Introduction to Phonetics

International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) attempts to represent each sound of human speech with a single symbol

Consistent way to talk about sounds in other languages

Spanish sound: halfway between a b sound and a v sound
uva grape

French sound: halfway between an ee sound and an oo sound

su known

Consistent way to talk about sounds within a language

Do these words begin with the same sound?
think though

How about these?

cat kangaroo

BEWARE OF SPELLING
Letters speech sounds
Dont be fooled by how words are spelled! Practice saying them out loud and listening to yourself. How many speech sounds (NOT LETTERS!) are in the following?
she cave six using

 Side note: why is spelling so messy?

Spelling is mostly static, but languages are constantly changing (knight) Spelling of the word in the language it was borrowed from Spelling conventions when the word was borrowed or coined Etc

Why we need the IPA: Summary

Same symbol always has the same sound
Within a language: (unlike Phil and fish) Across all languages: (Spanish boda and English their)

Different symbols always have different sounds

(Unlike sound and cause)

Gives us a consistent way to compare different sounds

In what way are feel and veal different? In what way are they the same?

No silent letters or extra ones

Unlike spike

 IPA phonetic symbols will be in brackets: [ ] [k] is a speech sound, not the letter k! Why in a chart form?