Pronunciation respelling for English

A pronunciation respelling for English is a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words in the English language, which do not have a phonemic orthography (i.e. the spelling does not reliably indicate pronunciation).

There are two basic types of pronunciation respelling:

  • "Phonemic" systems, as commonly found in American dictionaries, consistently use one symbol per English phoneme. These systems are conceptually equivalent to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) commonly used in bilingual dictionaries and scholarly writings but tend to use symbols based on English rather than Romance-language spelling conventions (e.g. ē for IPA /i/) and avoid non-alphabetic symbols (e.g. sh for IPA /ʃ/).
  • On the other hand, "non-phonemic" or "newspaper" systems, commonly used in newspapers and other non-technical writings, avoid diacritics and literally "respell" words making use of well-known English words and spelling conventions, even though the resulting system may not have a one-to-one mapping between symbols and sounds.

As an example, one pronunciation of Arkansas, transcribed in the IPA, could be respelled är′kən-sô′ or AR-kən-saw in a phonemic system and ar-kuhn-saw in a non-phonemic system.

Development and use

Pronunciation respelling systems for English have been developed primarily for use in dictionaries. They are used there because it is not possible to predict with certainty the sound of a written English word from its spelling or the spelling of a spoken English word from its sound. So readers looking up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary may find, on seeing the pronunciation respelling, that the word is in fact already known to them orally. By the same token, those who hear an unfamiliar spoken word may see several possible matches in a dictionary and must rely on the pronunciation respellings to find the correct match.

Traditional respelling systems for English use only the 26 ordinary letters of the Latin alphabet with diacritics, and are meant to be easy for native readers to understand. English dictionaries have used various such respelling systems to convey phonemic representations of the spoken word since Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, the earliest being devised by James Buchanan us be featured in his 1757 dictionary Linguæ Britannicæ Vera Pronunciatio, although most words therein were not respelled but given diacritics; since the language described by Buchanan was that of Scotland, William Kenrick responded in 1773 with A New Dictionary of the English Language, wherein the pronunciation of Southern England was covered and numbers rather than diacritics used to represent vowel sounds; Thomas Sheridan devised a simpler scheme, which he employed in his successful 1780 General Dictionary of the English Language, a much larger work consisting of two volumes; in 1791 John Walker produced A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, which achieved a great reputation and ran into some forty editions. Today, such systems remain in use in American dictionaries for native English speakers, but they have been replaced by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in linguistics references and many bilingual dictionaries published outside the United States.

The pronunciation which dictionaries refer to is some chosen "normal" one, thereby excluding other regional accents or dialect pronunciation. In England this standard is normally the Received Pronunciation, based upon the educated speech of southern England. The standard for American English is known as General American (GA).

Sophisticated phonetic systems have been developed, such as James Murray's scheme for the original Oxford English Dictionary, and the IPA, which replaced it in later editions and has been adopted by many British and international dictionaries. The IPA system is not a respelling system, because it uses symbols not in the English alphabet, such as ð and θ. Most current British dictionaries use IPA for this purpose.

Traditional respelling systems

The following chart matches the IPA symbols used to represent the sounds of the English language with the phonetic symbols used in several dictionaries, a majority of which transcribe American English.

These works adhere (for the most part) to the one-symbol-per-sound principle. Other works not included here, such as Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged, 2nd ed.), do not adhere and thus have several different symbols for the same sound (partly to allow for different phonemic mergers and splits).

Consonants
IPA K&K APA NOAD AHD RHD WBO MECD DPL DPN TBD NBC MWCD OED COD POD Cham CPD SD AB Dictcom BBC Google Mac Wikipedia Examples
tʃ tʃ č ᴄʜ ch c͜h ch ch ch ligature ch ch ch ch ch, tch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch, tch ch ch ch, tch church
ɡ g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g, gh game
h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h hh h h h h h hat
hw hw hw (h)w hw hw hw hw hw hw hw   hw (h)w w hw wh which
dʒ dʒ ǯ j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j jh j j j j j judge
k k k k k k k k k k k k k k, ck k k k k k k k k k k k kick
x x x ᴋʜ ᴋʜ ᴋ͜ʜ kh ʜ ḵ kh (χ) k͟h hh xh ᴋʜ kh kh loch (Scottish and Irish)
Buch (German)
ŋ ŋ ŋ ɴɢ ng n͡g ng ng ŋ ng ng ng ŋ ng ng ng ng ng ng ng ng ng
(ng-g, nk)		 ng ng ng thing
s s s s s s s s s s s s s s, ss s s s s s s s s s s s, ss sauce
ʃ ʃ š ꜱʜ sh s͜h sh sh sh ligature sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh ship
θ θ θ ᴛʜ th t͜h th th th ligature th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thin
ð ð ð ᴛ͟ʜ 𝑡ℎ ᵺ th t͟h 𝑡h ligature ᵺ T̶H th꞉ t͟h dh dh t͟h dh dh TH dh 𝑡ℎ dh dh dh this
j j y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y yes
ʒ ʒ ž ᴢʜ zh z͜h zh z͟h zh ligature zh zh zh zh zh zh z͟h zh zh zh zh zh zh zh zh zh vision
The following letters have the same values in all systems listed: b, d, f, l, m, n, p, r, t, v, w, z.
Vowels
IPA K&K APA NOAD AHD RHD WBO MECD DPL DPN TBD NBC MWCD OED COD POD Cham CPD SD AB Dictcom BBC Google
AmE, BrE 		Mac Wikipedia Examples
æ æ æ a ă a a a a a a a a a ă a a a a ae a a (arr) a a a (arr) cat
eɪ e e(y) ā ā ā ay ay ā ay ā ay ā ay ā ay ā eh ay, a_e ey ey ay ei ay ay day
ɛər ɛr εr e(ə)r âr âr air air – – âr air er air ār air ār, er air air eh r air air ehr, euh air air hair
ɑː ɑ a ä ä ä ah aa ä aw, o ä ah ä, ȧ ah ah aa ä ah ah aa ah aa aa ah ah father
ɑːr ɑr ar är är är ahr aar är – är ahr är ar a͡r aar är ar aa r ahr ar aar, aa ar arm
ɛ ɛ ε e ĕ e eh e e ɛ e e e e ě e e e e eh e e (err) e/eh e e (err) let
iː i i(y) ē ē ē ee ee ē ē ē ee ē ee ē ee ē ee ee iy ee ee ee ee ee see
ɪər ɪr ιr i(ə)r îr ēr ihr eer ir ier ir eer ēr eer ēr ihr iy r eer eer eer, eeuh ear eer here
ɪ ɪ ɪ i ĭ i ih i i i i i i i ǐ i i i i ih i i (irr) i i i (irr) pit
aɪ aɪ ay ī ī ī y ī ī y ī igh ī igh ī ī ī ai eye, i_e, ye ay ahy igh, y ai uy y, eye by
ɒ ɑ a ä ŏ o o o ä o o ah ä o ǒ o o o o aa o o (orr) aa, o o o (orr) pot
oʊ o o(w) ō ō ō oh ō ō ō ō oh ō oh ō ō ō oh oh, o_e ow oh oh ow oh oh no
ɔː ɔ ɔ ô ô ô aw aw ô aw, o ô aw ȯ aw aw aw ö aw aw ao aw aw aa, aw aw aw caught
ɔːr ɔr ɔr ôr ôr ôr awr ȯr or ör or ao r awr or or, aw or north
or o(w)r ōr, ör awr, ohr ohr force
ɔɪ ɔɪ ɔy oi oi oi oy oy oi ligature oy oi oi ȯi oy oi oy oi oy oi oy oi oy oy oy oy noise
ʊ ᴜ ᴜ o͝o o͝o o͝o u o͝o oo ligature u u̇ oo u̇ uu o͝o o͝o ŭ uu u uh 𝑜𝑜 uu u oo uu took
ʊər ᴜr ᴜr o͝or o͝or o͝or ur oor u̇r oor u̇r oor oor oor oor uh r 𝑜𝑜r oor oor, uor oouh oor tour
uː u u(w) o͞o o͞o o͞o oo oo o͞o ligature ū ü oo꞉ ü oo o͞o o͞o oo oo oo uw oo oo oo ooh oo soon
aʊ aᴜ aw ou ou ou ow ow ou ligature ow ou ow au̇ ow ow ow ow ow ou aw ou ow aw ow ow out
ʌ ʌ ʌ ə ŭ u uh u u ꭒ u uh ə u ǔ u u u uh ah uh u uh u u cut
ɜːr ɜr ər ər ûr ûr ur ur ʉr er ėr er ər ur e͡r ər ûr ur ur er ur ur ur, uh er ur word
ə ə ə ə ə ə uh ə ə e ə uh ə uh 𝑎, 𝑒, 𝑖, 𝑜, 𝑢 ə ə uh uh ah 𝑢ℎ uh uh uh ə about
ər ɚ ər ər ər ər uhr ər ər er ər er ər ur er ər ər ur er er uhr r, uh ər butter
juː ju yu yo͞o yo͞o yo͞o yoo yoo yo͞o ligature yū yü yoo꞉ yü yoo ū yo͞o ū yoo y uw yoo yoo yoo yooh ew view
Stress
IPA K&K APA NOAD AHD RHD WBO MECD DPL DPN TBD NBC MWCD OED COD POD Cham CPD SD AB Dictcom BBC Google Mac Wikipedia Examples
ˈa ˈa á ˈa a′ a′ á a′ a′ a′ A ˈa A a· á a' a a 1 a A a (')a A primary stress
ˌa ˌa à ˌa a′ a′ a′ a a′
 a ˌa a (a·) a a 2 a a a .a secondary stress
a a a a a a a 0 a a a tertiary stress

Title abbreviations