Differences From IPA
A major difference is that IPA notation allows distinguishing between phonetic and phonemic transcription, by enclosing the transcription between either brackets or slashes /ai pi e/. UPA has no corresponding standard, and context must be relied upon to distinguish the closeness of transcription.
For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance:
- UPA e, o denote mid vowels with no particular bias towards open or close, as are found in most Uralic languages. IPA, denote close-mid vowels in particular, common in Romance and West Germanic languages.
- Being designed for languages largely featuring vowel harmony, UPA has no simple way to denote a basic, backness-ambiguous schwa sound, IPA . ə denotes a reduced form of e, corresponding with IPA . A further backing diacritic must be appended, resulting in ə̑. (This may also stand for a reduced form of e̮, corresponding with IPA ; a distinction rarely encountered in practice.)
- For the voiced dental fricative, UPA uses a Greek delta δ, while IPA uses the letter eth . In UPA, eth ð stands for an alveolar tap, IPA .
- UPA uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is (a symbol unused in UPA).
- UPA uses small caps for voiceless or devoiced sounds (ᴀ ʙ ᴅ ɢ ᴇ…), while in IPA, these frequently occur as distinct basic letters (e.g. ).
- UPA does not systematically distinguish approximants from fricatives. j may stand for both the palatal approximant (IPA ) or the (IPA ), v may stand for both the labiodental approximant (IPA ) or the voiced labiodental fricative (IPA ), β may stand for the bilabial approximant (IPA ), the voiced bilabial fricative (IPA ), or in broad transcription even the labiovelar approximant (IPA ).
- UPA also does not distinguish basic palatal consonants: these must be transcribed by either palatalized alveolar or palatalized velar symbols. Thus ń may correspond to either IPA or .
Examples:
| Sound | UPA | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Close-mid back rounded vowel | o̭ | |
| Mid back rounded vowel | o | or |
| Open-mid back rounded vowel | o̬ or å̭ | |
| Voiced dental fricative | δ | |
| Alveolar tap | ð | |
| Voiceless alveolar lateral approximant | ʟ | |
| Velar lateral approximant | л | |
| Voiceless alveolar nasal | ɴ | |
| Uvular nasal | ŋ͔ |
Read more about this topic: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
Famous quotes containing the word differences:
“The extent to which a parent is able to see a child’s world through that child’s eyes depends very much on the parent’s ability to appreciate the differences between herself and her child and to respect those differences. Your own children need you to accept them for who they are, not who you would like them to be.”
—Lawrence Balter (20th century)