Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?

On Apr 20, 2:34 pm, Trond Engen <trond...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Christian Weisgerber skreiv:

Peter T. Daniels <gramma...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

A student of English needs to be able to use the pronunciation keys
found in English dictionaries, which except for the (new) OED, isn't
IPA. (Has IPA been inflicted on the whole family of smaller Oxford
dictionaries?)

My old Oxford Advanced Learner's, "revised and reset" in 1985,
certainly uses IPA--and anything else would have been very surprising
in this part of the world.

Pronunciations were rendered in IPA symbols in my first English school
book in fourth grade -- some 30 years ago. Moreover, as (despised
boring) homework we maintained our own glossaries in small notebooks
where we copied every new word with spelling to the left and
pronunciation to the right. Four years later it was the same procedure
with French. We never got IPA explained, though. I think we were meant
to pick up a rough value of each symbol along the way but not to be able
to write it.

Seen from here, non-IPA pronunciation keys are a bizarre American
atavism, much like pounds and inches.

And serving sizes ... Nevertheless. This bizarre American atavism is
getting increasingly common in undertranslated pocket dictionaries and
travel guides to exotic places like sher-NAYV or KAHR-law-vee VAH-ree.
(I used to see it as an excuse for the parodic accent of American
tourists, but now I must admit that it's far worse when spoken loud by a
Norwegian.) The last few years I've even seen American pronunciation
spelling in online newspaper articles that are translated from
syndicated American material.

That is NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST what I'm talking about.

The standard American pronunciation key uses macron, breve,
circumflex, and dieresis to make all the necessary vowel distinctions,
and in some instances it does it without respelling the words (my
school King James Bible from 1958 gives pronunciations for all the
unfamiliar names right in the text).
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... keys found in English dictionaries, which except for the OED, isn't IPA. ... This bizarre American atavism is getting increasingly common in undertranslated pocket dictionaries and travel guides to exotic places like sher-NAYV or KAHR-law-vee VAH-ree. ... The last few years I've even seen American pronunciation spelling in online newspaper articles that are translated from syndicated American material. ... I can see that added dots and lines can help to identify syllables and distinguish between homographs and thus serve as a guide to pronunciation within an oddly spelt language like English, but how could that system work for languages that differ from English in phonetics and ortography? ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... keys found in English dictionaries, ... OED, isn't IPA. ... American pronunciation spelling in online newspaper articles that ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... found in English dictionaries, which except for the OED, isn't ... (Has IPA been inflicted on the whole family of smaller Oxford ... This bizarre American atavism is getting increasingly common in undertranslated pocket dictionaries and travel guides to exotic places like sher-NAYV or KAHR-law-vee VAH-ree. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Pronunciation dictionaries?
    ... each language and dialectal variation. ... pronunciation key in a standard desk or student ... *If* it uses IPA. ... found in English dictionaries, which except for the OED, isn't ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: "Pronunciatiopn Plus" (Cambriidge University Press) What alphabet are they using?
    ... American English) and audio materials. ... the symbols used in the most common dictionaries sold here - Oxford. ... the vowel sound in 'cap' as /A:/ not a strange combination of 'a' and ... vowel diacritics that had found favor here well before IPA was ...
    (sci.lang)