ALVEOLAR RIDGE (LAMINO - ALVEOLAR)
UPPER ALVEOLAR RIDGE (APICO - UPPER - ALVEOLAR)
LOWER ALVEOLAR RIDGE (APICO - LOWER - ALVEOLAR)
UPPER TEETH (SUPRADENTAL)
UPPER & LOWER TEETH (INTERDENTAL)
UPPER LIP (SUPRALABIAL)
UPPER & LOWER LIP (LINGUOLABIAL)
LOWER LIP (SUBLABIAL)
ALVEOLAR RIDGE & MOUTH FLOOR (ALVEOLO - SUBLINGUAL)
UPPER LIP & MOUTH FLOOR (SUPRALABIO - SUBLINGUAL)
The complete list of the places of articulation :
GLOTTIS (GLOTTAL)
EPIGLOTTIS (EPIGLOTTAL)
UVULA (UVULAR)
SOFT PALATE (VELAR)
HARD PALATE (PALATAL)
§ ALVEOLAR RIDGE (LAMINO - ALVEOLAR), (IPA : POST - ALVEOLAR)
§ UPPER-ALVEOLAR RIDGE (APICO - UPPER - ALVEOLAR), (IPA : RETROFLEX)
§ LOWER-ALVEOLAR RIDGE (APICO - LOWER - ALVEOLAR), (IPA : ALVEOLAR)
UPPER TEETH (SUPRADENTAL), (IPA : DENTAL)
UPPER & LOWER TEETH (INTERDENTAL)
UPPER LIP (SUPRALABIAL)
UPPER LIP & LOWER LIP (LINGUOLABIAL)
LOWER LIP (SUBLABIAL)
ALVEOLAR RIDGE & MOUTH FLOOR (ALVEOLO - SUBLINGUAL)
UPPER TEETH & LOWER TEETH (BIDENTAL)
UPPER LIP & LOWER TEETH (SUPRALABIODENTAL), (IPA : DENTOLABIAL)
LOWER LIP & UPPER TEETH (SUBLABIODENTAL), (IPA : LABIODENTAL)
UPPER LIP & LOWER LIP (BILABIAL)
NASAL CAVITY (VELO - NASAL)
§ The alveolar ridge should be divided into three separate categories to make accurate explanations.
These positions would then be mixed with the manner of articulations as well as its glottal voicing state to give us specific consonants such as voiceless alveolar fricative, voiced alveolar plosive, and so on. This kind of terminology is not at all my own; I learned it from other sources. However, the above - listed places of articulation were all independently identified and confirmed by me.
Although all of these places of articulation do exist, some of them are not used in languages, such as the upper lip and lower teeth. While its opposite, the lower lip and the upper teeth, are used in many languages. This is because that pronunciation just comes across so much more naturally, even though the other way around is just as easy to pronounce. Try saying “ fffff ” but by placing your upper lip on your lower teeth instead.
These places of articulation are then combined with manners of articulation to give us separate sounds. I have identified about fourteen such manners of articulation. Each one has a specific definition, is evidenced in world languages, and correlates with the mechanisms of sound production, of which there are four.
Okay, so let ʼ s recap. There are about twenty different places of articulation. There are about fourteen different manners of articulation, depending on how you count them, and four mechanisms of sound production. I must note that the term mechanism of sound production or manner of production is being used by myself in this document. I believe it is a necessary concept that complements the places of articulation and the manners of articulation that other literature already discusses.
Through my research, I have identified four manners of production. This is a different, important category that has to be discussed in articulatory phonetics; it is different from the places of articulation and the manners of articulation that are talked of. It deals with the mechanisms that are responsible for sound production in the vocal tract. I have identified four such mechanisms. The first three mechanisms may be egressive or ingressive. Egressive means an outward motion, while ingressive means an inward motion.
All sounds have to be classified within these four mechanisms :
Pulmonic mechanism
Glottalic mechanism
Lingual mechanism
Percussive mechanism
The pulmonic, glottalic, and lingual mechanisms can work in both directions, while the percussive mechanism does not. The percussive mechanism does not have an egressive nor an ingressive direction, as its direction is both articulators toward one another. It is neither inward nor outward.
That gives us four mechanisms. The first three branch into two, giving us a total of seven mechanisms. This is what all sounds have to work with.
Egressive Pulmonic versus Ingressive Pulmonic
Egressive Glottalic versus Ingressive Glottalic
Egressive Lingual versus Ingressive Lingual
Percussive
Here is the list again with their common names as they are defined in other literature as well:
Egressive Pulmonic ( pulmonic ) versus Ingressive Pulmonic ( ingressive )
Egressive Glottalic ( ejective ) versus Ingressive Glottalic ( implosive )
Egressive Lingual ( velaric ) versus Ingressive Lingual ( click )
Percussive
I must thank Wikipedia.org, as their webpages regarding this particular concept are excellent and nearly complete. There are a few differences here between my explanations and theirs, and I am largely copying their content. I have devised this system out of the information found on their webpages.
The word pulmonic means the glottis is open, and the air simply exits out of the lungs. While glottalic means that the glottis is closed ( the breath is held ) during the pronunciation of the sound. In the case of the glottalic, it is the glottis that is responsible for pushing the air out. Or rather, piston it out in some way, as is the case with ejective consonants. The glottis sucks itself in, as is the case with implosive consonants. I myself could not pronounce the glottalic consonants, and I did not understand how they worked. However, after some time and some persistence and investigation, I learned to pronounce them myself. I can now pronounce them easily and understand what happens during the pronunciation of glottalic consonants.
Therefore, there is no pulmonic involvement with the lingual, glottalic, or percussive pronunciations. In percussive pronunciations, the two articulators hit one another to create a sound. Try hitting your upper teeth with your lower teeth by bringing your jaw down and up, a bidental percussive. Or try hitting your lips together up and down, a bilabial percussive.
Typically, most languages do not have glottalic consonants because it is an extra step to pronunciation as it involves having to close the glottis. I do know that the Vietnamese language has the letters Đ, đ. It is the letter D with a bar going through it. The letter D that we are already familiar with is also there, but this new letter is a D pronounced with a closed glottis, an implosive. Sometimes the implosive Ƀ, ƀ is also noted in this alphabet, a bilabial implosive.
I specifically spent time trying to learn how to pronounce the ejectives and the implosives. I had conversations with others to try to discover their mysteries, and I learned how to pronounce both the ejective consonants and the implosive consonants. But I did not stop there. I further discovered what I consider to be some essential phonetic facts. I discovered that implosive consonants can be voiceless or voiced, while ejective consonants can only be voiceless consonants. Furthermore, I discovered that ejective consonants can be strictive consonants and occlusive consonants, while implosive consonants can only be occlusive consonants. Another word for occlusive consonant is obstruent consonant.
These series of consonants further led me to crack the phenomenon of phonetic occlusivity, which is also explained in this document. That whole concept may be unique to this document. However, I believe that phonetic occlusivity is an important concept that is not as well defined in other literature. After much research, I can attest to the factuality of the explanations given here.
In this paragraph, I will try to explain to the reader how to pronounce the glottalic consonants. First of all, you have to understand that the glottis is open by default and does not fully close during speech or at any time. The only other times where it is closed that I can think of are coughing, holding the breath, and, in some languages, the glottal stop. The glottal stop is also explained and redefined in this document, and it is also called a glottal percussive. That term is unique to this document, but they mean the same thing. The glottal plosive is also defined here as a separate sound and articulation. So, you have to understand that in order to pronounce glottalic consonants, you need to close your glottis ( hold your breath ) and then try to say that consonant like you would normally. If you are reverting to using the pulmonic pronunciation that we normally do, you are doing it wrong. Furthermore, if you try pushing the air out with your tongue, as is the case with lingual consonants, you are also doing it wrong. You have to use your throat and not your tongue to pump the air out. Just remember, the starting point here is that you are holding your breath.
For ejectives, the larynx has to move upwards, while for implosives, it has to move downwards. So, try to also be able to make that distinction of direction. I can tell you that ejective consonants cannot be voiced. That is, we can have ejective sounds such as ( s, t, k, ch, f, p ) and other voiceless sounds, but we cannot have voiced sounds such as ( z, d, g, j, v, b ) and so on. This will be a helpful tip for you in identifying the sounds and judging whether you are able to pronounce them correctly.
Furthermore, glottalic consonants cannot be continuous (continuants). This is because, unlike pulmonic sounds, there isnʼt a continuous stream of air coming in to articulate the sounds. It has to be pronounced in one go with a piston motion from the throat. That makes it impossible to pronounce these sounds continuously. Thus, we can establish the fact that pulmonic sounds can make the distinction between long - duration and short - duration sounds. In glottalic sounds, we only have non - continuous, short sounds.
( 1 ) Affricates ( stop - strictives ) :
They are occlusive sounds similar to plosives; they become fricatives almost instantly after the plosive articulation. You can think of it as a plosive and a fricative being pronounced at the same time. The most common affricates are the first sound in “ chair ” and its voiced version, the first sound in “ jungle ”. The IPA lacks specific letters for affricates and instead uses ligatures ( two letters connected ). They consist of a plosive letter and a fricative letter such as ( ʧ, ʤ, ʦ, ʣ ). They can be two separate characters connected with a tie bar ( t͡ʃ, d͡ʒ, t͡s, d͡z ) and ( t͜ʃ, d͜ʒ, t͜s, d͜z ) to represent them. This practice of using two letters is not incorrect. However, I thought that we could have specific letters for affricates; thus, I searched for some additional suitable letters from Unicode, found some letters, and assigned them to affricate positions such as ‘ ʓ ’ from ‘ ʒ ’.
Other examples of affricates include the Japanese ‘ ts ’ in words like “ tsukuru ” or “ tsunami ”.
In this same scenario, the plosive and the following fricative may be pronounced successively instead of being pronounced at the same time. In this case, you have a consonant cluster. That is, a plosive followed by a fricative instead of an affricate. For it to be an affricate, they have to be pronounced at the same time and at the same place of articulation.
The IPA letters for the voiceless laminal alveolar affricate [ t͡ʃ ] and the voiceless apical alveolar affricate [ t͡s ] share the same plosive consonant letter, while they have a separate fricative letter. This is, in fact, negligent on the part of the IPA. While the [ t͡s ] sound has the correct letter, the [ t͡ʃ ] does not. Its place of articulation is slightly above that of the letter [ t ]. This position is represented by the letter { ȶ } in the TPA; however, the IPA does not have a plosive letter for where the [ ʃ ] is located.
Because they have a fricated release as opposed to a non - fricated release, I consider them to be more occluded than the plosives, and I believe they are the most occluded of all manners of articulation, hence they are at the very top of the list.
{ ꝗ } voiceless uvular affricate ( U + A757 ) “ latin small letter q with stroke through descender ”
{ ʛ } voiced uvular affricate ( U + 029B ) “ latin letter small capital g with hook ”
{ ꝁ } voiceless velar affricate ( U + A741 ) “ latin small letter k with stroke ”
{ ǥ } voiced velar affricate ( U + 01E5 ) “ latin small letter g with stroke ”
{ ȼ } voiceless palatal affricate ( U + 023C ) “ latin small letter c with stroke ”
{ ɟ } voiced palatal affricate ( U + 025F ) “ latin small letter dotless j with stroke ”
{ ɕ } voiceless postalveolar affricate ( U + 0255 ) “ latin small letter c with curl ”
{ ʓ } voiced postalveolar affricate ( U + 0293 ) “ latin small letter ezh with curl ”
{ ʆ } voiceless retroflex affricate ( U + 0286 ) “ latin small letter esh with curl ”
{ ʑ } voiced retroflex affricate ( U + 0291 ) “ latin small letter z with curl ”
{ ꞩ } voiceless alveolar affricate ( U + A7A9 ) “ latin small letter s with oblique stroke ”
{ ƶ } voiced alveolar affricate ( U + 01B6 ) “ latin small letter z with stroke ”
{ ⱷ } voiceless labiodental affricate ( U + 2C77 ) “ latin small letter tailless phi ”
{ ꝟ } voiced labiodental affricate ( U + A75F ) “ latin small letter v with diagonal stroke ”
{ ꝑ } voiceless bilabial affricate ( U + A751 ) “ latin small letter p with stroke through descender ”
{ ƀ } voiced bilabial affricate ( U + 0180 ) “ latin small letter b with stroke ”
( 2 ) Plosives ( stops ) :
They are occlusive sounds whereby a full obstruction is made in the vocal tract and then released. The obstruction is not brief like the taps. They are full obstructions.
Examples from the Latin alphabet include : ( P, B, T, D, K, G )
Examples from the Devanagari alphabet include : ( क, ख, ग, घ, ट, ठ, ड, ढ, त, थ, द, ध, प, फ, ब, भ )
As you can see, there are many more plosive letters in the Devanagari alphabet. This is because it has some letters for additional plosives that are not found in western languages, as well as specific letters for aspirated plosives. Such as ‘ भ ’ which is correctly pronounced as { b͜ha } or ‘ घ ’ which is { g͜ha }.
{ ƾ } voiceless glottal plosive ( U + 01BE ) “ latin letter inverted glottal stop with stroke ” ( not in IPA ) ⁽ ¹ ⁾
{ ꞯ } voiceless epiglottal plosive ( U + A7AF ) “ latin letter small capital q ”
( [ ʡ ] in IPA, [ ꞯ ] in extIPA, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EA%9E%AF ) ⁽ ³ ⁾
{ 𝼂 } voiced epiglottal plosive ( U + 1DF02 ) “ latin letter small capital turned g ”
( [ ʡ ] in IPA, [ 𝼂 ] in extIPA, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%F0%9D%BC%82 )
{ q } voiceless uvular plosive ( U + 0071 ) “ latin small letter q ”
{ ɢ } voiced uvular plosive ( U + 0262 ) “ latin letter small capital g ”
{ k } voiceless velar plosive ( U + 006B ) “ latin small letter k ”
{ g } voiced velar plosive ( U + 0067 ) “ latin small letter g ” ⁽ ⁴ ⁾
{ c } voiceless palatal plosive ( U + 0063 ) “ latin small letter c ”
{ ȷ } voiced palatal plosive ( U + 0237 ) “ latin small letter dotless j ”
{ ȶ } voiceless postalveolar plosive ( U + 0236 ) “ latin small letter t with curl ”
{ ȡ } voiced postalveolar plosive ( U + 0221 ) “ latin small letter d with curl ”
{ ƫ } voiceless retroflex plosive ( U + 01AB ) “ latin small letter t with palatal hook ” ( [ ʈ ] in IPA )
{ ᶁ } voiced retroflex plosive ( U + 1D81 ) “ latin small letter d with palatal hook ” ( [ ɖ ] in IPA )
{ t } voiceless alveolar plosive ( U + 0074 ) “ latin small letter t ”
{ d } voiced alveolar plosive ( U + 0064 ) “ latin small letter d ”
{ ᴛ } voiceless dental plosive ( U + 1D1B ) “ latin letter small capital t ” ( [ t̪ ] in IPA )
{ ᴅ } voiced dental plosive ( U + 1D05 ) “ latin letter small capital d ” ( [ d̪ ] in IPA )
{ ⱦ } voiceless interdental plosive ( U + 2C66 ) “ latin small letter t with diagonal stroke ”
{ đ } voiced interdental plosive ( U + 0111 ) “ latin small letter d with stroke ”
{ ȹ } voiceless labiodental plosive ( U + 0239 ) “ latin small letter qp digraph ”
{ ȸ } voiced labiodental plosive ( U + 0238 ) “ latin small letter db digraph ”
{ p } voiceless bilabial plosive ( U + 0070 ) “ latin small letter p ”
{ b } voiced bilabial plosive ( U + 0062 ) “ latin small letter b ”
⁽ ¹ ⁾ This is the same sound as the cough that people make when they cough. Can not be voiced due to the closure of vocal cords.
⁽ ² ⁾ Although the Wikipedia article for the epiglottal plosive does not specify phonation, using the IPA diacritics, we can easily make it voiceless as [ ʡ̥ ] and voiced as [ ʡ̬ ]. And as for the voiced epiglottal plosive, the IPA does not have a letter for it, but the extIPA does. I took the letter from there.
⁽ ³ ⁾ The IPA specifically prefers the letter “ script g ”, insisting on the use of the single -storey letter instead of the double - storey glyphic variant. In the TPA, either glyphic variant can be used, depending on the font.
( 3 ) Implosives ( glottalic ingressives ) :
They are just like the plosives, but the main difference is that the glottal opening is closed, and then a downward motion is performed. That is, the plosives are pronounced ingressively, with a closed glottis. These can be either voiceless or voiced, and they are consonants like { p↓, b↓, t↓, d↓, k↓, g↓ }. They were written as [ ƥ, ɓ, ƭ, ɗ, ƙ, ɠ ] in the IPA, but the letters for the voiceless implosives were withdrawn in 1993 ( citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C6%A4 ). It is easier to pronounce them as voiced, and they are more distinct that way. Also, it is easier to pronounce the more frontal plosive sounds in this way, such as { b↓, d↓ }. The reason why implosives are the only category for glottalic ingressives is that they have to be fully occluded. The plosives are the only sounds that match this definition. I investigated whether affricates could be glottalic ingressive and ruled that they couldnʼt be.
They are not at all popular sounds, but reportedly Vietnamese has the easier - to - pronounce frontal implosives { b↓, d↓ }. They can be written with the downward arrow in the TPA as { p↓, b↓, t↓, d↓, k↓, g↓ } and in the IPA as [ p↓, b↓, t↓, d↓, k↓, g↓ ].
{ q↓ } voiceless uvular implosive
{ ɢ↓ } voiced uvular implosive
{ k↓ } voiceless velar implosive
{ g↓ } voiced velar implosive
{ c↓ } voiceless palatal implosive
{ ȷ↓ } voiced palatal implosive
{ ȶ↓ } voiceless postalveolar implosive
{ ȡ↓ } voiced postalveolar implosive
{ ƫ↓ } voiceless retroflex implosive
{ ᶁ↓ } voiced retroflex implosive
{ t↓ } voiceless alveolar implosive
{ d↓ } voiced alveolar implosive
{ ᴛ↓ } voiceless dental implosive
{ ᴅ↓ } voiced dental implosive
{ ⱦ↓ } voiceless interdental implosive
{ đ↓ } voiced interdental implosive
{ ȹ↓ } voiceless labiodental implosive
{ ȸ↓ } voiced labiodental implosive
{ p↓ } voiceless bilabial implosive
{ b↓ } voiced bilabial implosive
( 4 ) Taps ( flaps ) :
They are very quick flicks that are made with the tip of the tongue. They are also occlusives, but the obstruction is done much more quickly as opposed to the plosives. For example, the Japanese language [ ɾ ] sound is correctly supposed to be pronounced this way. It lies halfway between the [ d ] sound and the [ ɹ ] sound.
English Examples : Quick pronunciations of the plosives in words like “ ladder ” or “ better ”.
Japanese Hiragana Examples : “ ら, れ, り, ろ, る ” [ ɾa, ɾe, ɾi, ɾo, ɾu ]
Japanese Katakana Examples : “ ラ, レ, リ, ロ, ル ” [ ɾa, ɾe, ɾi, ɾo, ɾu ]
{ ɿ } voiced retroflex tap ( U + 027F ) “ latin small letter reversed r with fishhook ” ( [ ɽ ] in IPA )
{ ɾ } voiced alveolar tap ( U + 027E ) “ latin small letter r with fishhook ”
These letters look strikingly similar to the related letters [ r ]. But there are small differences, for example, the serif at the top of the letter [ ɾ ] is not there. It is important not to confuse these letters. There is no other way due to the large number of r - like sounds and there are not enough letters.
( 5 ) Percussives :
They are sounds whereby two articulators are made to strike one another. Examples include the bidental percussive, where the upper teeth and the lower teeth hit each other. And the bilabial percussive, where the lips are made to hit each other. The most common and easiest of these is the tongue cluck sound that you may already be familiar with; it is done by placing the tongue on the front of the palate, sucking in, and then letting go. With that force, the tongue strikes the floor of the mouth { ꭅ }, thus “ percussives ”.
{ ʔ / ɂ / ◌ˀ } glottal stop / glottal percussive ( U + 0294 / U + 0242 ) “ latin letter glottal stop ”
{ ꭅ } lingual percussive ( U + AB45 ) “ latin small letter stirrup r ” ( [ ǃ¡ ] in IPA ) ⁽ ¹ ⁾
{ ʭ } bidental percussive ( U + 02AD ) “ latin letter bidental percussive ”
{ ʬ } bilabial percussive ( U + 02AC ) “ latin letter bilabial percussive ”
I identified three such sounds and further corrected the definition of the “ glottal stop ” by moving it into this category. The reason for this is that the glottal plosive is the same thing as the coughing sound. But the glottal stop is a separate sound; upon investigation, I found that it is a percussive instead and has no pulmonic involvement, and I moved it into this category. I also call it the glottal percussive instead of the glottal stop interchangeably.
⁽ ¹ ⁾ The IPA uses the exclamation mark [ ǃ ] for the alveolar click (U+01C3). Then, they use the inverted exclamation mark for the alveolo - lingual percussive [ ǃ¡ ]. This is the click-clock sound that kids make. I personally think it is not appropriate to use the exclamation mark to write any click sound. However, I believe they resorted to this practice out of necessity. I know that different letters were proposed by different authors for clicks, and their use is still somewhat non - standard. I changed the letter [ ¡ ] into { ꭅ } in the TPA because it looked too similar to the vowel letter [ i ]. I also changed the alveolar click letter into something else in the TPA because the exclamation mark has another purpose in orthography and I donʼt want to use it.
( 6 ) Nasals ( nasal obstruents / nasal continuants ) :
These are consonants whereby a full obstruction is made in the mouth, but the sound exits out through the nasal cavity due to the lowering of the velum. They are opposed to “ oral ” sounds. This is why, when people have a congested nose, their Mʼs will sound like Bʼs. They are represented by the Latin letters ‘ M ’ and ‘ N ’.
Devanagari Alphabet Examples : ( ङ, ञ, ण, न, म )
Tamil Alphabet Examples : ( ங, ஞ, ண, ந, ன, ம )
IPA Examples : [ m, n, ŋ, ɲ, ɳ, ɴ ]
{ ꬼ } voiced uvular nasal obstruent ( U + AB3C ) “ latin small letter eng with crossed-tail ” ( [ ɴ ] in IPA )
{ ŋ } voiced velar nasal obstruent ( U + 014B ) “ latin small letter eng ”
{ ɲ } voiced palatal nasal obstruent ( U + 0272 ) “ latin small letter n with left hook ”
{ ȵ } voiced postalveolar nasal obstruent ( U + 0235 ) “ latin small letter n with curl ”
{ ᶇ } voiced retroflex nasal obstruent ( U + 1D87 ) “ latin small letter n with palatal hook ” ( [ ɳ ] in IPA )
{ n } voiced alveolar nasal obstruent ( U + 006E ) “ latin small letter n ”
{ ɴ } voiced dental nasal obstruent ( U + 0274 ) “ latin letter small capital n ” ( [ n̪ ] in IPA )
{ ꬻ } voiced interdental nasal obstruent ( U + AB3B ) “ latin small letter n with crossed-tail ”
{ ɱ } voiced labiodental nasal obstruent ( U + 0271 ) “ latin small letter m with hook ”
{ m } voiced bilabial nasal obstruent ( U + 006D ) “ latin small letter m ”
( 7 ) Velarics ( lingual egressives ) :
These are sounds that are pronounced by pushing the air out with the tongue; only sounds pronounced past the body of the tongue can be pronounced this way, such as ‘ t ’, ‘ p ’, and ‘ f ’. They have no glottalic or pulmonic involvement. I could only identify three of them. Try pronouncing these sounds now.
{ ŧ } alveolar velaric ( U + 0167 ) “ latin small letter t with stroke ”
{ ꞙ } labiodental velaric ( U + A799 ) “ latin small letter f with stroke ”
{ ᵽ } bilabial velaric ( U + 1D7D ) “ latin small letter p with stroke ”
Velarics are not used in languages.
( 8 ) Clicks ( lingual ingressives ) :
The clicks are sounds that are pronounced by sucking in with the tongue ( lingual ingressives ). These sounds are used in some southern African languages in speech. There may be some confusion on the pronunciation of the bilabial click since it seems like it does not involve the tongue. However, I have seen an MRI recording and read explanations that say that the tongue is still sucking in on the palate in some way during the pronunciation of the bilabial click. But otherwise, the suction may just be done with the lips instead ( bilabial ingressive ).
{ ꝙ } uvular click ( U + A759 ) “ latin small letter q with diagonal stroke ”
{ ʞ } velar click ( U + 029E ) “ latin small letter turned k ”
{ ǂ } palatal click ( U + 01C2 ) “ latin letter alveolar click ”
{ ʄ } bilateral palatal click ( U + 0284 ) “ latin small letter dotless j with stroke and hook ” ⁽ ¹ ⁾
{ ʇ } retroflex click ( U + 0287 ) “ latin small letter turned t ”
{ ꭋ } alveolar click ( U + AB4B ) “ latin small letter script r ”
{ ꭌ } dental click ( U + AB4C ) “ latin small letter script r with ring ”
{ ꜭ } linguolabial click ( U + A72D ) “ latin small letter cuatrillo ”
{ ꝝ } linguosublabial click ( U + A75D ) “ latin small letter rum rotunda ” ⁽ ² ⁾
{ ᵮ } labiodental click ( U + 1D6E ) “ latin small letter f with middle tilde ”
{ ʘ } bilabial click ( U + 0298 ) “ latin letter bilabial click ”
{ ʘ̊ } rounded bilabial click / { ʘ̊̾ } fricated rounded bilabial click ⁽ ³ ⁾
⁽ ¹ ⁾ There are two separate possible clicks located at this position. One is the palatal click, which is done exactly at the centre and the roof of the mouth. The other is what I call a “ bilateral palatal click ” because it also involves the sides of the tongue. This is the click sound that people make to indicate that something is tasty.
⁽ ² ⁾ This particular click sound is not mentioned in any article, but it is easily articulated. It is not used in speech in any language, but it is possible to pronounce it with the tip of the tongue sucking on the back of the inner lower lip.
⁽ ³ ⁾ This is basically the same sound as the kissing sound. Also, it can be “ affricated ” by squeezing only a little bit of air through the small labial opening backwards. This results in a high - pitched, loud noise.
( 9 ) Trills ( rolls ) :
The articulator flaps back and forth very rapidly as the air blows through it. It may strike against another articulator in quick succession. Examples include the uvular trill, which is the French pronunciation of the letter ‘ R ’ and the alveolar trill, which is the Spanish pronunciation of the letter ‘ R ’ as in “ perro ” and the Russian pronunciation of the Cyrillic letter ‘ Р ’.
{ ʜ } voiceless epiglottal trill ( U + 029C ) “ latin letter small capital h ”
{ ʢ } voiced epiglottal trill ( U + 02A2 ) “ latin letter reversed glottal stop with stroke ”
{ ꝶ } voiceless uvular trill ( U + A776 ) “ latin letter small capital rum ” ( [ ʀ̥ ] in IPA )
{ ʀ } voiced uvular trill ( U + 0280 ) “ latin letter small capital r ”
{ ꭊ } voiceless palatal trill ( U + AB4A ) “ latin small letter double r with crossed-tail ”
{ ꭉ } voiced palatal trill ( U + AB49 ) “ latin small letter r with crossed-tail ”
{ ɽ } voiceless postalveolar trill ( U + 027D ) “ latin small letter r with tail ”
{ ɼ } voiced postalveolar trill ( U + 027C ) “ latin small letter r with long leg ” ( [ r̝ ] / [ r̻ ] voiced alveolar fricative trill in IPA )
{ ɍ } voiceless alveolar trill ( U + 024D ) “ latin small letter r with stroke ”
{ r } voiced alveolar trill ( U + 0072 ) “ latin small letter r ”
{ ꝓ } voiceless linguolabial trill ( U + A753 ) “ latin small letter p with flourish ”
{ ꞗ } voiced linguolabial trill ( U + A797 ) “ latin small letter b with flourish ” ( [ r̼ ] in IPA )
{ ꝑ } voiceless sublabial trill (U + A751 ) “ latin small letter p with stroke through descender ”
{ ƀ } voiced sublabial trill ( U + 0180 ) “ latin small letter b with stroke ”
{ ꜰ } voiceless bilabial trill ( U + A730 ) “ latin letter small capital f ” ( [ ʙ̥ ] in IPA )
{ ʙ } voiced bilabial trill ( U + 0299 ) “ latin letter small capital b ”
( 10 ) Fricatives ( sibilants ) :
These are non - occlusive sounds whereby a full obstruction is not made in the vocal tract but the air is allowed to be squeezed out of the vocal tract ( strictives ). They include sounds like ‘ s ’ as in “ seep ” and ‘ sh ’ as in “ sheep ” and ‘ f ’ as in “ four ” and their voiced variants and so on.
{ h } voiceless glottal fricative ( U + 0068 ) “ latin small letter h ”
[ ɦ ] voiced glottal fricative ( U + 0266 ) “ latin small letter h with hook ” — RULED INVALID ⁽ ¹ ⁾
{ ħ } voiceless epiglottal fricative ( U + 0127 ) “ latin small letter h with stroke ”
{ ʕ } voiced epiglottal fricative ( U + 0295 ) “ latin letter pharyngeal voiced fricative ”
{ χ } voiceless uvular fricative ( U + 03C7 ) “ greek small letter chi ”
{ ʁ } voiced uvular fricative ( U + 0281 ) “ latin letter small capital inverted r ”
{ x } voiceless velar fricative ( U + 0078 ) “ latin small letter x ”
{ ɣ } voiced velar fricative ( U + 0263 ) “ latin small letter gamma ”
{ ç } voiceless palatal fricative ( U + 00E7 ) “ latin small letter c with cedilla ”
{ ỿ } voiced palatal fricative ( U + 1EFF ) “ latin small letter y with loop ” ( [ ʝ ] in IPA )
{ ş } voiceless postalveolar fricative ( U + 015F ) “ latin small letter s with cedilla ” ( [ ʃ ] in IPA )
{ ʒ } voiced postalveolar fricative ( U + 0292 ) “ latin small letter ezh ”
{ ʂ } voiceless retroflex fricative ( U + 0282 ) “ latin small letter s with hook ”
{ ɻ } voiced retroflex fricative ( U + 027B ) “ latin small letter turned r with hook ”
{ s } voiceless laminal-alveolar fricative ( U + 0073 ) “ latin small letter s ”
{ z } voiced laminal-alveolar fricative ( U + 007A ) “ latin small letter z ”
{ ᶊ } voiceless apical-alveolar fricative ( U + 1D8A ) “latin small letter s with palatal hook ”
{ ɹ } voiced apical-alveolar fricative ( U + 0279 ) “ latin small letter turned r ”
{ ſ } voiceless dental fricative ( U + 017F ) “ latin small letter long s ”
{ ƌ } voiced dental fricative ( U + 018C ) “ latin small letter d with topbar ”
{ θ } voiceless interdental fricative ( U + 03B8 ) “ greek small letter theta ”
{ ð } voiced interdental fricative ( U + 00F0 ) “ latin small letter eth ”
{ ᶂ } voiceless supra-labiodental fricative ( U + 1D82 ) “ latin small letter f with palatal hook ” ⁽ ² ⁾
{ ᶌ } voiced supra-labiodental fricative ( U + 1D8C ) “ latin small letter v with palatal hook ” ⁽ ² ⁾
{ f } voiceless sub-labiodental fricative ( U + 0066 ) “ latin small letter f ”
{ v } voiced sub-labiodental fricative ( U + 0076 ) “ latin small letter v ”
{ ɸ } voiceless bilabial fricative ( U + 0278 ) “ latin small letter phi ”
{ ƃ } voiced bilabial fricative ( U + 0183 ) “latin small letter b with topbar ”
⁽ ¹ ⁾ I investigated this IPA letter [ ɦ ] and concluded that it is not a real thing. What makes [ h ] real is that itʼs an exhalation of air. If it is voiced, it would only be a vowel sound. It simply cannot be voiced.
⁽ ² ⁾ These are just like the ‘ f ’ and the ‘ v ’ we are familiar with, but instead of the lower lip touching the upper teeth, it is the upper lip touching the lower teeth.
There are also whistled sibilants. They are sounds like [ s ] and [ ʒ ] that are whistled alongside their normal pronunciations. They are found in some African languages, such as the Shona language from Mozambique. { s̎ } and { ş̎ } in the TPA.
( 11 ) Bilateral Approximants ( lateral approximants ) :
These are lingual consonants whereby the tongue blocks the centre of the mouth and allows the air to pass through on both the left and right sides of the mouth. They are called lateral approximants in the IPA, but I favour the term “ bilateral approximant ”. This is represented by the letter ‘ L , l ’ in the Latin alphabet. After some research, I concluded that their level of occlusion is about that of the approximants; however, with the exception that there is full occlusion at the centre with the tongue, which is not the case with approximants. They are called “ lateral approximants ” in the IPA.
[ ʟ̠ ] voiced uvular bilateral approximant ( U + 029F ) “ latin letter small capital l ” ⁽ ¹ ⁾
[ ʟ̠̥ ] voiceless uvular bilateral approximant ( U + 029F ) “ latin letter small capital l ” ⁽ ¹ ⁾
[ ʟ ] voiced velar bilateral approximant ( U + 029F ) “ latin letter small capital l ” ⁽ ¹ ⁾
[ ʟ̥ ] voiceless velar bilateral approximant ( U + 029F ) “ latin letter small capital l ” ⁽ ¹ ⁾
{ λ } voiced palatal bilateral approximant ( U + 03BB ) “ greek small letter lamda ” ( [ ʎ ] in IPA )
{ ƛ } voiceless palatal bilateral approximant ( U + 019B ) “ latin small letter lambda with stroke ”
{ ȴ } voiced postalveolar bilateral approximant ( U + 0234 ) “ latin small letter l with curl ”
{ ᶅ } voiced retroflex bilateral approximant ( U + 1D85 ) “ latin small letter l with palatal hook ”
{ l } voiced alveolar bilateral approximant ( U + 006C ) “ latin small letter l ”
{ ł } voiced velarised alveolar bilateral approximant ( Dark L ) ( U + 0142 ) “ latin small letter l with stroke ”
{ ƚ } voiceless alveolar bilateral approximant ( U + 0142 ) “ latin small letter l with stroke ”
{ ʟ } voiced dental bilateral approximant ( U + 029F ) “ latin letter small capital l ”
{ ᴌ } voiceless dental bilateral approximant ( U + 1D0C ) “ latin letter small capital l with stroke ”
{ ɫ } voiced interdental bilateral approximant ( U + 026B ) “ latin small letter l with middle tilde ”
{ ꬸ } voiceless interdental bilateral approximant ( U + AB38 ) “ latin small letter l with double middle tilde ”
⁽ ¹ ⁾ Ruled invalid and unpronounceable as such due to the flexibility of the back side of the tongue.
These are sometimes called “ liquids ” in other literature, but I think that term is quite vague.
( 12 ) Ejectives ( glottalic egressives ) :
The ejectives are similar to the implosives in the sense that the glottis is closed during their articulations. However, unlike the implosives, which are pronounced with a downward motion of the glottis, the ejectives are pronounced with an upward motion of the glottis. Ejectives can only be voiceless consonants. Unlike the implosives, they can be plosives, affricates, fricatives, bilateral approximants, and trills. That is, the occlusive and strictive consonants can be “ ejectivised ”. Non - strictives, such as approximants and vowels, cannot have ejective pronunciations due to a lack of necessary occlusion.
NOT A COMPLETE LIST ( all voiceless ) :
{ q↑ } ejective uvular plosive
{ k↑ } ejective velar plosive
{ c↑ } ejective palatal plosive
{ ȶ↑ } ejective postalveolar plosive
{ ƫ↑ } ejective retroflex plosive
{ t↑ } ejective alveolar plosive
{ ⱦ↑ } ejective interdental plosive
{ ȹ↑ } ejective labiodental plosive
{ p↑ } ejective bilabial plosive
{ ƚ↑ } ejective alveolar bilateral approximant
{ ɍ↑ } ejective alveolar trill
{ ɕ↑ } ejective postalveolar affricate
{ ʆ↑ } ejective retroflex affricate
{ ꞩ↑ } ejective alveolar affricate
{ x↑ } ejective velar fricative
{ ş↑ } ejective postalveolar fricative
{ s↑ } ejective alveolar fricative
( 13 ) Approximants ( semi - vowels ) :
You can think of these sounds as between vocoids and fricatives; they are basically like vocoids but more strictive. For example, in English, the consonant ‘ w ’ is a more constricted version of the sound represented by ‘ u ’. The constriction is done by rounding the lips a little more than in the case of ‘ u ’. Furthermore, it is important to note that a similar constriction can be done without making the lips rounded. This is the case as it is in the Japanese language. We typically write “ watashi wa ”, but here, unlike in the English ‘ w ’, the lips are not made rounded. Think about it: why would it be since it is easier not to do so ? That is an added step. Thus, we need to make a distinction between ‘ v ’, ‘ u ’, ‘ w ’ and the unrounded ‘ w ’ which I assigned the letter ‘ ɯ ’. It looks like two of the ‘ u ’ letters instead of the two ‘ v ’ letters. I think it is an appropriate letter. And yes, this letter is the unrounded close back vowel in the IPA, but I thought that it looked bad as a vowel and that it looked inappropriate, and I believe that it is more fitting here. I then went and took the letter ‘ ᴕ ’ ( U + 1D15 ) from the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet to fill its place. Also, I want to comment that in the English language, the letter ‘ w ’ is incorrectly being called a “ double u ” when in fact it is a “ double v ”. It is called a “ double v ” in all other languages. Only English calls this letter by this incorrect name. The “ double u ” is in fact another letter, the letter ‘ ɯ ’ which has the Unicode ( U + 026F ).
Approximants are unique in the way that they are the grey area between the contoids and vocoids. A language may treat an approximant as a vowel or as a consonant phonologically. A good example of this is the Arabic letters wāw and yā. Although, phonetically, they are considered contoids by default in the TPA.
For this reason, approximants can also be a part of diphthongs. I call them “ constricted diphthongs ” compared with “ diphthongs ”. In which case, they may either be at the start of the diphthong or the end.
{ ʖ } unrounded voiced pharyngeal approximant ( U + 0296 ) “ latin letter inverted glottal stop ”
{ ᴙ } unrounded voiced uvular approximant ( U + 1D19 ) “ latin letter small capital reversed r ”
{ ɰ } unrounded voiced velar approximant ( U + 0270 ) “ latin small letter turned m with long leg ”
{ y } unrounded voiced palatal approximant ( U + 0079 ) “ latin small letter y” ( [ j ] in IPA )
{ ɥ } rounded voiced palatal approximant ( U + 0265 ) “ latin small letter turned h ”
{ ɯ } unrounded voiced bilabial approximant ( U + 026F ) “ latin small letter turned m ” ( [ β̞ ] in IPA )
{ w } rounded voiced bilabial approximant ( U + 0077 ) “ latin small letter w ”
( 14 ) Vowels ( vocoids ) :
Vocoids are the point at which a constriction is no longer made in the vocal tract and the sound simply exits out of the vocal tract ( non - strictives ). Vocoids are very complex, as many different factors affect them. Some of these factors are the position of the jaw, the lowering of the jaw, the position of the tongue, the rounding of the lips, the direction of the airflow. It is possible to lower the velum to cause the air to exit out of the nasal cavity; these are called nasal vowels or nasalised vowels and this phenomenon is called nasalisation. It is observed in multiple languages, such as the French language. English does not have vowel nasalisation. It is also possible to make an epiglottal restriction during the pronunciation of vowels, as is observed in the Arabic language. This is, however, a harder pronunciation to employ than vowel nasalization, but there is plenty of evidence that this is possible, and I have seen Arabic speakers employ such pronunciations.
Making explanations on vowels and devising a vowel chart was difficult. I had to find a balance between the positions of the jaw and the positions of the tongue. However, I am satisfied with where I have brought the work. I am happy that the TPA has fewer vowel letters than the IPA. Mine is at about twenty vowels, while the IPA is at least thirty. I think that is too many vowels. I object to the seven levels of vowel laxity in the IPA. The TPA has five levels. I cut the last two laxity levels in the IPA with the logic that the jaw is not lowered down that much in order to pronounce vowels. Although, anatomically, the jaw can technically be lowered down further to those two levels, that just isnʼt done in speech.
Extra Tense Vocoids, Approximants ( IPA semi - vowels ) : They are so restricted that we classify them as consonants; they are one level more lax than fricatives and two levels more lax than plosives. They form the base level for all the other vowels and are measured from there correctly.
Tense Vocoids ( IPA close vowels ) : The jaw is either not lowered down or lowered slightly during the articulation of these vowels. This also limits the positioning of the tongue; another word for tense vowels is close vowels, as it is used in the IPA.
Near - Tense Vocoids ( IPA near - close vowels ) : The jaw is lowered down slightly, a little more than that of tense vocoids. Another word for near-tense vowels is near-close vowels, as it is used in the IPA.
Lax Vocoids ( IPA mid vowels ) : The jaw is plentily lowered down during the pronunciation of these vocoids. The tongue has more space to roam; as a result, the tongue has more possible positions for placement. These are around what the IPA calls mid - level vowels or near - open vowels.
Extra - Lax Vocoids ( IPA open vowels ) : The jaw is lowered down very much, perhaps about as much as it could be lowered. It is possible to lower the jaw further anatomically. They are approximately at the location of the IPA open vowels.
| REAR | VOCOIDS | CENTER | VOCOIDS | FRONT | VOCOIDS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ɰ | w | y | ɥ | ||
| ᴕ | u | ɪ | ʉ | ||
| ə | ʊ | ᵻ | ᵿ | ||
| a | o | æ | œ | e | ø |
| ᴀ | ɔ | ᴁ | ɶ | ᴇ | ꬿ |
{ ɰ } unrounded rear extra-tense vocoid ( U + 0270 ) “ latin small letter turned m with long leg ”
{ w } rounded rear extra-tense vocoid ( U + 0077 ) “ latin small letter w ”
{ y } unrounded front extra-tense vocoid ( U + 0079 ) “ latin small letter y ”
{ ɥ } rounded front extra-tense vocoid ( U + 0265 ) “ latin small letter turned h ”
{ ᴕ } unrounded rear tense vocoid ( U + 1D15 ) “ latin letter small capital ou ”
{ u } rounded rear tense vocoid ( U + 0075 ) “ latin small letter u ”
{ ɪ } unrounded front tense vocoid ( U + 026A ) “ latin letter small capital i ”
{ ʉ } rounded front tense vocoid ( U + 0289 ) “ latin small letter u bar ”
{ ə } unrounded rear near-tense vocoid ( U + 0259 ) “ latin small letter schwa ”
{ ʊ } rounded rear near-tense vocoid ( U + 028A ) “ latin small letter upsilon ”
{ ᵻ } unrounded front near-tense vocoid ( U + 1D7B ) “ latin small capital letter i with stroke ”
{ ᵿ } rounded front near-tense vocoid ( U + 1D7F ) “ latin small letter upsilon with stroke ”
{ a } unrounded rear lax vocoid ( U + 0061 ) “ latin small letter a ”
{ o } rounded rear lax vocoid ( U + 006F ) “ latin small letter o ”
{ æ } unrounded centre lax vocoid ( U + 00E6 ) “ latin small letter ae ”
{ œ } rounded centre lax vocoid ( U + 0153 ) “ latin small ligature oe ”
{ e } unrounded front lax vocoid ( U + 0065 ) “ latin small letter e ”
{ ø } rounded front lax vocoid ( U + 00F8 ) “ latin small letter o with stroke ”
{ ᴀ } unrounded rear extra-lax vocoid ( U + 1D00 ) “ latin letter small capital a ”
{ ɔ } rounded rear extra-lax vocoid ( U + 0254 ) “ latin small letter open o ”
{ ᴁ } unrounded centre extra-lax vocoid ( U + 1D01 ) “ latin letter small capital ae ”
{ ɶ } rounded centre extra-lax vocoid ( U + 0276 ) “ latin letter small capital oe ”
{ ᴇ } unrounded front extra-lax vocoid ( U + 1D07 ) “ latin letter small capital e ”
{ ꬿ } rounded front extra-lax vocoid ( U + AB3F ) “ latin small letter open o with stroke ”
( 14 .1 ) Explanation of vowel laxity :
So, what is the difference between [ i ] and [ e ] or [ u ] and [ o ] ?
In [ e ], the jaw is lowered more than in [ i ] which means the mouth is more open as the air exits. I have established four levels of vowel laxity, basing them on the continuation of the approximants and other contoids. These vocoids are in full conformity with the contoids positions, they should not be measured separately. I call them tense vocoids, near - tense vocoids, lax vocoids, and extra - lax vocoids. There are articulatory, orthographic, and phonetic differences between the two tense vocoids and the two lax vocoids in world languages. Although some people claim that there are phonemic differences between them, so far, I have not been able to note this difference.
I will try to prove that there are four levels to vowel laxity plus the approximant base level. In languages, we have a phenomenon called “ stress ”, which plays an important role in phonology and syllables. For example, in multi-syllable words, the stress will be on a specific syllable. That syllable will have its vowel pronounced in a more open ( lax ) way in many languages. For example, this is the case in English, although I donʼt think such a pronunciation is employed in the French language. Also, in French, I believe all the vowels are pronounced in a little bit more tense manner than in English. Compare these two English words: “ bit ” and “ empty ”. “ bit ” is one syllable, and since in English, at least one syllable in any word has to be stressed, this vowel is stressed and is pronounced like a near - tense vocoid. While in “ empty ”, the first vowel is stressed, so the last vowel is pronounced as a tense vocoid ( not as lax as in “ bit ” ). This is very much a real thing in English; however, the distinction itself is not phonological. It is purely phonetic.
French : “ bitte ” [ j ]
Turkish : “ bit ” [ i ]
English : “ bit ” [ ɪ ]
English : “ bet ” [ e ]
English : “ egg ” [ ɛ ]
Regarding the topic of a phonological distinction between near - tense, tense, lax, and extra - lax; I do not believe that languages make a phonological distinction between them, and I have not seen proof of that in my research. They do make orthographical and phonetic distinctions in different languages for various reasons, but I do not believe that they ever make a phonological distinction. That is, if we were to substitute [ e ] for [ ɛ ], we would never get a separate word or speakers of a given language would be able to make a distinction. They sound too alike for such a distinction to be made. I do know that sometimes such explanations are made, considering [ e ] and [ ɛ ] to be separate vowels in languages. But I believe it ʼs not the case. I know that languages may make an orthographical distinction, which my five - level vowel system still fully accounts for, but that does not prove a phonological distinction. I will try to demonstrate this further by giving examples from graphology.
Let us observe the following Greek letters :
Omicron ( Ο / ο ) and Omega ( Ω / ω )
So then, it would be up to me to explain the difference between these two letters. We already know that Greek language speakers do not make any kind of pronunciation distinction when reading or pronouncing these letters, and neither do I nor do I advocate for it. They simply read it as [ o ]. But then, why are there two separate vowels here ? If we were to say that Omega represents the [ ɔ ], we wouldnʼt be incorrect. Our universal vowel system still holds up. Alternatively, someone could say that the Omega represented a long duration [ oː ] and that distinction has since been lost. That would also be valid, and that is also already accounted for in our vowel system.
Another example is from Devanagari: ओ / औ Notice that the second “ o ” vowel has another stroke on it. That just makes it a little bit more open. Giving us [ ɔ ].
With this explanation, I justify why there must be at least four levels of vowel openness, with approximants at level zero. Four levels are necessary to accommodate the orthographical markings of some alphabets and spellings, as demonstrated above. It is also a necessary factor when we are dealing with phonetic stress. Here, again, I have to highly criticise the IPA for its seven - level vowel laxity as well as its thirty - three vowels. In comparison, I have five levels and twenty vowels. I believe itʼs extremely accurate, and itʼs not superfluous.
( 14.2 ) The role of the tongue with regards to vowels :
As if the jaw and vowel laxity werenʼt difficult matters to explain, the role of the tongue further complicates the definition of the vowels. The tongue can be placed either in the centre part of the mouth ( the default position ) or advanced further or retracted backwards. We call these front vowels, central vowels, and back vowels. Furthermore, for tense vocoids, I erased the central vowel category simply because there wasnʼt enough room in the mouth to make a three - level distinction, and I went with the two - level distinction instead. For lax vocoids, however, because the jaw is lowered, it is possible to make a more profound distinction between the vowels [ a ] and [ e ] which gives us the vowel [ æ ]. This is a sound between [ a ] and [ e ] and it exists in English as well as in Arabic. Arabic, in fact, does not make a distinction between [ a ] and [ e ] but only has [ æ ].
Thus, we have about twenty vowels plus four semi - vowels ( approximants ) which is the grey area between vocoids and contoids. This is a much simpler and more factual explanation of vocoids as compared with that of the International Phonetic Alphabet where there are over thirty vowels. Many of them are extra and unnecessary. Seeing how difficult it was for me to establish my twenty - plus - four vowel system, I can see why they got it wrong. I even believe their vowel chart is upside down as the diagram becomes wider as the vowels become more tense. In fact, it becomes wider as the vowels become more lax.
It is also important to understand that approximants can also act as vowels. For example, the French pronunciation of the vowel [ i ] can be correctly described as [ j ]. That is, the tongue is slightly higher when this vowel is pronounced than in English.
Please find the vowel chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet here for comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel
I believe I have to define what I mean here by phonetic occlusivity. Occlusive is a sound where a full obstruction is made in the vocal tract. Another word for it is obstruent. The vocal tract is fully closed, even if briefly. While in strictive, a restriction is made that is not a full occlusion, in non - strictive, a restriction is not made ( for example, the vowel sounds ). Still, the mouth, the jaw, the tongue, and the lips may be moved. Thus, we have three levels of occlusivity, and we need to have them in order to explain the sounds accurately. We can have occlusive, strictive, and non - strictive sounds for the pulmonics, while we can only have occlusive and strictive sounds for ejectives, and we can only have occlusive sounds for implosives.
Again, this is factual information that is perhaps not there in other literature, but it is true. I implore you to test it for yourself. I have attempted making a graph where I try to show all these sounds in a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet. You can find it here :
https://github.com/SalviaSage/Translingual-Phonetic-Alphabet/releases
Lingual does not have anything to do with the glottis. Thus, the voicing element is completely left out of its operation. It works by pistoning the air outwards with the tongue ( egressive ), or by sucking in with the tongue ( ingressive ). This suction motion is known as clicks, while the egressive motion of pistoning the air out is known as velarics. So again, some terminology: egressive glottalics are commonly called “ ejectives ” while ingressive glottalics are called “ implosives ”. Egressive linguals are called “ velarics ” while ingressive linguals are called “ clicks ”.
Pulmonic egressives can be voiceless or voiced ( voicing, meaning the vibration of the vocal cords ) while glottalic egressives ( ejectives ) can only be voiceless. Pulmonic Ingressives ( implosives ) on the other hand, can be either voiceless or voiced.
In the linguals and percussives, the voicing element is completely left out of operation. This is because the linguals are pronounced in the mouth with the tongue, so they completely bypass the throat and have nothing to do with the throat. This is also true for percussives. In the glottal percussive or glottal stop, the vocal cords are brought together to make a full closure. The glottal stop is also referred to as a glottal percussive in this document,
Citation of the Wikipedia article for the glottal stop :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop
I do not agree with the following statement that we can find on this webpage :
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and diaphragm, as in most sounds.
I am making the argument that this sound is not pulmonic and that it is percussive. There isnʼt any kind of push of air from the lungs to cause the motion for this particular articulation. Such a thing is possible; however, this gives us the coughing sound, which is a different sound than the glottal stop. Technically, the cough is a “ glottal plosive ”. Thus, I call what other literature calls “ glottal stop ” a “ glottal percussive ”. It is when both the vocal cords are brought together and made to hit one another briefly, then let go. This motion can also be held at that spot, which is what happens when a person holds their breath. This glottal stop must not be confused with a “ glottal plosive ” which is the coughing sound. I believe it is important to make the distinction between a “ glottal percussive ” and a “ glottal plosive ” ( a cough ) as they are not the same thing mechanically.
Therefore, I define the “ cough ” as a “ ( voiceless ) glottal plosive ”. Its voiced variant cannot exist for the same reason that ejectives cannot be voiced. And the “ snort ” as a “ nasalised ingressive uvular trill ”. That is, the air comes inward from the nose and trills the uvula. The “ sniff ” as “ ingressive nasal fricative ” and “ blowing the nose ” as “ egressive nasal fricative ”.
During the pronunciation of sounds, it is possible to make additional articulations at the same time. This is referred to as secondary articulation. For example, how would we explain the pronunciation of the word “ build ” ? There is a ‘ b ’ consonant followed by a ‘ u ’ vowel and the ‘ i ’ vowel followed by two consonants. However, if you pronounce this word, you will quickly see that the ‘ b ’ here is not a simple ‘ b ’. In fact, while it is being pronounced, the tongue is being raised upwards towards the palate. This secondary articulation is taking place at the same time as the ‘ b ’ is being pronounced at the lips. So, the different parts of the vocal tract can be used at the same time. And in this case, it is being used as such. However, a person who does not know articulatory phonetics may be oblivious to it. The fact of the matter is that in English, we only see the phenomenon of palatalised consonants, that is, consonants that are pronounced with the tongue raised towards the palate before the vowel sound [ u ]. The same phenomenon exists in Russian but more extensively. In Russian spelling, there are even specific letters to mark palatalisation. Palatalised consonants are quite widespread in Russian.
There are other secondary articulations, such as labialisation. That is, the lips are rounded during the articulation of a consonant. Nasalisation, that is, the velum is lowered to make the air pass through the nasal cavity as opposed to the oral cavity. Pharyngealisation, whereby a restriction is made around where the epiglottis is, such as in Arabic. Velarisation or lingual retraction, whereby the tongue is retracted backwards during the pronunciation of a consonant. For example, in English, this is how the letter ‘ L ’ is pronounced. While it is being pronounced, the tongue is being retracted backwards, while I donʼt know of any other language where the ‘ L ’ is pronounced in this way.
Thus, I call phones that have a secondary articulation complex phones as opposed to simple or plain phones. This distinction must be made in phonetics because different parts of the vocal tract can be utilised at the same time. Sometimes, these kinds of pronunciations will make a different word; that is, a language may make a phonological distinction between simple phones and complex phones.
There is a wide range of secondary articulations. A consonant may be pronounced with more of a puff of air, such as in the case of aspiration. In the Devanagari alphabet, there are specific separate letters for the aspirated consonants as opposed to the non - aspirated ones. Some fricative consonants can even be whistled, such as in the Shona language in Africa, written as { s̎ } and { ş̎ } in the TPA with the whistling combining diacritic. Vowels may be pronounced with a different tone, as is the case in Vietnamese, Thai, Mandarin, and Cantonese languages. These tones are written by combining diacritics with vowels in Pinyin and Vietnamese, which is a way to write tones in the Latin alphabet.
In order to mark such phenomena, I came up with the idea of using combining diacritics in the TPA. There are many different combining diacritics in the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet. These combining diacritics go on top of the existing letters to mark secondary articulations. During the design of the TPA, I tried to reserve marking “ phonetic ” phenomena by placing the combining above diacritics on top of the letters, while I reserved the combining below diacritics for “ phonological ” phenomena. The IPA, on the other hand, does not make that distinction. The IPA also resorts to using superscript complimentary letters.
The idea here is that since these two sounds are being articulated at the same time, they metrically constitute one sound. Thus, we must have a single letter. The use of combining diacritics allows us to still keep one base letter. If a computer were to count the number of sounds in a word solely based on its letter count, the number of represented sounds would not be higher than the actual number. Thus, my alphabet is superior to the IPA in that regard. It does follow the rule of one letter per sound and respects computational linguistics. One design feature of the TPA was that it could be used in computational linguistics projects as well as being typed by hand, and I believe my alphabet excels in both of those areas as well as its visual appeal.
Tones are something that we come across in music. You may be familiar with the musical scale do - re - mi - fa - so - la - si - do. This is an eight - level scale, in which we have eight tones. The same concept is found in phonetics and pronunciation, especially with regard to the pronunciation of vowels. Here, we call it pitch, and we have three fundamental levels; high, mid, and low. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, there are five levels called extra - high, high, mid, low, and extra - low. In the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet, there are three main levels: high, mid, and low. High can be split into extra - high and high, and low can be split into low and extra - low for a more precise five - level system. This is the same system as in the IPA. There are also what are called “ contour tones ”. In this case, the tones start from one tone and go towards another tone. There are also triple contour tones, where it is the same thing but with three tones instead. This gives us three flat - level tones, six double - contour tones, and ten triple - contour tones.
The full list is as follows:
| FLAT TONES | DOUBLE CONTOUR TONES | TRIPLE CONTOUR TONES |
|---|---|---|
| LOW { ◌̿ / ◌˩ / ꜜ◌ } | LOW - MID { ◌᷇ / ◌ ˩˧ } | LOW - MID - LOW { ◌ ˩˧˩ } |
| MID { ◌ / ◌ ˧ } | LOW - HIGH { ◌́ / ◌ ˩˥ } | LOW - HIGH - LOW { ◌ ˩˥˩ } |
| HIGH { ◌̅ / ◌ ˥ / ꜛ◌ } | MID - LOW { ◌᷆ / ◌ ˧˩ } | LOW - HIGH - MID { ◌ ˩˥˧ } |
| MID - HIGH { ◌᷄ / ◌ ˧˥ } | MID - LOW - MID { ◌ ˧˩˧ } | |
| HIGH - LOW { ◌̀ / ◌ ˥˩ } | MID - LOW - HIGH { ◌ ˧˩˥ } | |
| { ꜛ◌, ꜜ◌ } | HIGH - MID { ◌᷅ / ◌ ˥˧ } | MID - HIGH - LOW { ◌ ˧˥˩ } |
| { ◌᷇, ◌́, ◌᷆, ◌᷄, ◌̀, ◌᷅ } | MID - HIGH - MID { ◌ ˧˥˧ } | |
| {◌ ˥ , ◌ ˧ , ◌ ˩ } | HIGH - LOW - MID { ◌ ˥˩˧ } | |
| { ◌ ˩˧ , ◌ ˩˥ , ◌ ˧˩ , ◌ ˧˥ , ◌ ˥˩ , ◌ ˥˧ } | HIGH - LOW - HIGH { ◌ ˥˩˥ } | |
| { ◌ ˩˧˩ , ◌ ˩˥˩ , ◌ ˩˥˧ , ◌ ˧˩˧ , ◌ ˧˩˥ , ◌ ˧˥˩ , ◌ ˧˥˧ , ◌ ˥˩˧ , ◌ ˥˩˥ , ◌ ˥˧˥ } | HIGH - MID - HIGH { ◌ ˥˧˥ } |
High Tone { ◌̅ / ◌ ˥ / ꜛ◌ }
Low Tone { ◌̿ / ◌ ˩ / ꜜ◌ }
Low - Mid Tone { ◌᷇ / ◌ ˩˧ }
Low - High Tone { ◌́ / ◌ ˩˥ }
Mid - Low Tone { ◌᷆ / ◌ ˧˩ }
Mid - High Tone { ◌᷄ / ◌ ˧˥ }
High - Low Tone { ◌̀ / ◌ ˥˩ }
High - Mid Tone { ◌᷅ / ◌ ˥˧ }
Low-Mid-Low Tone { ◌ ˩˧˩ }
Low-High-Low Tone { ◌ ˩˥˩ }
Low-High-Mid Tone { ◌ ˩˥˧ }
Mid-Low-Mid Tone { ◌ ˧˩˧ }
Mid-Low-High Tone { ◌ ˧˩˥ }
Mid-High-Low Tone { ◌ ˧˥˩ }
Mid-High-Mid Tone { ◌ ˧˥˧ }
High-Low-Mid Tone { ◌ ˥˩˧ }
High-Low-High Tone { ◌ ˥˩˥ }
High-Mid-High Tone { ◌ ˥˧˥ }
You can also think of them as diphthongs, but instead, it isnʼt the positions of the lips, the jaw, or the tongue that move; it is the pitch that moves. I believe that phenomenon itself happens at the vocal cords and is not controlled elsewhere. Unfortunately, I cannot give you a precise explanation as to what happens there in this document, as that is something I do not know. But I believe that concept is already explained in the study of music, and it is probably something similar to that. I do believe, however, that I have correctly identified the three tones that are utilised in speech. I believe that this scale fits all languages and that we do not need a higher level of acuity than five levels. This concept is particularly important in East Asian languages such as Thai, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese.
This concept itself is not really there in what we call non - tonal languages, at least phonemically, such as English and European languages. Pitch itself, of course, is still used in a more minor way in those languages. However, it plays a very crucial role in tonal languages such as Thai, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. Here, they convey meaning, and these languages cannot even be spoken without the correct use of tones. If you speak a non - tonal language, you would not know how to pronounce tones properly and would have to try to learn and master how to use pitch when you speak.
In this paragraph, I will try to teach you, the reader, how to do so. We have already defined three levels of pitch. So, the first step is to correctly identify the higher pitch and the lower pitch. Then, we have to try to learn how to move the pitch from these various positions, as discussed above. I think actively trying to learn a tonal language may be the best way to master the use of pitch. So, I would advise you to try to learn a tonal language and to try and pronounce its words correctly.
In the case of intonation, it is a kind of “ global pitch ”. For example, a whole sentence can rise in pitch when asking a question.
It is easy to understand the diphthongs or the gliding vowels. They are vowels that start with one vowel and move towards another vowel. They constitute one vowel sound. There is also a phenomenon called “ hiatus ” whereby we have two separate vowels with a syllable break in between. It is important to be accurate with our explanations with regard to this subject. Diphthongs are vowel sounds whereby one vowel sound shifts towards another one in pronunciation, while in triphthongs, the same is true but that it moves towards a third vowel.
For example, check out this Turkish word “ saat ”, { sa‧a̱t } which means “ hour ”. We do not have a diphthong here; we have two monophthongs. This phenomenon is called “ hiatus ”.
In the English word “ out ” { aʊt }, we have just one syllable and a diphthong. For example, letʼs look at Wiktionary.org article for the pronunciation of the word “ eight ” / eɪt /. I would instead transcribe it as { ᴇyt }. Here, we have a diphthong. The { e } slides towards the { y } and ends at { y }, the palatal approximant sound. It starts at the position where the jaw is lowest, and quickly, the jaw rises during its pronunciation.
The gliding vowels can glide from any starting point in any direction without issue. IPA fails to acknowledge that the gliding can go up to [ j ]. They stop it short within the vowel range. Thus, they transcribe “ gate ” and “ gait ” the same, without the palatal approximant. However, I transcribe “ gate ” as { geyt } and “ gait ” as { geɪt }.
Similar to how vowels can come next to next, as is the case in diphthongs, consonants can also come next to next without a vowel in between. This is called a consonant cluster. Most languages do not have words that are only made up of consonants, but some Slavic languages have such words. For example, this is a Wikipedia article on the Czech language sentence made up of words containing only consonants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Str%C4%8D_prst_skrz_krk
Ejective consonants can also be in clusters. It is true that ejective consonants can only be short - duration consonants, but that doesnʼt prevent them from being pronounced in succession.
Sometimes there will be phonological rules in languages that prevent clusters at certain positions in words. Some of them are more liberal when it comes to this; for example, Slavic languages tend to be consonant heavy, and consonant clusters up to three consonants can be found at the start, the middle or the end. An entire word can be made up of consonants. In the case of Turkish, we can have “ double consonant clusters ” at the end of words but not at the start of words. So, for example, the word “ train ” is pronounced with a vowel inserted between the ‘ t ’ and the ‘ r ’. This is sometimes demonstrated in literature as CVCC or CCCVCCC. For example, the English word “ strengths ” is CCCVCCC.
In this chapter, I want to criticise the International Phonetic Alphabet and Wikipedia articles freely and extensively.
( 1 ) The IPA Vowel Chart is grossly wrong and upside down :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Vowels I want to talk about my belief that the vowel chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet is not metrically accurate.
Early on in the development of the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet, I suspected that the vowel chart of the IPA was grossly wrong. I later learned that this vowel chart is based on the vowel chart that was determined by Daniel Jones and that the IPA uses Jonesʼ vowels. I also believe that it was negligent on their part and that they did not measure the accuracy of Jonesʼ vowels and hastily included them in the IPA. I consulted the work “ Natural Phonetics and Tonetics ” by the Italian phonetician Luciano Canepari to get his views on the vowel chart. He, too, had come up with a different system than the IPA. I also thought his system was unnecessarily accurate and that it had even more vowels than the IPA. But I understood that he was only trying to be accurate. Dissatisfied with both of their charts, I then devised a chart of my own. According to my explanations, the vowel chart of the IPA is upside down. There, the trapezoid becomes narrower as the vowels become closer. It is supposed to be the other way around because, as the vowels become more open, there is more room for the tongue to make a distinction between front, mid, and rear vowels.
Here, we can see a trapezoid that becomes closer as it becomes more open. And one has to ask the question, why is the vowel chart of this shape ? Luciano Canepari also thought that that shape was wrong and came up with a shape of his own. His shape is a parallelogram, not a trapezoid. I do believe that the trapezoid is a better shape; however, it is supposed to become wider as the vowels become more open. This is because as the jaw is lowered, there is more room for the tongue to move around, and a better distinction between vowels can be made. Thus, I call the vowel chart of the IPA upside down.
In my chart, I do not have centre vowels between the rear and front vowels for close vowels. So it goes directly from the front vowels to the back vowels. It does make a distinction between front, centre, and rear lax vowels. This is already demonstrated in languages, not only phonetically but also phonologically. English is one language that has all three, for example, as “ but, bat, bet ”. But I found no such evidence for the close vowels. Also, yes, I moved the centre vowel schwa to the rear vowel position, but at the same time, it is more frontal than that of the rear back close vowel, like the Turkish dotless i, for example, which is a tense rear vowel.
It was incredibly difficult for me to come up with a factual system, and it took me months and many revisions, but eventually, I believe I came up with a system that is more accurate than that of the IPAʼs. For example, in the IPA vowel chart, how can the Latin alphabet letter ‘ a ’ be classified as a front vowel ? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_front_unrounded_vowel) It is not a letter that represents a front vowel. The letter ‘ æ ’ is being considered as a front vowel as well. It glyphically looks like it is between ‘ a ’ and ‘ e ’. This letter was used in Old English spelling, and it represented a centre lax vowel there to make up for the fact that the already existing Latin ‘ a ’ and ‘ e ’ did not suit English phonology while it was adequate for Latin.
I correctly measured the human mouth and the positions of the tongue and determined that the vowels must be measured starting from the four established approximants, also known as semi - vowels. This gives us an excellent measuring point from where we can measure the rest of the vowels. My alphabet, for tense vowels, has only front and rear vowels, as I believe that making a central distinction here is not necessary and is not done in world languages. Instead, here, a frontal ( palatal ) and a rear ( velar ) distinction, combined with the position of the jaw, is extensive enough. For open vowels, because the jaw is lower down, we have more room for the tongue. Languages plentily use this trait of the vocal tract. In my other literary work (The Discourse on the Phonology of the English Language and a Critique), I explained that the vowel letter “ aesc ” from Old English (æ) is a centre vowel and that it is not a front vowel as it is shown in the IPA chart. This also makes sense since this letter is clearly a combination of the letters ‘ a ’ and ‘ e ’ and its sound lies right between the front ‘ e ’ and the rear ‘ a ’.
There are also vowels in the IPA that do not have labially rounded counterparts. This also makes no sense, as they can be unrounded. In my alphabet, there are ten vowel sets. Each one has a labially rounded counterpart, which gives us a total of twenty vowels. The approximants also have their rounded counterparts. I believe one thing that makes my vowel system excellent is the fact that they are measured from the approximants and relate to other consonants well. The vowel chart is in fact not at all a separate chart, but it fits in very well with the other consonant sounds and their measurements.
Another thing that makes me convinced that my vowel chart is accurate is its capacity to not exclude any orthographic vowel representations found in languages, alphabets, and writing systems.
( 2 ) Voiced glottal fricative is not a thing :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_glottal_fricative
Voiced glottal fricative [ɦ] does not exist. Itʼs voiceless variant [h] does because it is simply an exhalation of breath. But if it were to be voiced, then it would be a vowel instead. Thus it is invalid.
( 3 ) Velar lateral approximants are impossible to articulate :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_lateral_approximant
This consonant the Wikipedia article talks about is impossible to articulate. The dorsa of the tongue is not like the tip of the tongue, and it is just not flexible enough to make this articulation at that place of articulation. I concluded that the most anterior part where this articulation is possible is at the palate and not more than that.
( 4 ) The velar click is being confused with the lateral click :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_click
"English does not have a lateral click (or any click consonant, for that matter) as a phoneme, but an unreleased lateral click does occur as an interjection, usually written tchick! or tchek! (and often reduplicated tchick-tchick!), used to urge a horse to move. A form of click can also be heard by some English speakers when scoffing, but this is generally a dental click rather than a lateral click."
The click that people make when scoffing is indeed dental. However, the click that people make when they urge a horse to move is velar. I believe they are simply calling the velar click a lateral click in this article because they believe that it is pronounced on one side of the mouth. That itself may be true, but I believe it is more accurately described as a velar click, as that is the place of articulation where it is being pronounced.
( 5 ) Ejectives are always voiceless :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejective_consonant
"In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream."
They are right about the second part. Ejective consonants are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. However, I disagree with the first part where it says “ usually ”. I am convinced that ejective consonants are always voiceless and that it is impossible to pronounce voiced ejective consonants.
( 6 ) The velar and the uvular lateral consonants are not possible :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateral_consonant#List_of_laterals
Voiced dental lateral approximant [l̪] (in Arabic, Chinese, Tamil) Voiced alveolar lateral approximant [l] (in Dutch, English, Spanish) Voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] (in Dhivehi, Korean, Telegu) Voiced palatal lateral approximant [ʎ] (in Aymara, Anindilyakwa) Voiced velar lateral approximant [ʟ] (in Wahgi) Voiced uvular lateral approximant [ʟ̠] (in some American dialects)
Here, the article claims that velar and uvular lateral approximants are possible, while I claim that bilateral approximants ( lateral approximants ) cannot be pronounced at those places of articulation because the tongue is just not flexible enough. I already ruled that the furthest back point for bilateral approximants is at the palatal position. Therefore, the last two entries are just invalid. We know that in bilateral approximants, the tip or body of the tongue blocks the central part of the mouth while the air passes on the right and left sides, hence “ bilateral approximants ”. The further back part of the tongue ( dorsa ) just doesnʼt have the flexibility to pronounce consonants in this way.
Also, this list has left out the “ interdental lateral approximant ” for which the IPA already has a character as listed below.
Voiced interdental approximant [l̪͆] Voiced dental lateral approximant [l̪] Voiced alveolar lateral approximant [l] Voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] Voiced palatal lateral approximant [ʎ]
Voiced velar lateral approximant [ʟ]Voiced uvular lateral approximant [ʟ̠]
( 7 ) The glottal stop and the glottal plosive are two different things :
This is already mentioned in this document, but the IPA does not make this important distinction. The glottal stop, as you know and as it is defined by the IPA, is correct. However, it does not discuss the “ glottal plosive ”. This is probably because it is not a speech sound but instead a coughing sound. But regardless, that is what it is. Since the word “ stop ” is being used synonymously with the word “ plosive ”, I also call the glottal stop a “ glottal percussive ”. I believe that is more factual with regards to what it is, and it is listed as such in the TPA. For this reason, I also prefer the word plosive compared to “ stop ”.
( 8 ) The criticism of the words “ palatalisation ”, “ velarisation ” and “ uvularisation ” :
In literature, you will see the word “ velarisation ”. It is, in fact, lingual retraction towards the velum. The same is true for “ palatalisation ”, towards the palate and “ uvularisation ”, towards the uvula. These motions, in fact, do not involve any kind of active movement with the palate, the velum, or the uvula. It only has to do with the tongue. There is also the word “ nasalisation ” which has to do with the velum. In nasalisation, the velum is lowered, allowing the air to exit from the nasal cavity. And in “ oralisation ”, the velum moves up and blocks the nasal cavity, so the air and the sound exit out of the oral cavity. The particular scenarios concerning nasalisation and oralisation do not involve the tongue but it is a velar intervention.
We know that whispering is a real thing. So what happens when somebody whispers ? The vocal cords are not vibrated ( are turned off ). The consonants and vowels that would normally be voiced are not voiced. In normal speech, it is a mix of voiceless and voiced sounds.
So for example this pronunciation ;
{ ɔ̱l᷾ h͜yu̱mən bɪ̱ɪŋs a̱ɻ bo̱ɻn fɻɪ̱ː æ̱n ɪ̱ːkuəl᷾ ɪn dɪ̱gnɪtɪ æ̱n ɻa̱yts }
Would effectively become :
{ ɔ̱̥l̥᷾ h͜yu̥̱m̥ə̥n̥ b̥ɪ̥ɪ̥ŋ̥s ḁ̱ɻ̥ b̥o̥̱ɻ̥n̥ fɻ̥ɪ̥ː æ̥̱n̥ ɪ̥ːku̥ə̥l̥᷾ ɪ̥n̥ d̥ɪ̥g̥n̥ɪ̥tɪ̥ æ̥̱n̥ ɻ̥ḁ̱y̥ts }
I used the devoicing combining diacritic on everything that is normally voiced. Here, we can also see multiple combining diacritics going below the letters, while we can also have combining diacritics going on top of the letters. This is a good demonstration of the combining diacritic system of the TPA.
What happens when someone lisps ?
They are unable to correctly articulate the sound { s }. It is a common sound in many languages. Instead, they pronounce { s } as a voiceless dental fricative { ſ } or as a voiceless interdental fricative { θ }. Those sounds are articulated further down at the upper teeth and between the teeth, while the { s } sound is articulated further up on the alveolar ridge. In the case of lisping, the speaker simply misses the mark while trying to hit an { s } and gets { ſ } or { θ } instead. This is a fault, as some languages do not even have the { θ } or the { ſ } sound but have the { s }. However, in some other languages, this is an intentional feature of the language, and a language may have both { θ } and { s } separately, as is the case in English. In this scenario, it is an intentional feature. A famous example of lisping is the Castilian Spanish language from Spain ( Castellano ). For example, pronouncing “ Barcelona ” as { barſelona }.
It is common for children to miss the mark with regard to certain sounds. I can recall that I had difficulty pronouncing the sound esh [ ʃ ] and would pronounce an ess [ s ] instead. Another common one is the pronunciation of the ‘ r ’ sound as a ‘ y ’ sound in children. Usually, over time, these faults would be resolved by themselves without outside intervention. But in some cases, they continue into adulthood. There are adults who pronounce the ‘ r ’ as a ‘ y ’ because they are unable to pronounce it correctly.
Other examples I can give include the fact that all occurrences of the Arabic language [ θ ] in words of Arabic origin exist as [ s ] in the Turkish language, such as “ hadith ” as “ hadis ” and its voiced variant [ ð ] exists as [ z ]. Another example is German speakers pronouncing the English [ θ ] as [ s ] as well. Filipino language speakers pronounce the letter [ f ] as [ p ]. Japanese speakers pronounce the ‘ L ’ as ‘ R ’. Arabic speakers pronounce the [ p ] as [ b ] and so on. In those scenarios, the reason for this is the fact that those sounds do not exist in the personʼs native language, and thus they are not familiar with those sounds and do not articulate them properly. Because of that, they then use sounds that are close to those sounds, which gives rise to “ accents ” and minute differences in speech.
I strongly believe there should be a translingual approach to articulatory phonetics, as this subject has nothing to do with a specific language, dialect, or accent. Instead, it has to do with human anatomy and its capacities. The various explanations with regard to the different pronunciations found in different languages would have to be based on a correct understanding of the human anatomy and of articulatory phonetics. Thus, accurate explanations of the phonology of world languages cannot be made without an accurate understanding of articulatory phonetics. I first studied the phonology of world languages before learning about phonetics. I realised that I needed to have a better understanding of phonetics before I could deal with correct phonology, so I shifted my attention towards phonetics.
Eventually, I came up with a phonetic alphabet and a phonetic notation system that does not take accents into account and yet, is incredibly accurate with regard to the correct pronunciations of world languages.
In this paragraph, I want to try to prove my point. If I pronounce some Arabic words by substituting an epiglottal fricative { ħ } instead of a glottal fricative { h }, immediately I sound more Arabic. If I substitute an { æ } where an { a } or an { e } would be, again I sound more Arabic. If I substitute a { q } where a { k } would be, again, I sound more Arabic. This has nothing to do with my native language. It just so happens that the Arabic language has and uses those sounds. Similarly, when saying Russian words, if I pronounce the alveolar approximant { ɹ } as an alveolar trill { r }, I sound more Russian. If I pronounce my vowels a little more tensely in French, I sound more French. If I pronounce my alveolar plosives as retroflex plosives by curling the tip of my tongue towards the palate, I sound like someone from India, and so forth. It is only the slight variations in pronunciations that give rise to those accents. For example, in “ Southern American English ”, you may have heard of this accent, where all of the vowels are pronounced more centrally. This is not something that can be marked in phonetics, and neither should it be. How can you mark every little, small difference ? And so, you need just one system that works everywhere, and I strongly believe I created that system.
In order to be able to spell out words as they are pronounced accurately, we need to have a phonetic alphabet. We know for a fact that no language is written phonetically. Although some of them have spellings that are more phonetic than others, usually the spelling of languages is more phonemic than phonetic. For example, Turkish is spelled more phonetically than English because its alphabet and spelling were constructed specifically in the twentieth century in an alphabet reform. English, for example, has been using the Latin alphabet for about a millennium. Needless to say, English is not written phonetically, with words such as “ knight ” spelled the way they are. But if you go back in time far enough, there was a ‘ k ’ sound at the beginning of words such as “ knight ” and “ knife ”. There were separate [h] and [w] sounds in words like “ what ” and “ where ” in Old English. If we make such a scale, we can perhaps put English and Russian spelling around the same level, which shows blatant disregard for how words are actually pronounced, while we can put Turkish and Spanish at the top of the list, which are more phonetic in their writing systems. Chinese characters would be at the other end of the scale because this writing system does not hint at the pronunciation of words but simply states meanings instead (logographs). A phonetic alphabet is the other end of the scale. Thus, as a linguistic tool, a phonetic alphabet tries to fill in that gap. If you are good enough, you can create an alphabet that is based on the anatomy of the human vocal tract and its mechanisms, and can spell out any utterance regardless of language. This is what the International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA ) tries to do, and it is the best example of such an attempt. It is a good alphabet, but it was not good enough for me because I went out of my way to create a phonetic alphabet of my own.
In order to create a phonetic alphabet, you need to have an excellent understanding of articulatory phonetics. Trying to make a phonetic alphabet that would accommodate all world languages is an extreme challenge. Then, I had to take into account that such an alphabet already exists, the International Phonetic Alphabet. My alphabet is closely related to the International Phonetic Alphabet, and of course, it has changes in areas where my explanations differ. Most of my explanations are the same as the explanations given in the International Phonetic Alphabet. I can say that it took me months to develop this alphabet.
To demonstrate why a phonetic alphabet is important in linguistics, we shall look at this Russian word example: How do you pronounce the word “ конечно ” ? If you have learned how to read the Cyrillic alphabet, you may proceed to read it as “ konechno ”. However, your pronunciation will not be correct, even if you read the letters correctly. Because, here, the first ‘ o ’ as well as the last ‘ o ’ are pronounced as an ‘ a ’ instead. That is, it does not have labial rounding, as the spelling shows. But you learned that this letter is an ‘ o ’ when you learned the alphabet. Well, they didnʼt tell you the whole picture. The fact is, in Russian, just like in English, there is a stress pattern whereby at least one syllable is stressed in all words. And in this case, it happens to be the second, middle syllable. Well, that very fact with regards to syllable stress “ converts ” those unstressed ‘ o ’ letters into an ‘ a ’ pronunciation. The spelling just doesnʼt show this. This is called vowel reduction, and in many languages, vowel reduction is not marked in writing, including English, Hindi, Russian and German. Furthermore, that ‘ ч ’ letter that you learned to pronounce as the first sound in “ chair ” is being pronounced as if it is the letter ‘ ш ’, the first sound in “ sheep ” and the letter ‘ e ’ palatalises the preceding letter ‘ н ’. Sometimes these schemes are predictable and can be predicted. Usually, as people improve their knowledge of the language, they figure out the correct pronunciations and can guess them based on the way the words are spelled. This is where phonetics and phonology come into play. The correct pronunciation is, in fact, “ kanyeshna ”. Of course, you may already know this if you speak Russian. But thatʼs the whole point, you donʼt ! Also of note, here, we wrote “ kanyeshna ” as the correct pronunciation. But to be more precise, the ‘ n ’ and the ‘ y ’ are in fact pronounced at the same time and not successively. Using normal orthography, we canʼt write this, but we can write it using extended orthography, such as by using a combining tie bar ( ͜ ) “ kan͜yeshna ”. We can see that a digraph is being used here with the letters ( s ) and ( h ) when in fact none of those two letters are assigned the sound that we are looking for. Again, we have to resort to finding additional letters such as [ ʃ ] from the International Phonetic Alphabet or { ş } from the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet, which then gives us “ kan͜yeşna ” which is exactly the way to write how this word is pronounced. Let us compare them now: “ конечно ” in the Cyrillic alphabet and { kan͜ye̱şna } in the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet while the Wiktionary page gives [kɐˈnʲeʂnə] as the IPA transcription.
In another example, letʼs look at the Chinese character “ 得 ” which is pronounced something like { dəo ˧˥ }, but the logograph Chinese character does not give you any hints as to how the word is pronounced. It does, however, tell you the meaning of the word. So, although you may be able to understand the meaning of the word ( to get, to obtain, to gain, to acquire, Wiktionary.org ) you would not know how to pronounce the word at all. Unless, of course, you also actually knew or studied that language.
In the first scenario in Russian, we had limited information with regard to how a word is supposed to be pronounced. In the second scenario in Chinese, we had no information with regard to how the word was supposed to be pronounced. Instead, we were given the wordʼs semantic meaning, as is the case with Chinese writing. So, we can say that logographic writing is on one end of the scale, which gives us no information on pronunciation, while phonetic writing is on the other end of the scale, which tries to give us full information as to how a word is pronounced. We already know that no language is written phonetically. They do not make spelling reforms to conform to the way words are pronounced. So, why is it like that ? Let me answer this question for you: This is because a language, primarily, refers to spoken and historical language. Writing and spelling are only secondary to the spoken or “ existing ” language. It needs a system that works, and that system does not at all have to be phonetic, and often it isnʼt. It is sometimes argued that phonetic spelling is worse for languages, which is something that I also agree with. These languages have long - established traditions of writing that simply cannot be thrown out in favour of phonetic writing. The reason why “ knife ” is spelled with a ‘ k ’ is because there actually was a pronounced ‘ k ’ in the past, but since then, it has been dropped. It is the same scenario with French - language words that are spelled with the letter ‘ h ’. Even though today, the sound associated with this letter does not even exist in the French language, it is there for historical reasons. When someone attempts to change the way words are spelled, this is called a spelling reform. However, oftentimes, these attempts are fruitless, as world languages already have well - established writing systems. However, they were not as well established or standardised in the past.
So then, is there a way to spell out words phonetically ? Yes, there is. The most famous attempt at this is, of course, the International Phonetic Alphabet ( IPA ). However, I found it odd that there is only one such phonetic alphabet of its kind. Considering that there are many programming languages, real - world languages, different alphabets, and different writing systems around the world, it is indeed odd that we have just one phonetic alphabet of its kind. I saw a gap in our scientific knowledge, and I thought that there should be another phonetic notation system and that I should try and make a new phonetic alphabet.
I gave this project the title “ The Translingual Phonetic Alphabet ”. The project quickly grew out of its proportions, and it is now not only an excellent phonetic alphabet, but it also tries to be a complete linguistics research and study tool. It includes ways to represent grammatical phenomena, phonological phenomena, and typography. It is very modern, and it is racing to keep up with technological advancements in computational linguistics. I believe that I did the world a favour and that I advanced the scientific subjects of articulatory phonetics and phonetic notation in computers. Although my peers and others may disagree with me, I continue to hold on to my beliefs, and I am proud of my scientific work. In this work, I want to try to prove myself by giving further examples and details as to how this new phonetic alphabet can be used.
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Caseless alphabet : The TPA does not have a case distinction, just like many other alphabets. It is in fact a small - case Latin alphabet and intentionally excludes all capital - case letters in favour of small - case letters. Although some of its letters are bigger in size and have the glyphs of capital letters.
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Phonetic accuracy : I tried to measure out the vocal tract and place all the sounds and the letters in relation to each other. I tried to make the alphabet millimetrically accurate with regard to the structure of the vocal tract and the tongue. I am amazed at how accurate the alphabet turned out to be.
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Complementing the IPA : I know that the IPA will possibly be forever more popular than the TPA. No matter if the TPA is better, it is not my aim to beat the IPA or to be more popular than the IPA. The TPA, however, tries to be a complete and superior alternative to the IPA and to complement the IPA in any circumstances where it is not favoured by authors.
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Font compliance : The TPA is not bound to a specific font, nor does it try to be. However, because the TPA uses so many different combining diacritics and letters, and because these combining diacritics can then be used on a letter that already has combining diacritics, some letters will not display correctly on some fonts. The fact is, there cannot be a perfect font for the TPA, and no font is perfect. We donʼt have this problem if we are writing with a pen and paper, but on computers, this problem is not avoidable. I think the issue can be better addressed by developing and testing more fonts that are more friendly to those features. I have found, however, that certain fonts do work better in displaying the characters and the combining diacritics of the TPA. These fonts are, namely, the “ Brill ” font, the “ Code2000 ” font, and the “ Andika ” font developed by the SIL ( Summer Institute of Linguistics ). However, no font is perfect. There is also, of course, the notion of font development specific to the TPA, and font makers are known to develop fonts aimed at specific scripts. I, however, have not developed any fonts, and I want to express my gratitude to those who did.
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Unicode compliance : The TPA is entirely based on the characters of Unicode. For computer compatibility, it cannot go outside of that scope. Obviously, we donʼt have this problem if we write with a pen and paper. But our project is a Unicode phonetic alphabet, and computer typing is crucial. That is to say, there are no characters, diacritics, or punctuation marks that are outside of Unicode in the TPA.
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Use of combining diacritics : To solve the aforementioned problem of having one letter per sound, the TPA resorts to using combining diacritics that are added on top of or below the base letters. The official practice is to place all phonetic articulations, such as secondary articulations, on top of the letters while placing phonological markers below the letters. It is also allowed to place a second or a third diacritic below or above the letters if need be, and I know this may cause problems with fonts and displays on computers, but this gives us greater options.
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Use of other mainstream orthography : The TPA does not throw out the general orthography and other writing guidelines that writing systems use. For example, although we donʼt have capitalisation because TPA is entirely small case letters, we can still use things like question marks, commas, and punctuation marks. They donʼt affect the phonetic alphabet, and in fact, the TPA has these markers in order to mark grammatic and semantic phenomena as they are found in languages. For example, although in typical orthography, you may have commas to separate phrases and periods to separate sentences, you do not have separators for morphemes or vowel hiatus, which would be of use to us here.
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The coining of new phonetic letters for affricates : Although this wasnʼt originally planned, I saw that the IPA did not have specific letters for affricates. I thought there should be affricate letters. I adored the letters “ esh ” { ʃ } and “ ezh ” { ʒ } from the IPA, and I knew that these letters were so beneficial and necessary, but it was sad to see that their affricate counterparts, which are also popular sounds in world languages, were not there. So I went ahead and found two appropriate letters from Unicode that I called “ etch ” { ɕ } and “ edg ” { ʓ }. They are the ‘ c ’ and the ‘ ʒ ’ letters with a curl at the bottom. I also found “ ets ” { ꞩ } and “ edz ” { ƶ }. They are the ‘ s ’ and the ‘ z ’ letters with a stroke going through them, which show the affricate versions of those fricative sounds in the TPA. As well as { ȼ } for palatal affricate, which is the letter ‘ c ’ with a stroke. Keeping up with the curled and stroked letters, the velar affricate { ꝁ } and the uvular affricate { ꝗ }, as well as { ꝟ } for the voiced labiodental affricate, and a “ p with stroke through descender ” { ꝑ } for the bilabial affricate, although they are rarer sounds.
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Stress markers : The IPA Marks stress outside of letters by using marks such as [ ˈ ] and [ ˌ ], but there is a problem here. They will unnecessarily add to the character count as well as make the text look less legible. It can also be confusing as to where these characters would be placed, but we know that the central part of a syllable, the nucleus of the syllable, is the area that would be stressed. This is typically a vowel. So I made the design decision to simply draw a bar under a letter to mark stress as { a̱ }, and if you want to make a distinction between primary stress and secondary stress, you can add an additional bar such as { a̱̱ }, then that would be the primary stress and { a̱ } would be the secondary stress. That aside, I do like the syllabification and the markers used by the IPA in general.
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The use of superscripts and “ small caps ” letters : In the IPA, the superscript letters are used to mark secondary articulations. That original practice from the IPA of using the superscript letters is not present in the TPA. Some small capital letters represent different letters in the TPA. for example, ‘ d ’ and ‘ ᴅ ’, ‘ t ’ and ‘ ᴛ ’, ‘ b ’ and ‘ ʙ ’ and so on.
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The prohibition of characters : Whatever isnʼt phonetically or mechanically possible shouldnʼt be used. For example, the ejective diacritic should not be used with any voiced character such as { d↑ }. Since the { d } is voiced and all ejectives are voiceless, this is a logical error, and such logical errors should be avoided. Also, for example, using the nasalisation diacritic with letters such as { m̃ } and { ñ } since they are already nasal characters. It makes no sense to use the labial rounding character on something that is already rounded, such as { ů }. It is also a logical error to tie together voiced and voiceless letters such as { d͡p }; they cannot be voiceless and voiced at the same time.
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Keyboard typing : I would like there to be a way to type the TPA letters and symbols on the Android smartphone as well as on the Windows computer and other platforms. I have already devised a way to type it on the Windows computer, but I do not know how to do this on the smartphone. That just makes things that much easier. However, due to the high number of letters, it will never be a perfect system, nor will it be possible to type it very quickly, such as how we type in English. Regardless, I am interested in developing easy and capable ways to type this alphabet, and I have already done so.
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The use of colour coding : Furthermore, it is an interesting idea to be able to colour code some of the segments of our writing, such as, letʼs say, marking adjective words with a certain colour and noun words with a certain colour. Perhaps some computer programs can allow us to do that.
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The use of letters without detached graphical segments : If you look at the IPA, you can see letters such as ‘ i ’ and ‘ j ’. In the TPA, we also have those letters, but as ‘ ı ’ and ‘ ȷ ’. I removed the tittle ( the dot above the letters ) because it interferes with the TPAs combining diacritics. Thus, all of our letters in the TPA can be written as single segments. The use of these dotted letters, however, still does not constitute a mistake if you still want to use those versions. They are not assigned to other positions intentionally.
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The use of pre - composed letters as opposed to single letters plus diacritic : There are letters in the Unicode that are pre - composed such as an ‘ é ’ that stands by itself as a single, specific character. This letter actually has the diacritic as a part of it; that is to say, programmatically, the diacritic isnʼt combined with the letter. Our practice in TPA is that we use the combining diacritics on top of the base letters and not the precomposed letters. Although not doing so would probably not be a problem.
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Orthographical Compliancy : One wonderful thing about the TPA is just how well it works with all orthographies, alphabets, and writing systems of world languages. I aim to make it so that the TPA has a specific letter for every different letter of world orthographies for compliance. For example, in Greek, there is the “ o mikron ” and the “ o mega ”. If it is as such, then the ancients must have considered the “ o mega ” to be a more open ‘ o ’. It may not necessarily be pronounced that way today in modern Greek, as I believe it isnʼt. But yet, orthographically, we can still account for that in the TPA and do so. This is also the same with the Devanagari letters “ ओ ” and “ औ ”. As an example of consonants, Tamil, according to the Wikipedia webpage, has six letters for different nasal consonants. All of those letters are already in the TPA. The TPA has 10 nasal consonant letters, each of which looks different from the other while at the same time looking similar to each other in some way. It also fully supports every single letter in the Devanagari alphabet and other alphabets.
Transcribe orthographical texts either by hand or digitally using word processors or text editors.
Mark orthographic notation ( the way the words are actually spelled in a given language ) using guillemets « text » or angular brackets ⟨ text ⟩. This is the same practice as most IPA transcriptionists. Mark phonemic writing using the “ square bracket with quill ” ⁅ text ⁆ ( U + 2045, U + 2046 ). This is a special circumstance where we are making a distinction between phonetic notation and phonemic notation. You can kind of think of phonetic notation as a more precise form of phonemic notation. That is, phonetic notation would always have either the same precision or be more precise than phonemic notation. Mark phonetic notation using curly brackets { text }. Mark precise phonetic notation using double curly brackets {{ text }}. The IPA doesnʼt have precise phonetic notation, but they also seem to make a distinction between phonemic notation using slashes / text /, and phonetic notation using square brackets [ text ]. I deliberately avoided using the slashes and the square brackets. And that way, in a piece of text, letʼs say you could have IPA notation as well as TPA notation in there without confusion. But, otherwise, the same markings in the IPA can also be used, or it is at the discretion of the writer.
For example: ⟨ congratulations ⟩ — { koŋgɻæ̱ʓ͡yule̱yşəns }
Use at least one and a half points of line spacing or two points of line spacing to accommodate the below - combining and the above - combining diacritics of the TPA. These diacritics can take up vertical space.
Mark long vowels using the ( ː ), “ modifier letter triangular colon ( U + 02D0 ) ”. Example: ⟨ food ⟩ — { fʊːd }
Mark extra long length using two triangular colons ( ◌ːː ). Some languages may make this distinction.
Writing long consonants ( gemination ) in the TPA : { ◌◌ }, { tt }, { ss }, { ff }
Use two of the consonant letters to mark long consonants ( gemination ). Example Word : ⟨ unnecessary ⟩ — { anne̱səsæɻɪ } the letter ‘ n ’ here is doubled to show the long consonant, also known in linguistics as gemination. The ‘ s ’ is not, because it is pronounced short. The IPA on the other hand, also uses the vowel - length triangular colon to mark gemination [ anːe̱səsæɻɪ ]. But I am opting for double letters as I believe it is better aesthetically.
Example long affricate, Hindi language: ⟨ अच्छा ⟩ — { aɕɕa } ( TPA ) | ⟨ अच्छा ⟩ — [ at͡ʃːa ] ( IPA )
Example long plosive, Turkish language: ⟨ tuttuğunu ⟩ — { tuttuɰunu̱ } ( TPA ) | ⟨ tuttuğunu ⟩ — [ tutːuɰuˈnu ] ( IPA )
Example long plosive, Turkish language: ⟨ tuttuğunu ⟩ — {{ t̊ut̊tuɰ̊unu̱ }} ( TPA Precise, showing labial rounding )
The little ring diacritic on top of the letters is the TPA diacritic, which shows labial rounding as a secondary articulation. This is because in precise phonetic transcriptions, we try to account for all phonetic phenomena that we think are there, using the full repertoire of the TPA. Also, by marking the stress using a combining diacritic instead of a separate mark ( see the above example, the line under the vowels ), we are saving a single letter length as well as adding to legibility.
This also helps avoid ambiguity as to where the stress marker should be placed, as it is almost always the vocoids that would receive this mark. It is also okay to use the stress diacritic for contoid letters if need be; although it seems like this is usually not necessary, it is valid otherwise.
Also, having two ways to write it gives us more options. You can do things like use the double letter notation under certain circumstances and the lengthening marker under other circumstances.
Compare TPA { aɕ͓ͪɕ͓ͪaː } versus IPA [ at͡ʃʰːa ]. Ours is just so much more legible. I am proud of the fact that I have created a more legible phonetic alphabet. The IPA is quite illegible, in my opinion.
Writing long vowels in the TPA : { ◌ː }, { ◌ːː }
Example long vowel, English language: ⟨ feet ⟩ — { fɪ̱ːt } ( TPA ) | ⟨ feet ⟩ — [ fɪ̱ːt ] ( IPA )
Example vowel hiatus, Turkish language: ⟨ saat ⟩ — { saa̱t } ( TPA ) | ⟨ saat ⟩ — [ saˈat ] ( IPA )
The important thing to understand is that hiatuses should always be written as two separate letters, while long vowels should be written as one letter followed by the duration mark. This is because we have two separate vowels here instead of one long vowel, and the IPA also correctly accounts for this, as seen above.
Phonetic spelling transcription should be written below the orthographic spelling or next to words in phonetic spelling brackets. Example:
[ 1:3 ] Then God said, “ Let there be light. ”; and there was light.
{ ðen ɡad sæd, “ let ðeɻ bɪː layt ”; æn ðeɻ waz layt. }
Unlike the IPA, we just have three markers: short { ◌ }, long { ◌ː } and extra - long { ◌ːː }. IPA has markers like extra - short and some other ones, but I think they are just not necessary.
Writing hiatus and syllabification ( vowel break ) : { ◌ˌ◌ }
You just need to place ( ˌ ) between the two vowels, such as {aːˌɪ̱t }. “ modifier letter low vertical line ( U + 02CC ) ”.
Letʼs look at this Turkish language word example. ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C5%9Fair )
Pronunciation IPA(key): [ʃɑːir] Hyphenation: şa·ir
This information here is correct. The problem here with this phenomenon is that, if we do not place this dot between the two letters, we would assume that we have a diphthong here. That is, we do not have two short vowels, but instead, we have one gliding vowel. However, if we are dealing with the same vowels, such as in this example ( aa ) or ( ii ) then we do not need to place a vertical bar between them, and it is redundant to do so. Because in this case, we already know that they are separate vowels and that they are not diphthongs. If they were long vowels, they would have the long vowel marker { ◌ː } and if they were diphthongs, they would have two different vowel letters.
Writing morphological boundaries: { ◌·◌ }
The preferred use is the middle dot character. For example: un·necessari·ly
Writing diphthongs : { ◌◌ }, { ◌͡◌ }, { ◌͜◌ }
Diphthongs are simply when two different vowels are pronounced in a single vowel segment. We start at the pronunciation of a vowel and glide towards the other one in a single segment. There is also the phenomenon of saying two different vowels separately, which is called a “ hiatus ” which is discussed here. To show that it is a diphthong and not a hiatus, they can be linked to each other using a tie bar. This way, there can be no ambiguity about whether we have diphthongs or separate vowels. They count as one vowel segment, along with triphthongs. Although triphthongs are rare, not all languages have diphthongs.
Writing triphthongs : { ◌◌◌ }, { ◌͡◌͡◌ }, { ◌͜◌͜◌ }
Same practice as diphthongs, but another tie bar is used. This is because there isnʼt a triple - combining tie bar in Unicode.
Writing rounded front vowels in the TPA :
I didnʼt have enough appropriate - looking characters for this set of vowels. So, I took the rear vowels and put slashes through them to make front - rounded vowels out of the back - rounded vowels.
Rear / Front
{ u / ʉ }
{ ʊ / ᵿ }
{ o / ø }
{ ɔ / ꬿ }
Luckily, these are all precomposed letters, as I could just grab them from Unicode.
The barred versions are good in the sense that they give us a way to type the letters without any combining diacritics on top. German, for example, resorts to using the umlaut ( ◌̈ ) diacritic to make front vowels out of back vowels. We cannot do that here because of the reservation of the space above and below letters.
Marking affrication : { ◌̾ }
Why is there an affrication diacritic in the TPA { ◌̾ } ?
Some phones can be affricated on their own. I think that terminology is also unique to this document. This is separate from the affricate consonants. The best example of affrication is the affricated bilabial click ( the kissing sound but with affrication ). This is done by first making a stop with the lips, then making the lips rounded, and then sucking the air in through a small opening. The result is an “ affricated bilabial click ”, represented exactly by this letter { ʘ̊̾ } in the TPA.
This results in a high - pitched voiceless sound, and affrication is the secondary articulation that is taking place here. The TPA tries to accommodate all such phonetic phenomena, this was noted and implemented. For example, { ʘ, ʘ̊, ʘ̊̾ } are all valid pronunciations.
So, “ affrication ” is a kind of secondary articulation, while “ affricates ” are a kind of manner of articulation, and they can both be marked without problems in the TPA.
Marking Co-Articulation : { ◌͜◌ }, { ◌͡◌ }, { ◌͡◌͡◌ }, { ◌͜◌͜◌ }
The co - articulation diacritic { ◌͜◌ } or { ◌͡◌ } is there to show that two or more sounds are pronounced at the same time, not separately or successively. It is also possible to mark three sounds at the same time by using this diacritic twice { ◌͡◌͡◌ } or { ◌͜◌͜◌ }. Preferably, we would have an arc that goes over the three letters, but Unicode does not have a character for that. But if, in the future, they do add that to Unicode, it can be used instead. This combining diacritic is called a tie bar, and it cannot be used under certain circumstances. For example, we cannot use it on both a voiceless character and a voiced character. We can only use it with both voiceless or both voiced characters, as sounds cannot be both voiceless and voiced at the same time.
Marking Palatalisation ( lingual raising ) : { ◌̑ }, { ◌͜y }
Simply write a ‘ y ’ next to the letter and tie it with a tie bar. Such as “ build ” — { b͜yuld }
A superscript ‘ ʸ ’ is not preferred to be used here. The IPA uses [ ◌ʲ ]. I decided not to use the superscript letters as that means introducing a whole subset of letters into the alphabet.
Another way of doing this is by using the inverted breve diacritic. { ◌̑ } such as { b̑uld }.
I picked this combining diacritic because it resembles the tongue going upwards towards the palate.
Marking Velarisation ( lingual retraction ) : { ◌̆ }, { ◌͜ɰ }
Velarisation is the phenomenon of lingual retraction during the articulation of sounds. The way the ‘ L ’s are pronounced in English is a good example of velarisation. It is also known as the “ dark L ”. Transcription { l͜ɰ }. We can also use the combining diacritic { ◌̆ }. For example, the English word “ all ” — { ɔl̆ }. I picked this combining diacritic because it resembles the tongue being retracted.
The IPA uses [ lˠ ] instead. I object to this because this letter [ ɣ ] is being used for the voiced velar fricative. Which is not what is taking place here. For velarisation, [ ɰ ] should be used instead.
Marking Aspiration : { ◌ͪ }, { ◌͜h }
This is marked with the letter ‘ h ’. For example, the Hindi word “ धर्म ” can be transcribed as { d͜haɹm } or as { dͪaɹm }.
Marking Whistling : { ◌̎ }
The double vertical line combining diacritic can be used to mark a whistled pronunciation. { ◌̎ }
I believe these are particularly useful for the Shona language from Mozambique, such as { s̎ } and { ş̎ }.
Marking Labialisation ( labial rounding ) : { ◌̊ }, { ◌͜w }
The combining ring above diacritic { ◌̊ } is used to mark that the lips are made rounded during the pronunciation of the sound. I picked this diacritic because it looks like the shape of rounded lips. It should not be used with vowel letters that are already rounded, such as { o̊ } or { ů }.
Marking Labial Compression : { ◌̊̊ } { ◌͜β }
This is just like labial rounding, but instead of rounding the lips, the lips are brought closer to each other instead.
Marking Voicelessness : { o̥ }
This diacritic is used to make an otherwise voiced letter voiceless. This can be used on letters such as the nasal letters or the vowels that do not have voiceless forms in the TPA, although technically, they can be voiceless.
For example : { m̥, n̥, l̥, o̥, u̥, e̥ )
Marking Devoicing : { o͚ }
This diacritic shows what was normally voiced in the base word has now become devoiced { d͚ }. It uses the double ring below instead of the single ring below as is the case in making voiceless letters out of voiced letters.
Marking Whispering ( all voiceless ) : { ◦ ◌◌◌◌ ◦ }
In this scenario, you would put the voiceless marker on all the voiced letters, which would make everything voiceless. But an easier way is to put everything between the bullets. { ◦ ◌◌◌ ◌◌◌◌ ◌◌◌ ◦ }
Marking Vowel Reduction : { ọ }
Marking Vowel Harmony : { o̤ }
Marking Glottalisation ( glottal closure ) : { ◌̉ }, { ◌͡ʔ }, { ◌͡ɂ}, marking “ no audible release ” : { ◌̚ } { ◌¬ }
I decided to cover these two concepts together as they are relevant to each other. This secondary articulation shows that a glottal closure is taking place while or right after the phone is pronounced. It is different from the IPAʼs “ unreleased ” plosives, and it should not be confused with it. Its exact usage is a little complex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release
"In most dialects of English, the first stop of a cluster has no audible release, as in apt [ˈæp̚t], doctor [ˈdɒk̚tʰɚ], or logged on [ˌlɒɡ̚dˈɒn]. Although such sounds are frequently described as "unreleased", the reality is that since the two consonants overlap, the release of the former takes place during the hold of the latter, masking the former's release and making it inaudible."
Here, we see a correct explanation for the “ no audible release ”. I take this explanation here directly from the IPA and the diacritic as well ( ◌̚ ). The diacritic looks quite distinct, and it does not look like the other diacritics of the TPA. It can be used as such. However, I am doubtful as to its use for plosives that are not in consonant clusters, as in the examples above. If we did not have such plosive clusters, and if we were to have this at the end of words, which is often discussed in Korean and East Asian phonology, then it would be a case of glottal closure (glottal stop). For example, letʼs look at the Korean word “ 일곱 ” which means the number “ seven ”. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%EC%9D%BC%EA%B3%B1
Here on this Wiktionary page, we can see that its pronunciation is being given with the final plosive with the inaudible release combining diacritic /iɭɡop̚/. However, instead, what we may be seeing here is a glottal closure accompanying the [ p ]. The difference between “ glottalisation ” or “ glottal closure ” as a secondary articulation compared with the no audible release is that, in the no audible release, the glottis is not closed, while here the glottis is closed briefly, then opened again.
Marking Rhotacisation ( lingual curl ) : { ◌᷾ }, { ◌͡ɻ }
Same combining diacritic as the velarisation but facing left instead. This is to show the shape of the tongue curling up towards the palate { ◌᷾ }.
Marking Pharyngealisation ( epiglottal restriction ) : { ◌͡ʕ }
This is particularly useful in Arabic, and it is marked with the character ‘ ʕ ’. It implies that there is an epiglottal restriction accompanying the articulation.
Marking Ejective Pronunciations ( glottalic egressives ) : { ◌↑ }, { ◌͜↑ }
They are marked with the upward arrow written to the right of the letter. They can also be optionally tied with a tie bar. We can use the Unicode upward arrow. IPA writes them as [ pʼ, tʼ, kʼ, sʼ, fʼ ]. They do not have their own specific letters and cannot have them because there are too many of them, so we have to use the regular pulmonic letter plus the upward arrow. I believe it is better than the apostrophe used by the IPA. These markers must never be used with any voiced letter, as ejectives cannot be voiced. Also, they must never be used with any non - strictives such as approximants and vowels. They can, however, be used with bilateral approximants, fricatives, affricates, and plosives. For example, these are all invalid { w͜￪ }, { u͜￪ }, { a͜￪ }.
Marking Implosive Pronunciation ( glottalic ingressives ) : { ◌↓ }, { ◌͜↓ }
We mark implosives with the use of the downward arrow. This practice is taken directly from the IPA into the TPA. I also got the idea to mark ejectives using an upward arrow. However, in the IPA, they had specific letters for voiceless and voiced implosives such as [ ƥ, ɓ, ƭ, ɗ, ̢ƭ, ᶑ, ƙ, ɠ, ʠ, ʛ ]. Those letters are intentionally not being used in the TPA as reserves. They are the same pulmonic letters, but with a rightward hook that is attached on top. They are all precomposed letters except for [ ƭ ]. The correct way to write implosives in the TPA is with the plosive letter plus the downward arrow to the right of the letter.
Marking Pulmonic Ingressive Pronunciation : { ◌￩ }, { ◌͜￩ }
This is backwards speech. They are not easy to pronounce, and I donʼt believe they are used in any languages, but they are included for completeness. Sometimes people do this when they gasp.
Marking Nasal Ingressive Pronunciation : { ◌̃￩ }, { ◌̃͜￩ }
This is typed with the ingressive marker as above and the nasalisation diacritic on top of it. For example, a “ snort ” is correctly written as { ꝶ̃￩ }. Some fonts may display this incorrectly.
Marking Pulmonic Egressive Pronunciation : { ◌￫ }, { ◌͜￫ }
The pulmonic egressive marker is the right - facing arrow { ◌￫ }, { ◌͜￫ }. This is possibly the most redundant and useless of the arrow markers because letters are by default pulmonic and egressive. So, you donʼt necessarily have to use this arrow as { s͜￫ } as it is the same thing as { s } anyway. This arrow cannot be used with anything that is not pulmonic egressive, as that just constitutes an error, such as with click letters, for example { ǂ￫}.
Marking Tones : { ꜛ◌, ꜜ◌ }, { ◌᷇, ◌́, ◌᷆, ◌᷄, ◌̀, ◌᷅ }, { ◌ ˥ , ◌ ˧ , ◌ ˩ }, { ◌ ˩˧ , ◌ ˩˥ , ◌ ˧˩ , ◌ ˧˥ , ◌ ˥˩ , ◌ ˥˧ }, { ◌ ˩˧˩ , ◌ ˩˥˩ , ◌ ˩˥˧ , ◌ ˧˩˧ , ◌ ˧˩˥ , ◌ ˧˥˩ , ◌ ˧˥˧ , ◌ ˥˩˧ , ◌ ˥˩˥ , ◌ ˥˧˥ }
We mark a lower shift in tone with { ꜜ◌ } and a higher shift in tone with { ꜛ◌ }.
“ ありがと ” { aɾɪgaꜛᴛo } / { aɾɪgaꜜᴛo }
For contour tones ( gliding tones ), we can use the combining diacritics that go over the vowel letters like in Pinyin.
{ ◌᷇, ◌́, ◌᷆, ◌᷄, ◌̀, ◌᷅ }.
We can use the numerical markers as superscript numerals.
{ ◌◌◌¹²³ }.
We can also use graphical markers that go to the right of the words.
{ ◌ ◌˥ , ◌◌ ˧ , ◌◌ ˩ }, { ◌◌ ˩˧ , ◌◌ ˩˥ , ◌◌ ˧˩ , ◌◌ ˧˥ , ◌◌ ˥˩ , ◌◌ ˥˧ }, { ◌◌ ˩˧˩ , ◌◌ ˩˥˩ , ◌◌ ˩˥˧ , ◌◌ ˧˩˧ , ◌◌ ˧˩˥ , ◌◌ ˧˥˩ , ◌◌ ˧˥˧ , ◌◌ ˥˩˧ , ◌◌ ˥˩˥ , ◌◌ ˥˧˥ }
Such as “ 得 ” — { dəo ˧˥ }.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_letter Although, typically, a five-level distinction is made with tones, I believe a three-level distinction can also suffice. In this scenario, we have high, mid, and low. The five-level system is good for precision.
Marking Intonation : { ⭧ ◌◌◌ ◌◌◌ ◌◌◌◌ ⭧ }, { ⭨ ◌◌◌ ◌◌◌ ◌◌◌◌ ⭨ }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intonation_(linguistics)
This is similar to tone or pitch as described in this document, but it has to do with full sentences.
A good example is when people ask a question such as “ 🡕 Coming to the game tonight ? 🡕 ”.
Marking Phonetic Stress : { ◌̲ }, { ◌̲◌̲ }, { ◌̲̲ }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stress_(linguistics) In the IPA, phonetic stress is marked differently using an external symbol. But in the TPA, we just draw a line under the letter instead ( combining low line [ U + 0332 ]). If we want to differentiate between “ primary stress ” and “ secondary stress ” as the IPA does, we can just draw two lines under the letters or type the diacritic twice. That would then be the primary stress, and the secondary stress can be marked by just one line.
Marking Liaison : { ◌‿◌ }, { ◌⁀◌ }
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liaison_(French) This character looks exactly like the combining tie bar that we are familiar with. However, there is one difference. This character is not a combining character; it is an independent character that stands by itself. It is used to mark a phonological absence between two separate words. It is particularly useful in French and Arabic, where words do liaise. It is the same character in the IPA. However, in the IPA, only the lower tie is listed, while here we can use either of them.
Marking Optional Pronunciation : { ◌◌(◌)◌, ◌◌(◌)}
This feature is basically where we mark a certain letter within a word in parentheses. For example, we can write the English word “ debt ” as { dept } or { de(p)t }.
Marking Syllabification : { ◌◌ˌ◌◌◌ˈ◌◌ˌ◌◌◌ }
Same system as the IPA.
Marking Nasalisation : { ◌̃ }
These just mark that a vowel is being pronounced as a nasal vowel as opposed to an oral vowel. It is the same diacritic as the IPA.
Marking Denasalisation : { ◌͊ }
I picked this diacritic because it looks just like the nasalisation diacritic but with a slash through it. This indicates to us that something that was normally nasalised is now denasalised and is oralised instead. I donʼt know if it is useful.
Marking Paralinguistic Functions :
The TPA has a symbol for the swallowing function. It is a triangle { △ }.
{ ◊ } is for a hiccup.
{ ƾ } is for a cough.
{ ꝶ͜￩̃ } is a snort.
When analysed phonetically, the cough is a “ glottal plosive ” and the snort is a “ nasal ingressive uvular trill ”.
Marking a stuttered pronunciation : { p \ p \ p }
The stuttered pronunciation shows a repeat of the pronounced consonant.
Marking phone deletion : { ◌͓ }
Simply write an ‘ x ’ under the letter that is not being pronounced anymore { ◌͓ }.
Marking Lenition: { ◌̝ }
What this marker does is indicate that a phone is now being pronounced with less restriction in the vocal tract or that it has lenited. For example, Turkish “ kayık ” ( boat ) versus “ kayığ̝ın ” ( of the boat ). The ‘ k ’ has lenited to ‘ ğ ’. That is, it went from a plosive pronunciation to an approximant pronunciation within the same place of articulation. This can also be useful in dealing with historical linguistics, as words often change over time.
Marking Fortition : { ◌̞ }
This is just like lenition but the opposite phenomenon. A sound becomes more constricted or harder to pronounce instead.
Marking Lengthening :
What this does is show that a vowel that is normally pronounced short is now being pronounced long. It is supposed to be marked with the combining rightward arrow below or above, but the fonts just cannot render the character correctly.
Marking Shortening :
Same thing as above, but instead it shows that a long vowel or a long pronunciation is now short. It is supposed to be the combining leftward arrow above or below, but again, the fonts just do not display these characters properly.
Marking Grammatical Gender : ⁽ᵐ⁾ ⁽ᶠ ⁾ ⁽ⁿ⁾
masculine ( abbreviation m. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ᵐ⁾ }
feminine ( abbreviation f. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ᶠ ⁾}
neuter ( abbreviation n. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ⁿ⁾ }
These are intended to be used with words that can change for grammatical gender. It is an easy way of marking grammatical gender. Some languages make a two-way distinction, for example, French and Spanish, while others make a three-way distinction, including neuter, such as German and Greek. Some languages do not make any gender inflections, such as Turkish, although they do still have grammatical gender to a limited extent.
Marking Grammatical Number : ⁽ˢᵍ⁾ ⁽ᵖˡ⁾ ⁽ᵈˡ ⁾ ⁽ᵗˡ ⁾
singular ( abbreviation sg. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ˢᵍ⁾ }, { ◌◌◌⁽ˢᵍ⁾ }
plural ( abbreviation pl. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ᵖˡ⁾ }
dual ( abbreviation dl. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ᵈˡ ⁾}
trial ( abbreviation tl. ) { ◌◌◌⁽ᵗˡ ⁾}
Writing the tittle : { ◌̇ }
The tittle is the name of the small dot that goes on top of letters such as the ‘ i ’ or the ‘ j ’. In the TPA, we donʼt write the tittle. We can use the dotless forms of these letters { ı, ȷ } and that does not pose a problem. However, if we want to write the tittle, we can use the “ combining dot above ( U + 0307 ) ” on top of the characters.
In the Translingual Phonetic Alphabet, the first place of articulation is considered the glottis, and the last place of articulation is the nasal cavity. For example, this is the order as follows:
Glottal ➜ Epiglottal ➜ Uvular ➜ Velar ➜ Palatal ➜ Alveolar ➜ Dental ➜ Interdental ➜ Labiodental ➜ Bilabial ➜ Nasal
Speech does not start at the lips; it starts at the glottis. This is because the air first has to pass through the glottis before it can pass through anywhere else. Thus, this is the correct ordering. I am not the only one ordering the sounds, starting from the last and most restricted position. The Devanagari alphabet also does the same thing and starts ordering from the most restricted and rear sounds, where often the first letter is considered ‘ क ’— ‘ ka ’.
The TPA offers a way to transcribe words with more accuracy than would be typically needed. In this scenario, the person intentionally chooses not to omit anything in order to be more accurate, but it will make the transcription look more complicated.
For example, in this method, you would typically include the labial rounding diacritic for any contoid that is before a labially rounded vocoid, as this is in fact what the body naturally accounts for in a phenomenon known as “ phonetic assimilation ”.
Example: ⟨ Portugal ⟩ — { po̱ɻɕəgəl᷾ } — {{ p̱̊o̱ɻɕəgəl᷾ }}
Here, we accounted for the phonological phenomenon called reducing, as the { t } became a { ɕ }. We also accounted for the whole syllable receiving stress instead of only the vocoid by placing the stress marker below the contoid letter.
Of course, this takes away from the legibility, but the option to do very accurate transcriptions is there.
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ʃ / ş — “ esh ” and “ ess cedilla ”. They both represent the voiceless postalveolar fricative in the TPA. The first sound in “ sheep ”. I introduced this letter, copying it from Turkish for aesthetics. I personally think it looks better than esh [ ʃ ]. ‘ ş ’ is the preferred letter in the TPA.
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i / ı, ɩ̇ / ɩ, ɪ̇ / ɪ — These letters, the iota with or without the dot, represent the same vowel in the TPA. While the IPA always writes them with the dot on top, in the TPA, it is not supposed to be written that way. This helps us fit diacritics on top of the ‘ i ’. In the IPA, the small capital ‘ ɪ ’ and the ‘ i ’ are considered separate vowels, but not here. We have { ᵻ } where they have [ ɪ ] in the IPA.
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ɨ, ᵼ̇ / ᵼ, ᵻ̇ / ᵻ — Same scenario as above but for the unrounded near-tense front vowel.
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a / ɑ — Again, in the IPA, these two variations are considered separate vowels, but not here. These two glyphic variations are just that, glyphic variations. In the TPA, they are the same vowels.
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ᴇ / ɛ — IPA uses the ‘ ɛ ’. But here, we can also use the small capital ‘ ᴇ ’. This is also good for conformity with letters like ‘ ᴁ ’, ‘ ɶ ’, and ‘ ᴀ ’ already there in the TPA. ‘ ᴇ ’ is the preferred letter.
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ɡ / g — Unicode has two separate gʼs. They are just glyphic variants of each other. The ‘ g ’ with the open tail is called a “ script g ” and the other g with a closed tail is called a “ double - storey g ” or “ closed - loop g ”. IPA favours the open - tail g. But here in the TPA, for our needs and purposes, they represent the same sound, the voiced velar plosive.
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ȷ / j — These both represent the voiced palatal plosive in the TPA. The [ ȷ ] represents the voiced palatal plosive in the IPA, and the [ j ] represents the voiced palatal approximant. The reason for this change is that we use the letter { y } for the voiced palatal approximant in the TPA. I would, however, highly suggest avoiding using the dotted version in the TPA, because it will confuse people who use the IPA.
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ɟ / ɉ — Same scenario as above, but for the affricate letter.
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ʝ — This is the letter for the voiced alveolo-palatal affricate in the IPA. IPA uses this letter for the voiced palatal fricative, while TPA uses the letter ‘ ỿ ’.
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ꞵ / β — “ latin small letter beta ” / ( U + 03B2 ) “ greek small letter beta ”. In this scenario, the Latin letter is preferred. In fact, there are only three Greek letters in the TPA out of the total of one hundred and fifty letters.
The very first thing I want to criticise is the vowels of the IPA.
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The specific letter [ ɚ ] should not even be there in favour of [ əɻ ]. No other vowel letter has such a specific rhotic form, and this schwa letter should not either.
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I think that letters like “ ɒ, ä, ɐ, ɑ, ʌ ” should not be there. Only the letter { a } and its more open version { ᴀ } are valid. This leads people to use these letters falsely. For example, I saw someone spell out the Greek word “ καρδιά ” as [ kɐrðia ]. Why, when it would actually be simpler and more factual to spell it out as { karðia } ? And is the first ‘ a ’ there different than the last one ? It is even more shocking to see people insist on these letters when no language makes such a distinction between these ‘ a ’ letters. The TPA discards the use of these letters and instead uses { a, ᴀ } for open rear vowels.
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The IPA is also calling ‘ æ ’ a front vowel even though it is clearly a central open vowel and a merging of the letters ‘ a ’ and ‘ e ’ . It is classifying ‘ a ’ incorrectly as a front vowel when it is a back vowel. I am shocked to see how they can be so wrong when it comes to the vowels.
In this closing chapter, I want to talk freely and give commentary on this work.
Firstly, thank you for reading my document. Well, perhaps you havenʼt read every part of it. I believe it is the best scientific literary work that I have written. I consider it to be my greatest literary work. I host this work and other works online freely. I want to say that I did not write this document for any kind of personal gain. I want to be honoured and credited for my work. However, I do not want to bar anyone from using or copying the information included here. It would honour me if my findings and writings were taught, shared, and acknowledged.
You could make the argument, “ Well, why bother ? ” Why bother making such explanations when they are already explained ? Why bother creating a phonetic alphabet when one already exists ? I can make the counterargument: Would it be better if they had not created the “ Gregorian Calendar ” and had not made the switch to it ? There already was a “ Julian Calendar ” and it did count the days. Well, that switch was made to be more accurate with regard to the facts, and it was good on their behalf to make such a change. So, I did the research, and I did the work. I believe I advanced this scientific subject, and I am proud.
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