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The IPA
The initials "IPA" are used for both the International Phonetic Alphabet and for the
International Phonetic Association which created it. It should usually be clear from context
which one is being referred to.
There should be a one-to-one correspondence between a speech sound and the symbol used to
represent it. A symbol should always represent the same sound, regardless of the language
being transcribed. A sound should always be represented by the same symbol.
A single sound should not be represented by a sequence of symbols, the way that English uses
two letters to represent the consonant at the beginning of thin. Nor should a single symbol
represent a sequence of sounds, the way the English letter x does in tax.
The association wanted to avoid making people learn a completely made-up alphabet, such as
Bell's Visible Speech, which most found too difficult.
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Junile Labrador Denampo BSCPE 2 November 19,2016
ENGL021 Speech Communication
Since there are many more speech sounds than there are letters of the Roman alphabet, many
new symbols had to be borrowed or created. Even here, the IPA tried to make the novelty as
minimal as possible.
Most new symbols were created by modifying the letters of the Roman alphabet in some way,
for example:
using small capital letters, as in [], [], or [].
turning the symbol upside down, as in [], [], or [].
extending the tail of the letter or adding some other flourish, as in [], [], or [].
Some symbols are less familiar letters from some of the Roman-based alphabets of Europe, for
example, [], [], [], and [].
Some symbols were borrowed from the Greek alphabet, for example, [], [], and [].
Only a few entirely new symbols were created, for example, [] or [].
Major sounds are represented by symbols. Minor modifications of sounds are represented by
diacritics on symbols.
The number of speech sounds that the human vocal tract can produce is vastly greater than the
number of unique symbols that any sane group would want to invent or any person would want
to memorize. In order to solve this problem, the IPA includes a number of diacritics, small
accent marks that can be placed above, below, or next to a major symbol to indicate that the
sound it represents in this case is slightly different from the sound it normally represents. Some
examples:
[n ] -- the circle diacritic indicates that the sound being transcribed is just like an ordinary [n],
except that the vocal folds are not vibrating.
[k] -- the plus sign under the [k] indicates an "advanced" sound. This sound is made with the
tongue hitting the roof of the mouth a little further forward than it does for an ordinary [k].
[o ] -- a nasalized [o], exactly like a regular [o] but with air flowing through the nose as well as
the mouth.
The International Phonetic Alphabet has been revised a number of times since 1888, most
recently at the association's 1993 convention in Kiel, with a few minor changes approved in
1996.
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Junile Labrador Denampo BSCPE 2 November 19,2016
ENGL021 Speech Communication
The Roman alphabet has two different forms of each letter: the minuscule or lower-case form ...
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
Some other alphabets, such as Greek and Cyrillic, also have minuscule and majuscule forms.
Compare Arabic, which has up to three different forms for each letter depending on how it joins
with other letters; and Hebrew, which does not employ different majuscule forms but enlarges
some letters for emphasis.
The Roman alphabet is also the basic alphabet used to write Western calligraphy in many
languages. So it is quite important :-)
The Roman alphabet is also used to write pinyin, which is a phonetic version of Mandarin Chinese
used in teaching children and foreigners how to pronounce the sounds of written characters.
This means the Roman alphabet is being written and read by billions of people around the world
every single minute.
What about written Mandarin (and Cantonese)? Well ... actually those are not alphabets at all.
They use a different kind of writing system entirely. Chinese writing uses a unique symbol for
each concept. By contrast, an alphabet is a list of re-combinable symbols each of which stands
for a sound.
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Junile Labrador Denampo BSCPE 2 November 19,2016
ENGL021 Speech Communication
(By the way, if you're writing dates or other numbers, here is a list of Roman numerals to help
you translate those 'mmx's into '2010's.)
The Romans got their alphabet ultimately from the Greeks, who got it from the Phoenicians, who
got it from ... well ... a whole mixture of people in the Middle East.
And the Romans spread it all over their empire, which is how it first came to Britain; and so, later,
to the Americas, Australia, etc.
The classical Roman alphabet contained only 23 letters (no J, U or W.) In the beginning, all these
letters were capitals (majuscules). There were no lower-case letters (minuscules). Also, there was
no word separation.
It could also be written quite rapidly on paper using a square-ended pen. Quite a lot of fine
manuscripts have survived written entirely in this excellent script. It was the main book alphabet
of the Roman Empire during the first few centuries AD, used to write all sorts of texts in pre-
Christian Latin.
Reference:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101109033037AAFrIY5
https://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~krussll/phonetics/transcription/the-ipa.html
http://www.calligraphy-skills.com/roman-alphabet.html