pronunciation - Confused About Standard IPA


I'm looking for standard IPA but every book, even dictionaries implement it differently.


for example [ɑ] and [ɑ:] or this symbol [ɛ] vs [e].


Some books omit the [i] sound which is the last sound of word happy, and some books say that this symbol equals [iː].


This also happens to [uː]. I know that colons like symbols are for length, but why is there so many differences? Even Wikipedia says:



Please note that several of these symbols are used in ways that are specific to Wikipedia and differ from those used by dictionaries.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_English


Where is the standard form that every text should obey?


And what's the role of these ones in the game? Bold ones.


[ɑ] AH


[ɜ] UR


[ɔ] AW



Answer



The range of sounds denoted by the symbols of the IPA are defined by the International Phonetic Association. Consider the T sound: it is pronounced differently in tick (aspirated as [tʰ]), stick (unaspirated as [t]), latter (flapped as [ɾ]), and pat (unreleased as [t̚]). The IPA is an International Phonetic Alphabet, which means it has different symbols for each sound.


However, this is not how you expect a pronunciation to be denoted in a dictionary, which traditionally use phonemic systems. Such systems represent all the different ways a phoneme can be pronounced with a single symbol. The International Phonetic Association does not define how IPA symbols should be used for representing phonemes, which is what you are asking for. Indeed, there is no universal system for representing English phonemes, and there is no institute or academy that regulates English to decree one, either.


As you have discovered, the result of this situation is that every organization that has needed a phonemic system for representing English has had to borrow someone else's system or invent their own. Though they generally overlap in much of their symbol choices, there is no universal standard for the representation of English phonemes.


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