IPA

IPA stands for the International Phonetic Alphabet.

It’s the universal script that linguists use to map out the phonetic sounds of every word in every language in the world. So (theoretically) if you are familiar with the IPA you can perfectly read out loud, any text, in any language, perfectly, as long as that text is written properly in IPA. The script is a little over 100 years old and it has gained a lot of  its legitimacy from use by linguists. Here is the wikipedia article if you want to learn more.

I bring this topic up because I just finished translating all the Tigrigna terms in the English-Tigrigna dictionary into IPA. I’m not very good in the use of IPA, but I gave it my best shot; it’s also important to note that all IPA translations were based on the corresponding orthographic Tigrigna spelling, not in the “real” way that word is pronounced (sometimes these are two different things). Here is one example: ካራ

July 14, 2009 • Tags: , • Posted in: Linguistics, Tigrigna, website update

2 Responses to “IPA”

  1. Aria Gia - August 11th, 2009

    Thank you so much for this website! I love learning languages, admire African, East African culture. This blog is great!
    –
    Aria

  2. Temaharay - August 11th, 2009

    Thanks Aria. I’m glad you are enjoying it.