ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, Day 27: Concepts: Phonetic Alphabets Today I’m introducin
ayearinlanguage: A Year in Language, Day 27: Concepts: Phonetic Alphabets Today I’m introducing a new addition to my language days. Once a week instead of a language I’m going to talk over some linguistic topic of interest. Why? Well as I’ve been plotting out my Languages on a calendar I realize that while the world has no shortage of languages to record, I have a limit of languages I can talk about with any degree of effectiveness. So I’ve decided to cut myself a break in a way that will reinforce knowledge of the languages I discuss. I hope y'all enjoy. An inherent issue in discussing the languages of the world is that one must do it in one of those languages, and thus be subject to the limitations of that language. How then to talk about and describe sounds that may not exist in certain languages, or be understood differently in different languages? The answer is a phonetic alphabet, a script that is internationally constant and able to transcribe any sound. The most popular phonetic script in use today is the International Phonetic Alphabet or IPA. This is what you’ll see in Wikipedia articles. Another one still in wide use is the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or APA, which while less common is a bit easier to type, for example the English sound typically written “ch” is /t͡ʃ/ in IPA and /č/ in APA. If you are wondering about the slash marks, they are the standard brackets for phonological transcription. Angle brackets are then used to represent that the letters are as they appear in the native languages orthography (I’ve been using quotation marks because they are easier to type and I didn’t want to confuse anyone). The way letters are ordered and named in a phonetic alphabet is by descriptive features. The primary features I have discussed before; the place of articulation (where in the mouth the sound is made) and the manner of articulation (how the windstream is being obstructed). A third prominent feature is voicing, I.e. whether or not your vocal chords vibrate. Common places of articulation are Bilabial (m, f, b), Alveolar (t, s, r), and Velar (k, ng). Common manners of articulation are Stops/Plosives (p, d, g), Fricatives (v, z), Nasals (m, n, ng), and Approximants (w, y, l). -- source link