2 The need for phonetic transcription 1 Reasons

2. The need for phonetic transcription 1

Reasons for the divergence p p In Old English, the relation between sound and symbol was much more regular. Some of the sounds, especially the vowels, have undergone changes in the history of English. 2

For example, in 1400 the words put, bush, pull, cup, luck and mud all had the vowel [ ], a high front vowel, for the Londoners. By about 1550, however, the vowel in cup, luck and mud had lowered to [ ], a midhigh back vowel, whereas [ ] was retained in put, bush and pull. Later, the lowered vowel in cup, luck and mud moved through a number of stages to the front to become [a], a low front vowel, in contemporary speech. 3

A vowel split in London 4

p In some cases such change involves vowel merger, where two or three vowels have gradually become a single vowel in contemporary speech. 5

Vowel mergers in East Anglian English 6

p p Additionally, many English words have been borrowed from other languages throughout history and the irregularity of its spelling is made worse because of such borrowings. This divergence becomes greater when we consider the many accents of English used by people from different regions. 7

p p Because of these reasons, it is necessary to devise sets of symbols that can be used for transcribing sounds in language. Several such systems are in use but the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is the most widely accepted and used set of symbols for phonetic transcription. 8

3. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) In 1886, the International Phonetic Association (also shortened as IPA) was inaugurated by a small group of language teachers in France who had found the practice of phonetics useful in their teaching and wished to popularize their methods. It was first known as the Phonetic Teachers’ Association and was changed to its present title in 1897. 9

p p One of the first activities of the Association was to produce a journal in which the contents were printed entirely in phonetic transcription. The idea of establishing a phonetic alphabet was first proposed by the Danish grammarian and phonetician Otto Jespersen (1860 -1943) in 1886, and the first version of the IPA was published in August 1888. 10

p Its main principles were that n n n p there should be a separate letter for each distinctive sound, and that the same symbol should be used for that sound in any language in which it appears. The alphabet was to consist of as many Roman alphabet letters as possible, using new letters and diacritics only when absolutely necessary. These principles continue to be followed today. 11

The IPA has been revised and corrected several times and is now widely used in dictionaries and textbooks throughout the world. The present system of the IPA derives mainly from one developed in the 1920 s by the British phonetician, Daniel Jones (1881 -1967), and his colleagues at the University of London. Some of its special letters have even been accepted as part of the new orthographies devised for previously unwritten languages. 12

The Handbook of the International Phonetic Association (The IPA Handbook), published by Cambridge University Press in 1999, is an up-to-date comprehensive guide to the use of the IPA. Produced collaboratively by leading phoneticians who have been on the Executive of the Association, it incorporates materials provided by numerous members of the Association worldwide. 13