40 lines
6.5 KiB
HTML
40 lines
6.5 KiB
HTML
|
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
|
|||
|
|
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Chapter 10. Pronunciation Guide</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="pt01.html" title="Part I. Introduction"/><link rel="previous" href="crackers.html" title="Chapter 9. Crackers, Phreaks, and Lamers"/><link rel="next" href="conventions.html" title="Chapter 11. Other Lexicon Conventions"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 10. Pronunciation Guide</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="crackers.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Part I. Introduction</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="conventions.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="chapter" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="pronunciation"/>Chapter 10. Pronunciation Guide</h2></div></div><div/></div><p>Pronunciation keys are provided in the jargon listings for all entries
|
|||
|
|
that are neither dictionary words pronounced as in standard English nor
|
|||
|
|
obvious compounds thereof. Slashes bracket phonetic pronunciations, which are
|
|||
|
|
to be interpreted using the following conventions:</p><p>Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an accent or back-accent
|
|||
|
|
follows each accented syllable (the back-accent marks a secondary accent in
|
|||
|
|
some words of four or more syllables). If no accent is given, the word is
|
|||
|
|
pronounced with equal accentuation on all syllables (this is common for
|
|||
|
|
abbreviations).</p><p>Consonants are pronounced as in American English. The letter
|
|||
|
|
‘g’ is always hard (as in “<span class="quote">got</span>” rather than
|
|||
|
|
“<span class="quote">giant</span>”); ‘ch’ is soft (“<span class="quote">church</span>” rather
|
|||
|
|
than “<span class="quote">chemist</span>”). The letter ‘j’ is the sound that
|
|||
|
|
occurs twice in “<span class="quote">judge</span>”. The letter ‘s’ is always as
|
|||
|
|
in “<span class="quote">pass</span>”, never a z sound. The digraph ‘kh’ is the
|
|||
|
|
guttural of “<span class="quote">loch</span>” or “<span class="quote">l'chaim</span>”. The digraph
|
|||
|
|
‘gh’ is the aspirated g+h of “<span class="quote">bughouse</span>” or
|
|||
|
|
“<span class="quote">ragheap</span>” (rare in English). </p><p>Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus
|
|||
|
|
(for example) <span class="pronunciation">/H-L-L/</span> is equivalent
|
|||
|
|
to <span class="pronunciation">/aych el el/</span>. <span class="pronunciation">/Z/</span> may be pronounced <span class="pronunciation">/zee/</span> or <span class="pronunciation">/zed/</span> depending on your local dialect.</p><p>Vowels are represented as follows:</p><div class="table"><a id="id2893582"/><p class="title"><b>Table 10.1. Vowels</b></p><table summary="Vowels" border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>a </td><td>back, that</td></tr><tr><td>ah </td><td>father, palm (see note)</td></tr><tr><td>ar </td><td>far, mark</td></tr><tr><td>aw </td><td>flaw, caught</td></tr><tr><td>ay </td><td>bake, rain</td></tr><tr><td>e </td><td>less, men</td></tr><tr><td>ee </td><td>easy, ski</td></tr><tr><td>eir</td><td>their, software</td></tr><tr><td>i </td><td>trip, hit</td></tr><tr><td>i: </td><td>life, sky</td></tr><tr><td>o </td><td>block, stock (see note)</td></tr><tr><td>oh </td><td>flow, sew</td></tr><tr><td>oo </td><td>loot, through</td></tr><tr><td>or </td><td>more, door</td></tr><tr><td>ow </td><td>out, how</td></tr><tr><td>oy </td><td>boy, coin</td></tr><tr><td>uh </td><td>but, some</td></tr><tr><td>u </td><td>put, foot</td></tr><tr><td>y </td><td>yet, young</td></tr><tr><td>yoo</td><td>few, chew</td></tr><tr><td>[y]oo</td><td><span class="pronunciation">/oo/</span> with
|
|||
|
|
optional fronting as in ‘news’ (<span class="pronunciation">/nooz/</span> or <span class="pronunciation">/nyooz/</span>)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>The glyph <span class="pronunciation">/@/</span> is used
|
|||
|
|
for the ‘schwa’ sound of unstressed or occluded vowels.</p><p>The schwa vowel is omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n;
|
|||
|
|
that is, ‘kitten’ and ‘color’ would be rendered
|
|||
|
|
<span class="pronunciation">/kit'n/</span> and <span class="pronunciation">/kuhl'r/</span>, not <span class="pronunciation">/kit'@n/</span> and <span class="pronunciation">/kuhl'@r/</span>.</p><p>Note that the above table reflects mainly distinctions found in standard
|
|||
|
|
American English (that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers
|
|||
|
|
and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago,
|
|||
|
|
Minneapolis/St. Paul and Philadelphia). However, we separate <span class="pronunciation">/o/</span> from <span class="pronunciation">/ah/</span>, which tend to merge in standard
|
|||
|
|
American. This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British
|
|||
|
|
Received Pronunciation.</p><p>The intent of this scheme is to permit as many readers as possible to
|
|||
|
|
map the pronunciations into their local dialect by ignoring some subset of the
|
|||
|
|
distinctions we make. Speakers of British RP, for example, can smash terminal
|
|||
|
|
<span class="pronunciation">/r/</span> and all unstressed vowels.
|
|||
|
|
Speakers of many varieties of southern American will automatically map
|
|||
|
|
<span class="pronunciation">/o/</span> to <span class="pronunciation">/aw/</span>; and so forth. (Standard American makes
|
|||
|
|
a good reference dialect for this purpose because it has crisp consonants and
|
|||
|
|
more vowel distinctions than other major dialects, and tends to retain
|
|||
|
|
distinctions between unstressed vowels. It also happens to be what your
|
|||
|
|
editor speaks.)</p><p>Entries with a pronunciation of ‘//’ are written-only
|
|||
|
|
usages. (No, Unix weenies, this does <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span> mean
|
|||
|
|
‘pronounce like previous pronunciation’!)</p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="crackers.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="pt01.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="conventions.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 9. Crackers, Phreaks, and Lamers </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 11. Other Lexicon Conventions</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
|