meaning of vowels
1. Vowels are represented as follows: aback, that ahfather, palm see note arfar, mark awflaw, caught aybake, rain eless, men eeeasy, ski eirtheir, software itrip, hit i:life, sky oblock, stock see note ohflow, sew ooloot, through ormore, door owout, how oyboy, coin uhbut, some uput, foot *r fur, insert only in stressed syllables; otherwise use just "r" yyet, young yoofew, chew [y]oo/oo/ with optional fronting as in `news /nooz/ or /nyooz/ A /*/ is used for the `schwa sound of unstressed or occluded vowels often written with an upside-down `e. The schwa vowel is omitted in unstressed syllables containing vocalic l, m, n or r; that is, "kitten" and "colour" would be rendered /kitn/ and /kuhlr/, not /kit*n/ and /kuhl*r/. The above table reflects mainly distinctions found in standard American English that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Philadelphia. However, we separate /o/ from /ah/, which tend to merge in standard American. This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British Received Pronunciation. Entries with a pronunciation of `// are written-only.
Related Words
vowels are represented as follows: |
