Utent:Apcbg/Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English

The Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English is a system for the phonemic transcription of English language, based on the Basic Roman spelling of English. Unlike other transcription systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), it uses no additional characters or diacritics.

Basic Roman spelling of English

The Basic Roman spelling of English is a 2002 proposal for English spelling regularity based on five underlying principles:

• reliance on the Basic modern Latin alphabet, with no additional characters or diacritics used;

• single-valued spelling, with no phoneme rendered by two or more graphemes;

• short vowels are spelled by single letters, while long vowels and diphthongs are spelled by digraphs;

• diphthongs are spelled in accordance with the spelling of their components, and long vowels either as diphthongs or by doubling the letters spelling the respective short vowels;

• short vowels and consonants are spelled in a way that is common for the traditional orthography of most Romanized languages including English.

In compliance with these phonemic principles, Basic Roman explicates the vowel alternations in stressed syllables originating in the Great Vowel Shift of Early Modern English, offering a wider international perspective that transcends Noam Chomsky’s defense of traditional English spelling. The Basic Roman system serves no particular standard of English pronunciation, but rather provides the means that could be used for the spelling of different varieties of English. The system uses 22 Roman letters to represent the set of English phonemes considered by John C. Wells; the letters ‘j’, ‘q’, ‘w’ and ‘x’ are not used (letters ‘j’ and ‘w’ are used in an extended version of the Basic Roman spelling, see below).

IPA	Basic Roman spelling	word
monophthongs
iː	iy	bead
ɪ	i	bid
ɛ	e	bed
æ	a	bad
ɒ	o	box
ɔː	oo	pawed
ɑː	aa	bra
ʊ	u	good
uː	uu	booed
ʌ	a	bud
ɜr	non-rhotic: aa │ rhotic: aar	bird
ə	a	Rosa's
diphthongs
eɪ	ey	bayed
oʊ	ou	bode
aɪ	ay	cry
aʊ	au	cow
ɔɪ	oy	boy
ɪər	non-rhotic: ia │ rhotic: iar	near
ʊər	non-rhotic: ua │ rhotic: uar	boor
ɛər	non-rhotic: ea │ rhotic: ear	fair
consonants
m	m	me
n	n	name
ŋ	ng	sing
p	p	peak
b	b	best
t	t	top
d	d	do
k	k	kiss
g	g	green
ts	ts	ts
tʃ	ch	cheer
dʒ	dzh ( j )	joy
f	f	fix
v	v	view
θ	t ( th )	think
ð	d ( dh )	this
s	s	sea
z	z	zoo
ʃ	sh	ship
ʒ	zh	vision
x	h ( hh )	loch (Scottish)
h	h	he
ɾ	r	river
j	y	yes
w	u ( w )	west
l	l	like

By way of illustration, the following reference text by Valerie Yule is given in traditional spelling and in Basic Roman (shown is the non-rhotic version; in the rhotic one, relevant words like ‘daughter’, ‘heart’, ‘pictures’ etc. are spelled ‘dootar’, ‘haart’, ‘pikcharz’ etc.):

Once upon a time, the beautiful daughter of a great magician wanted more pearls to put among her treasures. “Look through the centre of the moon when it is blue,” said her royal mother in answer to her question. “You might find your heart’s desire.” The fair princess laughed, because she doubted these words. Instead, she used her imagination, and moved into the photography business, and took pictures of the moon in colour. “I perceive most certainly that it is almost wholly white,” she thought. She also found that she could make enough money in eight months to buy herself two lovely huge new jewels too.

Uans apon a taym, da byutiful doota av a greyt madzhishan uontid moo paalz tu put amang haa trezhaz. “Luk tru da senta av da muun huen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal mada in ansa tu haa kueschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats dizaya.” Da fea prinses laaft, bikoz shi dautid diyz waadz. Insted, shi yuzd haa imadzhineyshan, and muuvd intu da fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz av da muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust saatanli dat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi toot. Shi olsou faund dat shi kud meyk inaf mani in eyt mants tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyudzh nyu dzhuualz tuu.

Extended Basic Roman

A more elaborate version of the system is the Extended Basic Roman spelling of English, which uses also the letters ‘j’ and ‘w’, and has two specific digraphs for the English voiced and voiceless dental fricatives. The above sample text would appear in Extended Basic Roman (non-rhotic version) as follows:

Wans apon a taym, dha byutiful doota av a greyt majishan wontid moo paalz tu put amang haa trezhaz. “Luk thru dha senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed haa royal madha in ansa tu haa kweschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo haats dizaya.” Dha fea prinses laaft, bikoz shi dautid dhiyz waadz. Insted, shi yuzd haa imajineyshan, and muuvd intu dha fotografi biznis, and tuk pikchaz av dha muun in kala. “Ay paasiyv moust saatanli dhat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi olsou faund dhat shi kud meyk inaf mani in eyt manths tu bay haaself tuu lavli hyuj nyu juualz tuu.

The Extended Basic Roman is close to one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence, paving the way to a pronunciation respelling for English by means of the closely related Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English.

Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English

The Roman Phonetic Alphabet for English is a system based on the Extended Basic Roman spelling of English, augmented with two pairs of stress marks in order to disambiguate homographs and ensure a one-to-one phoneme-grapheme correspondence. The system has certain similarities to the systems of the NBC Handbook of Pronunciation, the Carnegie Mellon University version of Arpabet alphabet, and the World Book Dictionary.

IPA	Roman Phonetic Alphabet	word
monophthongs
iː	iy	bead \biyd\
ɪ	i	bid \bid\
ɛ	e	bed \bed\
æ	’a │ ,a	handbag \’hand,bag\
ɒ	o	box \boks\
ɔː	oo	draw \droo\
ɑː	’aa │ ,aa	bra \’braa\ grandma \’grand,maa\
ʊ	u	good \gud\
uː	uu	mood \muud\
ʌ	”a │ „a	sun \”san\ homerun \’houm„ran\
ɜr	non-rhotic: ”aa │ „aa │ aa rhotic: ”aar │ „aar │ aar	fur \”faa\ │ sunburn \’sun„baan\ │ perceive \paa’suyv\ \”faar\ │ \’sun„baarn\ │ \paa’suyv\
ə	a	ahead \a’hed\
diphthongs
eɪ	ey	made \meyd\
oʊ	ou	phone \foun\
aɪ	ay	fly \flay\
aʊ	au	cow \kau\
ɔɪ	oy	boy \boy\
ɪər	non-rhotic: ia │ rhotic: iar	near \nia\ │ \niar\
ʊər	non-rhotic: ua │ rhotic: uar	poor \pua\ │ \puar\
ɛər	non-rhotic: ea │ rhotic: ear	fair \fea\ │ \fear\
consonants
m	m	map \’map\
n	n	n@ \nout\
ŋ	ng	sing \sing\
p	p	pen \pen\
b	b	best \best\
t	t	top \top\
d	d	desk \desk\
k	k	key \kiy\
g	g	go \gow\
ts	ts	tsar \’tsaa\ │ \’tsaar\
tʃ	ch	chip \chip\
dʒ	j	joy \joy\
f	f	fix \fiks\
v	v	voice \voys\
θ	th	think \think\
ð	dh	this \dhis\
s	s	set \set\
z	z	zoo \zuu\
ʃ	sh	ship \ship\
ʒ	zh	vision \’vizhan\
x	hh	loch (Scottish) \lohh\
h	h	home \houm\
ɾ	r	red \red\
j	y	yes \yes\
w	w	west \west\
l	l	like \layk\

Primary stress is indicated by the mark ‹’›, or ‹”› in the case of /ʌ/ or /ɜr/. Secondary stress is shown by ‹,› and ‹„› respectively. Stress marks are placed before the syllables concerned.

By way of illustration, V. Yule’s reference text is given in Roman Phonetic Alphabet transcription (shown is the non-rhotic version; in the rhotic one, relevant words like ‘daughter’, ‘heart’, ‘pictures’ etc. are transcribed \’dootar\, \’haart\, \’pikcharz\ etc.):

”Wans a’pon a taym, dha ’byutiful ’doota av ”a greyt ma’jishan ’wontid moo ”paalz tu put a”mang ”haa ’trezhaz. “Luk thru dha ’senta av dha muun hwen it iz bluu,” sed ”haa ’royal ’madha in ’ansa tu ”haa ’kweschan. “Yu mayt faynd yoo ’haats di’zaya.” Dha fea ’prinses ’laaft, bi’koz shi ’dautid dhiyz ”waadz. Insted, shi yuzd ”haa i,maji’neyshan, and muuvd intu dha fo’tografi biznis, and tuk ’pikchaz av dha muun in ”kala. “Ay paa’siyv moust ”saatanli ’dhat it iz olmoust houli wayt,” shi thoot. Shi olsou faund ’dhat shi kud meyk i”naf ”mani in eyt ”manths tu bay haa’self tuu ”lavli hyuj nyu ’juualz tuu.