Flutopedia - an Encyclopedia for the Native American Flute

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Flutopedia Pronunciation Guide

This pronunciation guide provides an aid to pronouncing phrases using only the 26 lowercase characters of the Latin alphabet, dashes, slashes, and spaces.

It is a phonetic respelling guide based on the “DictCom” pronunciation guide provided at Dictionary.Reference.Com, with some modifications and extensions. The differences between this Flutopedia pronunciation guide and DictCom are noted in the “differences from DictCom” column. These differences eliminate capital letters (which can be confused with emphasis), eliminate the use of italics (which can be difficult to distinguish on some displays), eliminate special characters (such as ü), and eliminate multi-character ligatures (such as æ).

We also provide a column with the equivalent pronunciations in the style of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is often used by dictionaries.

Cyrillic equivalents are provided, where appropriate, by Vera Shanov.

In this guide, spaces separate words, dashes separate syllables, and Bold-faced type indicates the primary stressed syllable in each word. Here are some examples:

  • Anasazi flute [ah-nah-sah-zee floot]
  • Karl Bodmer [kahrl bohd-mair]
  • R. Carlos Nakai [ahr kahr-lohs nahk-ahy]
  • Dario Müller [dah-ree-oh muu-ler]
  • Görtler vortices [goert-ler vohr-ti-seez]

Vocalizations

This phonetic respelling guide has a simplified facility to represent a few of the myriad vocalizations in world languages:

A glottal stop (also called a “voiceless glottal plosive”) is a gap in speech. It is typically represented in print and in IPA using a character similar to a “?” without the dot at the bottom … represented by the Unicode character “ʔ” (Unicode code point 0294). In English, the “–” in the phrase “uh–oh” is a glottal stop.

This phonetic respelling guide uses a “/” in place of the “-” between syllables to represent a glottal stop. For example “uh–oh[u/oh] and the Allegany Seneca word for a whistle with no stops, from [Conklin 1953], page 287, is káʔkē'taʔ [kah/kee-tah/].

Please realize that there are many other nasal, plosive, frictive, click, trill, and ejective sounds, vocalizations, and co-articulated consonants that are part of various languages of the world that are not represented by this phonetic respelling guide.

Consonants

Flutopedia Pronunciation Examples
in English
differences
from
DictCom
IPA Cyrillic
b boy, baby, rob   b б
d do, ladder, bed   d д
f food, offer, safe   f ф
g get, bigger, dog   g г
h happy, ahead   h  
j jump, budget, age   џ
k can, speaker, stick   k к
l let, follow, still   l л
m make, summer, time   m м
n no, dinner, thin   n н
ng singer, think, long   ŋ н
ny canyon   ɲ њ
p put, apple, cup   p п
r run, marry, far, store   r р
s sit, city, passing, face   s с
sh she, station, push   ʃ ш
t top, better, cat   t т
ch church, watching, nature, witch   ч
th thirsty, nothing, math   θ  
tzh this, mother, breathe th
(italicized "th")
ð  
v very, seven, love   v в
w wear, away   w  
hw where, somewhat   ʰw  
y yes, onion   y  
z zoo, easy, buzz   z з
zh measure, television, beige   ʒ ж

Vowels

Flutopedia Pronunciation Examples
in English
differences
from
DictCom
IPA Cyrillic
a apple, can, hat   æ я
ey aid, hate, day    
ah arm, father, aha   ɑ а́
air air, careful, wear   ɛər  
aw all, or, talk, lost, saw   ɔ  
e ever, head, get   ɛ е
ee eat, see, need   i и
eer ear, hero, beer   ɪər  
er teacher, afterward, murderer   ər  
i it, big, finishes   ɪ  
ahy I, ice, hide, deny    
o odd, hot, waffle   ɒ  
oh owe, road, below    
oo ooze, food, soup, sue   u у
uo good, book, put oo
(italicized "oo")
ʊ у
oi oil, choice, toy   ɔɪ  
ou out, loud, how    
u up, mother, mud uh ʌ  
uh about, animal, problem, circus uh
(italicized "uh")
ə  
ur early, bird, stirring   ɜr  

Foreign Sounds

Flutopedia Pronunciation Examples
in Varions Language
differences
from
DictCom
IPA
ahh French ami a a
kh Scottish loch, German ach or ich kh x
oe French feu, German schön œ œ
rr French au revoir, Yiddish rebbe r r
ue French oeuvre uh
(superscript,
italicized "uh")
ə
uu French tu, German über y ü

Nasalized Vowels

Flutopedia Pronunciation Examples
in Varions Language
differences
from
DictCom
IPA
aan French bien an ɛ̃
ahn French croissant ahn ɑ̃
awn French bon awn ɔ̃
oen French parfum œn œ̃
iin Portugese Principe in

 
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To cite this page on Wikipedia: <ref name="Goss_2022_pronunciation"> {{cite web |last=Goss |first=Clint |title=Pronunciation Guide |url=http://www.Flutopedia.com/pronunciation.htm |date=7 June 2022 |website=Flutopedia |access-date=<YOUR RETRIEVAL DATE> }}</ref>