Differences From IPA
A major difference is that IPA notation allows distinguishing between phonetic and phonemic transcription, by enclosing the transcription between either brackets or slashes /ai pi e/. UPA has no corresponding standard, and context must be relied upon to distinguish the closeness of transcription.
For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance:
- UPA e, o denote mid vowels with no particular bias towards open or close, as are found in most Uralic languages. IPA, denote close-mid vowels in particular, common in Romance and West Germanic languages.
- Being designed for languages largely featuring vowel harmony, UPA has no simple way to denote a basic, backness-ambiguous schwa sound, IPA . ə denotes a reduced form of e, corresponding with IPA . A further backing diacritic must be appended, resulting in ə̑. (This may also stand for a reduced form of e̮, corresponding with IPA ; a distinction rarely encountered in practice.)
- For the voiced dental fricative, UPA uses a Greek delta δ, while IPA uses the letter eth . In UPA, eth ð stands for an alveolar tap, IPA .
- UPA uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is (a symbol unused in UPA).
- UPA uses small caps for voiceless or devoiced sounds (ᴀ ʙ ᴅ ɢ ᴇ…), while in IPA, these frequently occur as distinct basic letters (e.g. ).
- UPA does not systematically distinguish approximants from fricatives. j may stand for both the palatal approximant (IPA ) or the (IPA ), v may stand for both the labiodental approximant (IPA ) or the voiced labiodental fricative (IPA ), β may stand for the bilabial approximant (IPA ), the voiced bilabial fricative (IPA ), or in broad transcription even the labiovelar approximant (IPA ).
- UPA also does not distinguish basic palatal consonants: these must be transcribed by either palatalized alveolar or palatalized velar symbols. Thus ń may correspond to either IPA or .
Examples:
| Sound | UPA | IPA |
|---|---|---|
| Close-mid back rounded vowel | o̭ | |
| Mid back rounded vowel | o | or |
| Open-mid back rounded vowel | o̬ or å̭ | |
| Voiced dental fricative | δ | |
| Alveolar tap | ð | |
| Voiceless alveolar lateral approximant | ʟ | |
| Velar lateral approximant | л | |
| Voiceless alveolar nasal | ɴ | |
| Uvular nasal | ŋ͔ |
Read more about this topic: Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
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