Transcribing English vowels

For a note on how AWE organizes its group of articles on vowels, basically by aspects of sound and of writing, see category:vowels.

There are many problems in trying to represent the sounds of English in writing - the differences between individual speakers, for example; and their groupings (by age, gender, education and geographical area as a natural consequence. All descriptions of speech sounds are necessarily generalizations. AWE does not pretend to deal with any but the broadest phonemic descriptions.

There is one specific difficulty for students of language which we attempt to deal with on this page: inconsistencies in the use that different writers (and reference books) make of the International Phonetic Alphabet. That is intended to provide as objective and scientific a method as possible of describing the sounds of speech. But the symbols used to show vowel sounds are labelled differently by different authors. This is caused, partly at least, by the fact that the cardinal vowels are points on a continuum in an infinite variety of tongue movements. In continuous speech, rather than laboratory pronunciations of individual sounds, these are influenced by the sounds around them (their phonetic context), so that the precise position of the tongue in forming the vowel of 'get' is not the same as that of 'set' or ''egg'. (To describe these precisely is the province of phonetics, a subject in which AWE pretends no knowledge (see Phonemic, phonetic, phonology - further information).

What follows is a list of transcription of English vowels and diphthongs in a few of the sources which may be consulted by readers of AWE.

vowels & diphthongs: as realized in general RP	As transcribed by: Gimson Used by Crystal (1995)	Jones, 1917	Fromkin & Rodman based on Kenyon & Knott	LPD	OED	Notes
see, me, field	iː	iː	i	iː	iː
him, big, village village for some speakers	ɪ	i	ɪ	ɪ	ɪ	OED reserves i for terminals such as happy
get, fetch, ready	e	e	ɛ	e	ɛ	AWE prefers ɛ as 'get' is different from element #1 in the diphthongs /eɪ/ & /eə/
sat, hand, plait	æ	æ	æ	æ	a
are, father, calm	ɑː	ɑː	a	ɑː	ɑː	The confusion between US /a/ and British /ɑ:/ is one of the potential difficulties in transcription
cup, son, blood	ʌ	ʌ	ʌ	ʌ	ʌ	F & R use /ʌ (+ r)/ for 'bird' as well.
dog, swan, cough	É’	É”	a	É’	É’	Potential confusion between Brit. /É’/ 'dog' and US /É”/ 'dawg' -
all, saw, thought,	ɔː	ɔː	ɔ	ɔː	ɔː	- echoed by much 'shorter' US 'thot'
put, wolf, good	ÊŠ	u	ÊŠ	ÊŠ	ÊŠ
do, soon, soup, shoe	uː	uː	u	uː	uː
her, bird, turn	ɜː	ɜː	ʌ (+ r)	ɜː	ɜː
the, about, visitor, another (the schwa)	ə	ə	ʌ (+ r)	ə	ə	Sometimes a schwa + '-r' digraph is used: ɚ
ape, wait, they, say	eɪ	eɪ	e	eɪ	eɪ
time, why, high	aɪ	ai	ay	aɪ	ʌɪ
boy, choice, noise	ɔɪ	ɔi	ɔy	ɔɪ	ɔɪ
so, toe, know	əʊ	oʊ	o	oʊ	əʊ	Other US writers transcribe as /oʊ/
out, how, found	aʊ, ɑʊ	aʊ	aw, æw	aʊ	aʊ
deer, here, fierce, near	ɪə	iə	(i + r)	ɪə	ɪə	US only hears Brit. diphthongs as 'r- coloured'
care, air, square, bear	eə	ɛə	(e + r)	eə	ɛː	" " "
tour, jury	ÊŠÉ™	uÉ™	(u + r)	ÊŠÉ™	ÊŠÉ™	" " " Don't confuse this with the quasi tripthong /jÊŠÉ™/

Adapted, and enlarged, from Crystal (1995)

There are also some vowels in the IPA that may be of use to English students trying to represent the sounds of foreign languages, or variants top be found in British dialects:

Symbols	In various British dialects	Parallels in other Languages	Notes
a	[Lancastrian 'flat' 'cap']	German Mann, French patte
É£	[Scots (west coast) 'you', 'too'	French tu

Some writers recognize triphthongs in English. AWE adds one 'semi-tripthong' (containing a semi-vowel); together with the rarer combination found in 'coir' (/ɔɪ/ + /ə/). These are not universally recognized, as they are in essence all a combination of diphthong + schwa:

Sounds as realized in general RP	Symbol	Notes
'player, fair	eɪə
tire, fire, pyre	aɪə	Sometimes homophonous with 'tar', 'far' and 'par' in Marked RP
tower, flour, power, our	aÊŠÉ™	Also sometimes homophonous with 'tar', 'far' and 'par' in Marked RP
goer, Noah, lower	əʊə
royal, coir	/ɔɪə/
fury. sure, your	juÉ™	AWE calls this a semi-tripthong, as it is based on the semi-vowel /j/