The English Alphabet

The English alphabet has 26 letters. Each letter has a lower and upper case form. The letters A, E, I, O,
U are vowels.
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
[ei]
[bi:]
[si:]
[di:]
[i:]
[ef]
[ i:]
[ei ]
[ai]
[ ei]
[kei]
[el]
[em]
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
n
o
p
q
r
s
t
u
v
w
x
y
z
[en]
[ou]
[pi:]
[kju:]
[a:]
[es]
[ti:]
[ju:]
[vi:]
[d blju:]
[eks]
[wai]
[zed] or [AmE zi:]

Phonetics and Phonology
Phonetics (from the Greek word phone = sound/voice) is a fundamental branch of Linguistics and itself
has three different aspects:
Articulatory Phonetics - describes how vowels and consonants are produced or articulated in
various parts of the mouth and throat;

Acoustic Phonetics - a study of how speech sounds are transmitted: when sound travels through the air
from the speaker's mouth to the hearer's ear it does so in the form of vibrations in the air;

Auditory Phonetics - a study of how speech sounds are perceived: looks at the way in which the hearers
brain decodes the sound waves back into the vowels and consonants originally intended by the speaker.
The actual sound produced, such as a simple vowel or consonant sound is called phone.
Closely associated with Phonetics is another branch of Linguistics known as Phonology. Phonology deals
with the way speech sounds behave in particular languages or in languages generally. This focuses on
the way languages use differences between sounds in order to convey differences of meaning between
words. All theories of phonology hold that spoken language can be broken down into a string of sound
units (phonemes). A phoneme is the smallest distinctive unit sound of a language. It distinguishes one
word from another in a given language. This means changing a phoneme in a word, produces another
word, that has a different meaning. In the pair of words (minimal pairs) 'cat' and 'bat', the distinguishing
sounds /c/ and /b/ are both phonemes. The phoneme is an abstract term (a speech sound as it exists in
the mind of the speaker) and it is specific to a particular language.
A phoneme may have several allophones, related sounds that are distinct but do not change the
meaning of a word when they are interchanged. The sounds corresponding to the letter "t" in the
English words 'tea' and 'trip' are not in fact quite the same. The position of the tongue is slightly
different, which causes a difference in sound detectable by an instrument such as a speech
spectrograph. Thus the [t] in 'tea' and the [t] in 'trip' are allophones of the phoneme /t/.
Phonology is the link between Phonetics and the rest of Linguistics. Only by studying both the phonetics
and the phonology of English is it possible to acquire a full understanding of the use of sounds in English
speech.


English Pronunciation
We use the term accents to refer to differences in pronunciations. Pronunciation can vary with
cultures, regions and speakers, but there are two major standard varieties in English
pronunciation: British English and American English.
Within British English and American English there are also a variety of accents. Some of them have
received more attention than others from phoneticians and phonologists. These are Received
pronunciation (RP)* and General American (GA).
Received pronunciation is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as
the "educated spoken English of southeastern England". RP is close to BBC English (the kind spoken by
British newscasters) and it is represented in the pronunciation schemes of most British dictionaries. RP is
rather a social accent than regional, associated with the educated upper classes (and/or people who
have attended public schools) in Britain.
English pronunciation is also divided into two main accent groups, the rhotic and the non-rhotic,
depending on when the phoneme /r/ is pronounced. Rhotic speakers pronounce written "r" in all
positions. They will pronounce the "r" in stork, whereas non-rhotic speakers won't, making no
distinction between stork and stalk. Non-rhotic speakers pronounce "r" only if it is followed by a vowel -
right, rain, room, Robert, far awey, etc.
Non-rhotic accents are British Received Pronunciation and some other types of British English,
Australian, New Zealand and South African English. American English is rhotic (the "r" is always
pronounced), with the notable exception of the Boston area and New York City. Rhotic accents can be
found also in most of Canada. SE Britain is apparently the source of non-rhotic. England is non-rhotic,
apart from the south-western England and some ever-diminishing northern areas. Scotland and Ireland
are rhotic.

* "Received" here is used in its older sense to mean "generally accepted".

The Sounds of English and Their Representation
In English, there is no one-to-one relation between the system of writing and the system of
pronunciation. The alphabet which we use to write English has 26 letters but in (Standard British) English
there are approximately 44 speach sounds. The number of speech sounds in English varies from dialect
to dialect, and any actual tally depends greatly on the interpretation of the researcher doing the
counting. To represent the basic sound of spoken languages linguists use a set of phonetic symbols
called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The chart below contains all of the IPA symbols used to
represent the sounds of the English language. This is the standard set of phonemic symbols for English
(RP and similar accents).
[ ] - small capital letter I
[ ] - 'epsilon' -- a Greek letter
[ ] - sometimes called 'upsilon'
[ ] - 'ash'; digraph a-e -- usually just
"digraph"
[ ] - script A
[ ] - open O
[ ] - 'caret'
[ ] - 'eng' (right-tail n)
[ ] - 'eth'
[ ] - 'theta'
[ ] - 'schwa'
The colon / : / represents longer duration in pronunciation and is found in long vowels such as / i: /, /
a: /, / u: /, etc.

Vowels and Consonants (en/bg)





p b t d

k g
f v

s z


m n

h l r w j



Classifying the Vowels Sounds of English
The classifcation of vowels is based on four major aspects:
1. Tongue height - according to the vertical position of the tongue (high vowels, also referred to as
close; low vowels, also referred to as open; intermediate - close-mid and open-mid)
2. Frontness vs. backness of the tongue - according to the horizontal position of the highest part
of the tongue.
3. Lip rounding - whether the lips are rounded (O-shape) or spread (no rounding) when the sound
is being made.
4. Tenseness of the articulators - refers to the amount of muscular tension around the mouth
when creating vowel sounds. Tense and lax are used to describe muscular tension.

Front vowels
(tongue body is pushed
forward)
Central vowels
(tongue body is
neutral)
Back vowels
(tongue body is pulled
back)
High/close
vowels
(tongue body is
raised)
/ / see
/ / sit

/ / boot
/ / book
Mid vowels
(tongue body is
intermediate)
/e/ bait*
/ / bet
/ / sofa**, / / bird
/o/ boat*
/ / bought***
Low/open
vowels
(tongue body is
lowered)
/ / bat / / under** / / father, / / sock
(BrE)


*In some American accents (especially Californian English), vowel sounds in words such as bait, gate,
pane and boat, coat, note are not consider diphthongs. American phonologists often class them
as tense monophthongs (/e/ and /o/).
**/ / is used in unstressed syllables, while / / is in stressed syllables. The vowel / / used to be a
back vowel, and the symbol was chosen for this reason. This is no longer a back vowel, but a central one.
***A considerable amount of Americans don't have the deep / / in their vocabulary, they pronouce
bought, ball, law with the deep / / sound.
See also: IPA vowels chart
According to the position of the lips:
English front and central vowels are always unrounded.
English back vowels / /, / , /o/, / / are rounded (/ / vowel is unrounded).
Vowel Tenseness:
Tense vowels (produced with a great amount of muscular tension): / /, / /, / /, / /, /
/. Tense vowels are variable in length, and often longer than lax vowels.
Lax vowels (produced with very little muscular tension): / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, / /, /
/. Lax vowels are always short.


Classifying the Consonants Sounds of English According to the Manner and Place of Articulation
According to the manner of articulation (how the breath is used) the consonants are: stops, also known
as plosives, fricatives,affricates, nasals, laterals,
and approximants. Nasals, laterals and approximants are
always voiced; stops, fricatives andaffricates can be voiced or unvoiced.
Stops
/Plosives/
During production of these sounds, the airflow from the lungs is completely blocked at
some point, then released. In English, they are /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/.
Fricatives
The flow of air is constricted, but not totally stopped or blocked. In English, these include
/f/, /v/, / /, / /,
/s/, /z/, / /, / /, and /h/.
Affricates
These sounds begin like stops, with a complete blockage of air/closure of the vocal tract,
and end with a restricted flow of air like fricatives. English has two affricates - the / /
sounds of "church" and the / / of "judge".
Nasals
Nasals are sounds made with air passing through the nose. In English, these are /m/, /n/,
and / /.
Laterals
Lateral consonants allow the air to escape at the sides of the tongue. In English there is
only one such sound - /l/
Approximants
In the production of an approximant, one articulator is close to another, but the vocal
tract is not narrowed to such an extent that a turbulent airstream is produced. In English,
these are /j/, /w/ and /r/. Approximants /j/ and /w/ are also referred to as semi-vowels.
According to the place of articulation (where in the mouth or throat the sound is produced) the
consonants are:
Bilabial: with both lips /p/, /b/, /m/
Labiodental: between lower lip and upper teeth /f/, /v/
Dental/Interdental: between the teeth
/ /, / /
Alveolar: the ridge behind the upper front teeth
/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/,
/l/, /r/
Alveo-palatal (or post-alveolar): it is the area
between
the alveolar ridge and the hard palate
/ /, / /, / /, /
/
Palatal: hard palate, or 'roof' of the mouth' /j/
Velar: the soft palate or velum /k/, /g/, / /
Glottal (laryngeal): space between the vocal
cords
/h/