Finno-Ugric transcription (FUT), or the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA), is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist; it was somewhat modified in the 1970s.
FUT differs from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notation in several ways, notably in exploiting italics or boldface rather than using brackets to delimit text, in the use of small capitals for devoicing, and in more frequent use of diacritics to differentiate places of articulation.
The basic FUT characters are based on the Finnish alphabet where possible, with extensions taken from Cyrillic and Greek orthographies. Small-capital letters and some novel diacritics are also used.
Unlike the IPA, which is usually transcribed in Roman typeface, FUT is transcribed in italic and bold typeface. Its extended characters are found in the Phonetic Extensions and Phonetic Extensions Supplement blocks. Computer font support is available through many fonts intended for phonetic transcription, though some lower-case and small-capital letters may not be visibly distinct in instances such as o.
Vowels Several vowel transcription systems have been used in FUT; the chart below is just one example. A vowel to the left of a dot is illabial (unrounded); to the right is labial (rounded). The open-mid row may be omitted for certain lects. Front Central Back Close • • • Close-mid • • • Open-mid • • • Open • • •
In addition: and may be used for close front and central rounded and . may be used for the vowel between and ; between and ; between and . (or when other diacritics are present) may be used for rounded open vowels instead of . may be used for open-mid rounded vowels instead of ; for open unrounded vowels instead of . FUT has dedicated characters for wildcards or to denote a vowel of uncertain quality: (or in some sources ) denotes any vowel. (in some sources with the top ring closed) denotes any back vowel. denotes any front vowel. may denote any central vowel, though more typically denotes a reduced . may denote any devoiced vowel in systems which do not use it for rounded open-mid vowels.
Consonants The following table describes the consonants of FUT. The following can be noted: A 'spirant' in this usage is a non-sibilant fricative. Under 'approximants', and their voiceless counterparts are 'semivowels', while are 'vibrationless rhotics'. Palatalized consonants are indicated with an acute accent. Only a few are shown in the table; the velar letters with an acute are commonly used for palatal consonants. A few obvious expansions have been made, such as voiceless to pair with voiced , and the fully expanded affricate series.
+FUT consonantsBilabialLabiodentalDentalAlveolarPalatalised alveolarRetroflexPalatal (prevelar)Palatalised velarVelarPostvelarUvularGlottalPlosiveSpirant fricativeSibilant fricativeSibilant affricateApproximantLateralTrillFlapNasal
When there are two consonants in a given space, the bottom row is voiced and the top row is voiceless; when there are three, the centre row is lenis or partially devoiced, and the top row is fortis or fully devoiced (tenuis). Some sources add a second middle row for the plosives and affricates with small capitals of the voiceless consonants, so that a four way distinction between fortis, lenis, partially voiced, and fully voiced is maintained.
In the columns where they appear, the sibilants are further split into two sub-columns: the left columns for each are described as "narrow" sibilants, while the right columns are described as "wide" sibilants. Wide alveolar UPA is approximately IPA , wide palatalised alveolar UPA is approximately IPA .
(not shown in the table) are lateral fricatives. and in the table are also fricatives derived from letters for approximants.
Other sources have and () for fricative , for the uvular trills, and for the glottal stop .
The Uralic languages transcribed with this system do not contain non-pulmonic consonants except paralinguistically, thus only clicks are supported by FUT. There are two conventions: a leftward arrow, for etc., and Greek letters, for etc. Nasal clicks can presumably be written etc. under the first convention.
Modifiers From extremely short (superscript) to extra-long (circumflex), length of vowels and consonants is indicated as follows: ᵃ ă a a˴ à a͐ ā â
+ FUT modifier charactersExample Description Use diaeresis above 'Palatal' (front) vowel; interdental consonant (e.g. interdental t) dot below 'Velar' (back) vowel; 'cacuminal' (retroflex) consonant diaeresis below Uvular consonant macron Long form of a vowel or consonant doubled character left arrowhead below Retracted form of a vowel or consonant (e.g. post-alveolar t) right arrowhead below Advanced form of a vowel or consonant (e.g. pre-alveolar t) circumflex below Raised variant of a vowel caron below Lowered variant of a vowel caron above Fricative variant of an approximant; 'wide' variant of a sibilant breve Shorter or reduced vowel breve below Central vowel inverted breve below Non-syllabic variant of a vowel acute accent Palatalized variant of a consonant; may be moved to the right of letters with an ascender, as with . small capital Unvoiced or lenis variant of a sound superscripted character Very short sound subscripted character Coarticulation due to surrounding sounds, or intermediate sound rotated character Reduced form of sound. Letters ambiguous when rotated 180° are rotated 90°, as with .
For diphthongs, triphthongs and prosody, Finno-Ugric transcription uses several forms of the tie or double breve: The triple inverted breve or triple breve below indicates a triphthong The double inverted breve, also known as the ligature tie, marks a diphthong The double inverted breve below indicates a syllable boundary between vowels The undertie is used for prosody The inverted undertie is used for prosody.
Differences from IPA A major difference is that IPA notation distinguishes between phonetic and phonemic transcription by enclosing the transcription between either brackets or slashes . FUT instead uses italic typeface for the former and bold typeface for the latter.
For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance: For the voiced dental fricative, FUT uses a Greek delta , while IPA uses the letter eth . In FUT, eth stands for an alveolar tap, IPA . FUT uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is (not used in FUT except as a wildcard for any consonant). FUT uses small caps for devoiced sounds ( etc.), while IPA uses a ring diacritic.
Examples: Sound FUT IPA Alveolar tap Voiced dental fricative Voiceless alveolar lateral approximant Velar lateral approximant Voiceless alveolar nasal Uvular nasal *Voiceless alveolar trill Uvular trill
*Not recognized in any sources, shown for example purposes.
Encoding The IETF language tags register as a subtag for text in this notation.
Font support Few system fonts support the small capitals. Support is available through any good phonetics font, such as (among free fonts) Gentium, Andika, Noto, Segoe and EB Garamond, though lower-case and small-capital ᴄ, л, o, v, w and z may not be distinct in italic typeface and are rarely distinct in bold. DejaVu and EB Garamond do not support the stacked diacritics in . EB Garamond includes the Unicode small capitals in its roman typeface but not in italic or bold, so automated formatting is applied, which makes the small capitals more distinct. Following are pairs of small capital and lower case in these fonts; the fonts must be installed on your computer or phone to display here.
+ Comparison of free fontsBrowser default fontitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ Gentiumitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ Andikaitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ NotoSerifitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ NotoSansitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ Segoe UIitalic ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c ᴫ л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ EB Garamonditalic ᴄ c - л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́ bold ᴄ c - л ᴏ o ᴜ u ᴠ v ᴡ w ᴢ z š́ ž́
Sample This section contains some sample words from both Uralic languages and English (using Australian English) along with comparisons to the IPA transcription.
+ Sample FUT words Language FUT IPA Meaning English 'ship' English 'ran' English 'bored' Moksha 'I sow' Udmurt 'to wash' Forest Nenets 'nostril' Hill Mari 'pine' Skolt Sami 'ermine'
See also Americanist phonetic notation
Notes
References
Bibliography