If you’ve
looked up a name on Wikipedia, you might have noticed that pronunciation guides
are written in a script that is unlike the language the rest of the article is
written in. This is because Wikipedia uses the International Phonetic Alphabet
(the IPA, for short) to convey the pronunciation of words. For example, looking
up ‘Zimbabwe’ will return an article that also mentions /zɪmˈbɑːbweɪ,-wi/. [6] This represents two different pronunciations of the
country’s name. Specifically, the last syllable is different, and the alternate
pronunciations are separated by a comma.
Image: Screenshot
of the IPA chart revised to 2015, showing consonants at the top, followed by
vowels, other symbols, diacritics and suprasegmentals. Unlike the other classes
of sounds which are displayed in tables of lists, the vowels are displayed in a
trapezium diagram, and each point corresponds to approximately where a vowel is
produced in the mouth. Sourced from the International Phonetic Association [3]
What
is the IPA?
The IPA
chart is meant to give us a standardized way to represent human speech across
all languages. Items on the chart are organized by how the vocal anatomy, such
as the tongue and teeth, behaves to produce a sound [7, p.1]. Because a
particular symbol always corresponds to the same sound, the IPA potentially
could represent human languages in a convenient way that would not be possible
if the orthography of a particular language was used [7, p.4].
Consider
the English language in its written form. For most dialects, the letter ‘a’ is read
differently in the following words: acorn, arson and annul. The IPA could be
used to describe the three different sounds that occur at the beginning of each
word.
The IPA
Began in Europe
Although
the IPA is a useful tool for transcribing speech sounds all over the world, it
was historically created in Europe, a history that influences aspects of its
development. The organization in charge of the IPA, the International Phonetic
Association (confusingly, sharing the same acronym as the alphabet) was founded
by English and French-speaking linguists [7, p.4]. This might be reflected for
example, in how in 1888, the languages cited in the IPA were all European.
Centrally, English, French and German were used to demonstrate sounds, with a
separate category for ‘other languages’, which included more European
languages, such as Swedish, Spanish and Flemish [5].
An
encyclopedia entry quotes the organisation’s principles of 1888 saying they
wanted to use symbols to represent sounds in a way that would be similar to
“familiar” sound-symbol mappings [7, p.5]. At one point, clicks, which are
prominent for example in Southern African languages [7, p.1] were removed from
consonants and put into the category of ‘other’ symbols [1, p. 19]. Now, clicks
are considered non-pulmonic consonants, but the fact that their status as
consonants was challenged could suggest the dominance of European norms.
Additionally,
though the IPA was first introduced to the public in 1888 as an alphabet with
descriptive labels, [5] the Japanese linguist Tsutomu Akamatsu notes that many
English dictionaries made in the USA at the time of the 1990s still did not
normally use the IPA [1, p.9], which could further suggest its linkage with
European academia.
The
1989 Revision
Many
changes have been made to the IPA since its inception, as more languages have
been studied and documented. Zimman notes that the 1989 revision in particular
was a major one [7, p.5]. The International Phonetic Association met in Kiel,
Germany to revise the 1979 version of the chart, and the new revision was
approved with twenty votes for and three against, suggesting the changes were
somewhat controversial [1, p.9]. However, it is difficult to say based on this
exactly how controversial they were, since the members could only vote yes or
no [1, p.9].
One example
of the changes that were made in this revision was the removal of two
categories of sounds: ‘labial-palatal’ and ‘labial-velar’. These were sounds
that were produced in two areas of the vocal anatomy – the lips and hard palate
(roof of the mouth), and the lips and velum (an area close to the back of the
mouth, otherwise called the soft palate). The sounds formerly in those
categories were placed in ‘other symbols’, which Akamatsu suggests was a
dismissive move [1, p.13].
Another
feature that was changed was the classification of ‘pulmonic’ sounds. Pulmonic
sounds are those produced through an exhalation of air from the lungs. Interestingly,
Akamatsu also comments on the distinction between pulmonic and non-pulmonic
sounds being “abandoned” in the 1989 revision. They suggest that this
distinction, present in the 1979 version, was portrayed in a binary way and
made pulmonic consonants appear to be the norm [1, p.17]. However, as can be
seen in the chart above, the distinction is nowadays retained, with pulmonic
and non-pulmonic consonants appearing in separate charts.
Today, the way
sounds are presented in the chart arguably still reflect the dominance of
European languages as ‘the norm’. The IPA mainly uses Roman characters to
represent sounds, for example with symbols such as [k], [t] and [b], with the
additions of characters from other European alphabets, including Greek. The use
of diacritics, which are the accents added to the symbols such as a tilde or a
dot, might imply that the ‘basic’ symbol is the norm, whereas the one modified
with a diacritic is outside the norm [7, p.5].
Conclusion
Overall,
while the IPA has its strengths in representing speech sounds in a convenient
way, it also has features that arguably reflect its European origins. The
implications of this could include an unsatisfactory depiction of non-European
languages or an inequality in exactly how useful or convenient a tool this
alphabet makes between European languages and languages from the rest of the
world.
Bibliography
[1]
Akamatsu, T. (1992). "A
critique of the IPA chart (revised to 1951, 1979 and 1989)". Contextos Magazine. 10 (19–20):
7–45.
[2]
Akamatsu, T. (2003–2004). "A
critique of the IPA chart (revised to 1996)". Contextos Magazine. 21–22 (41–44): 135–149.
[3] IPA Chart, http://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-chart, available under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License. Copyright © 2018 International
Phonetic Association.
[4] Macmahon, M.
(1986). The International Phonetic Association: The first 100 years. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 16(1), 30-38. doi:10.1017/S002510030000308X
[5] Udomkesmalee, N. (2018). Historical
charts of the International Phonetic Alphabet. https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/IPA_hist/IPA_hist_2018.html
[6]Wikipedia
contributors. (2021, August 10). Zimbabwe. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 07:09, August 10, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zimbabwe&oldid=1038014153
[7] Zimman, L. (2021). International Phonetic
Alphabet. In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, J.
Stanlaw (Ed.). https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118786093.iela0179
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