A pronunciation respelling for English is a notation used to convey the pronunciation of words in the English language, which do not have a phonemic orthography (i.e. the spelling does not reliably indicate pronunciation).

There are two basic types of pronunciation respelling: "Phonemic" systems, as commonly found in American dictionaries, consistently use one symbol per English phoneme. These systems are conceptually equivalent to the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) commonly used in bilingual dictionaries and scholarly writings but tend to use symbols based on English rather than Romance-language spelling conventions (e.g. ē for IPA ) and avoid non-alphabetic symbols (e.g. sh for IPA ). On the other hand, "non-phonemic" or "newspaper" systems, commonly used in newspapers and other non-technical writings, avoid diacritics and literally "respell" words making use of well-known English words and spelling conventions, even though the resulting system may not have a one-to-one mapping between symbols and sounds.

As an example, one pronunciation of Arkansas, transcribed in the IPA, could be respelled är′kən-sô′ or in a phonemic system, and arken-saw in a non-phonemic system.

Development and use Pronunciation respelling systems for English have been developed primarily for use in dictionaries. They are used there because it is not possible to predict with certainty the sound of a written English word from its spelling or the spelling of a spoken English word from its sound. So readers looking up an unfamiliar word in a dictionary may find, on seeing the pronunciation respelling, that the word is in fact already known to them orally. By the same token, those who hear an unfamiliar spoken word may see several possible matches in a dictionary and must rely on the pronunciation respellings to find the correct match.

Traditional respelling systems for English use only the 26 ordinary letters of the Latin alphabet with diacritics, and are meant to be easy for native readers to understand. English dictionaries have used various such respelling systems to convey phonemic representations of the spoken word since Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, the earliest being devised by James Buchanan was featured in his 1757 dictionary Linguæ Britannicæ Vera Pronunciatio, although most words therein were not respelled but given diacritics; since the language described by Buchanan was that of Scotland, William Kenrick responded in 1773 with A New Dictionary of the English Language, wherein the pronunciation of Southern England was covered and numbers rather than diacritics used to represent vowel sounds; Thomas Sheridan devised a simpler scheme, which he employed in his successful 1780 General Dictionary of the English Language, a much larger work consisting of two volumes; in 1791 John Walker produced A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, which achieved a great reputation and ran into some forty editions. Today, such systems remain in use in American dictionaries for native English speakers, but they have been replaced by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in linguistics references and many bilingual dictionaries published outside the United States.

The pronunciation which dictionaries refer to is some chosen "normal" one, thereby excluding other regional accents or dialect pronunciation. In England this standard is normally the Received Pronunciation, based upon the educated speech of southern England. The standard for American English is known as General American (GA).

Sophisticated phonetic systems have been developed, such as James Murray's scheme for the original Oxford English Dictionary, and the IPA, which replaced it in later editions and has been adopted by many British and international dictionaries. The IPA system is not a respelling system, because it uses symbols not in the English alphabet, such as ð and θ. Most current British dictionariesSuch as The Oxford BBC Guide to Pronunciation Mind your language , by Dot Wordsworth, in The Spectator, November 7, 2007. use IPA for this purpose.

Traditional respelling systems The following chart matches the IPA symbols used to represent the sounds of the English language with the phonetic symbols used in several dictionaries, a majority of which transcribe American English.

These works adhere (for the most part) to the one-symbol-per-sound principle. Other works not included here, such as Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language (unabridged, 2nd ), do not adhere and thus have several different symbols for the same sound (partly to allow for different phonemic mergers and splits).

Consonants Wikipedia Examples č ᴄʜ ch c͜h ch ch c̷h ch ch ch ch ch, tch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch ch, tch ch ch ch, tch church g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g, gh game h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h hh h h h h h hat hw hw (h)w hw hw hw hw hw hw hw   hw (h)w w hw hw wh which ǯ j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j j jh j j j j j judge k k k k k k k k k k k k, ck k k k k k k k k k k k k kick x x ᴋʜ ᴋʜ ᴋ͜ʜ kh ʜ ḵ kh (χ) k͟h hh xh ᴋʜ kh kh loch (Scottish and Irish)Buch (German) ŋ ŋ ɴɢ ng n͡g ng ng ŋ ng ng ng ŋ ng ng ng ng ng ng ng ng ng ng (ng-g, nk) ng ng ng thing s s s s s s s s s s s s s, ss s s s s s s s s s s s s, ss sauce š ꜱʜ sh s͜h sh sh s̷h sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh ship θ θ ᴛʜ th t͜h th th t̷h th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th th thin ð ð ᴛ͟ʜ 𝑡ℎ ᵺ th t͟h 𝑡̷h ᵺ T̶H th꞉ t͟h dh dh t͟h dh dh TH t͟h dh 𝑡ℎ dh dh dh this j y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y y yes ž ᴢʜ zh z͜h zh z͟h z̷h zh zh zh zh zh zh z͟h zh zh zh zh zh zh zh zh zh zh vision The following letters have the same values in all systems listed: b, d, f, l, m, n, p, r, t, v, w, z. Vowels AmE, BrE Wikipedia Examples æ æ a ă a a a a a a a a a ă a a a a a ae a a (arr) a a a (arr) cat e e(y) ā ā ā ay ay ā ay ā ay ā ay ā ay ā eh ay, a_e ay ey ey ay ay ay ay day εr e(ə)r âr âr air air – – âr air er air ār air ār, er air air air eh r air air ehr, euh air air hair a ä ä ä ah aa ä aw, o ä ah ä, ȧ ah ah aa ä ah ah ah aa ah aa aa ah ah father ar är är är ahr aar är – är ahr är ar a͡r aar är ar ahr aa r ahr ar aar, aa ar arm ε e ĕ e eh e e ɛ e e e e ě e e e e e eh e e (err) e/eh e e (err) let i i(y) ē ē ē ee ee ē ē ē ee ē ee ē ee ē ee ee ee iy ee ee ee ee ee see ιr i(ə)r îr ēr ihr eer ir ier ir eer ēr eer ēr ihr eer iy r eer eer eer, eeuh ear eer here i ĭ i ih i i i i i i i ǐ i i i i i ih i i i i i, ih pit ay ī ī ī y ī ī y ī igh ī igh ī ī ī ai eye, i_e, ye ɪ ay ahy igh, y ai/i_e uy y, eye by a ä ŏ o o o ä o o ah ä o ǒ o o o o o aa o o (orr) aa, o o o (orr) pot o o(w) ō ō ō oh ō ō ō ō oh ō oh ō ō ō oh oh, o_e oh ow oh oh ow oh oh no ɔ ô ô ô aw aw ô aw, o ô aw ȯ aw aw aw ö aw aw aw ao aw aw aa, aw aw aw caught ôr ôr ôr awr ȯr or ör or orao r awr or or, aw or north ōr, ör awr, ohr force ɔy oi oi oi oy oy oi oy oi oi ȯi oy oi oy oi oy oi oy oy oi oy oy oy oy noise ᴜ ᴜ o͝o o͝o o͝o u o͝o oo u u̇ oo u̇ uu o͝o o͝o ŭ uu u uu uh 𝑜𝑜 uu u oo uu took ᴜr ᴜr o͝or o͝or o͝or ur oor u̇r oor u̇r oor oor oor oor oor uh r 𝑜𝑜r oor oor, uor oouh oor tour u u(w) o͞o o͞o o͞o oo oo o͞o ū ü oo꞉ ü oo o͞o o͞o oo oo oo oo uw oo oo oo ooh oo soon aᴜ aw ou ou ou ow ow ou ow ou ow au̇ ow ow ow ow ow ou ow aw ou ow au ow ow out ʌ ə ŭ u uh u u ꭒ u uh ə u ǔ u u u uh ə ah uh u uh u u cut ər ər ûr ûr ur ur ʉr er ėr er ər ur e͡r ər ûr ur ur ər er ur ur ur, uh er ur word ə ə ə ə ə uh ə ə e ə uh ə uh 𝑎, 𝑒, 𝑖, 𝑜, 𝑢 ə ə uh uh ə ah 𝑢ℎ uh uh uh ə about ər ər ər ər uhr ər ər er ər er ər ur er ər ər ur ər er er uhr r, uh ər butter ju yu yo͞o yo͞o yo͞o yoo yoo yo͞o yū yü yoo꞉ yü yoo ū yo͞o ū yoo yoo y uw yoo yoo yoo yooh ew view Stress Wikipedia Examples á ˈa a′ a′ á a′ a′ a′ A A a· á a' a a a 1 a A a (')a A primary stress à ˌa a′ a′ a′ a a′ a a(a·) a a a 2 a a a .a secondary stress a a a a a a 0 a a a tertiary stress

Title abbreviations IPA – Compromise dialect-neutral English pronunciation using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), as used in Wikipedia. K&K – General American pronunciation using symbols largely corresponding to those of the IPA in A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English (also referred to as Kenyon and Knott) (1944 ), John S. Kenyon, Thomas A. Knott. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster. APA – Americanist phonetic notation, used primarily in linguistics literature in the U.S. NOAD – New Oxford American Dictionary (2001, 2005, 2010). New York: Oxford University Press. (Diacritical transcription). AHD – American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000). Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Also used by the Columbia Encyclopedia. RHD – Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1966). WBO – World Book Online (1998). MECD – Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary. DPL – Dictionary of Pronunciation, Abraham Lass and Betty Lass. DPN – Dictionary of Pronunciation, Samuel Noory. TBD – Thorndike Barnhart Dictionary. NBC – NBC Handbook of Pronunciation. MWCD – Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. OED – Oxford English Dictionary. COD – The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1964 ), 5th edition, E. McIntosh, ed. Oxford: OUP. (This notation was used up to the 7th edition; newer editions use the IPA.) POD – The Pocket Oxford Dictionary (2006), 2nd edition, E. Jewell, Oxford: OUP. Cham – The Chambers Dictionary (2003). CPD – The Chambers Paperback Dictionary (2012). SD – Scholastic Dictionary. BLD – Black's Law Dictionary. AB – ARPABET, a commonly used computerized encoding of English pronunciation. It is used by the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Dictcom – Dictionary.com uses a custom phonetic alphabet. BBC – BBC Phonetic Respelling. Google – Google's pronunciation dictionary. Mac - Macquarie Dictionary's "say" respelling system. Wikipedia – Wikipedia Pronunciation Respelling Key, used in some Wikipedia articles to spell out the pronunciations of English words.

Notes

Pronunciation without respelling

Some dictionaries indicate hyphenation and syllabic stress in the headword. A few have even used diacritics to show pronunciation "without respelling" in the headwords.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1st through 4th edition, used a mix of two systems. Some editions of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary have offered a method for teachers to indicate pronunciation without respelling as a supplement to the respelling scheme used in the dictionary. Pronunciation without respelling is also sometimes used in texts with many unusual words, such as Bibles, when it is desirable to show the received pronunciation. These will often be more exhaustive than dictionary respelling keys because all possible digraphs or readings need to have a unique spelling.

{| class="wikitable floatleft" style="margin-left: 4em" |+ Concise Oxford Dictionary'''s system without respelling |- ! COD variant || IPA |- | ph || |- | kn (initial) || |- | wr (initial) || |- | g, dg || (before e, i, y) otherwise |- | c || (before e, i, y) otherwise |- | ai, ay || |- | air || |- | ae, ea, ee, ie || |- | ė, ie (final), ey || |- | ear, eer, ier || |- | aw || |- | oy || |- | ou || |- | i͡r, u͡r || |- | eu, ew ||

+ Henry Adeney Redpath's table of signs in the King James Bible Symbol Original gloss Approximate IPA equivalent* - syllable boundary (always added; original hyphens become –) -́ syllable boundary after stress* or before syll. ä ah, arm, father ă abet, hat, dilemma ā tame â fare ạ call ĕ met, her, second ē mete ë a in tame ī fine ĭ him, fir, plentiful î machine ị peculiar ō alone ŏ on, protect ô nor o̱ son ū tune û rude ŭ us u̇ turner ȳ lyre y̆ typical, fully a͞a a of am a͡a a of fare ǣ, a͞e mediæval a͡i aisle a͟i hail a͞o o of alone a͡u maul e͡e heed e͡i i of fine e͡u neuter e͡w lewd o͡i oil c̣ celestial c͟h character c͞i delicious ġ giant ṡ his s͞i adhesion T͞h Thomas t͞i attraction

International Phonetic Alphabet