Description
For a guide to pronouncing IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English dialects.The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment) although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. This means that it does not normally use combinations of letters to represent single sounds, the way English does with ⟨sh⟩, ⟨th⟩ and ⟨ng⟩, or single letters to represent multiple sounds the way ⟨x⟩ represents /ks/ or /ɡz/ in English. There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as ⟨c⟩ does in English and several other European languages, and finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them, a property known as "selectiveness".
Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 letters represent consonants and vowels, 31 diacritics are used to modify these, and 19 additional signs indicate suprasegmental qualities such as length, tone, stress, and intonation. These are organized into a chart; the chart displayed here is an unofficial expansion and re-organization of the official chart posted at the website of the IPA and below in this article.
Read more about this topic: International Phonetic Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens and not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, and that Missionaries of that description from [France] would avail more than those who should endeavor to tame them by precepts of religion or philosophy.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“To give an accurate description of what has never occurred is not merely the proper occupation of the historian, but the inalienable privilege of any man of parts and culture.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“As they are not seen on their way down the streams, it is thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die, clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a tragic feature in the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be remembered with Shakespeare’s description of the sea-floor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)