Americanist phonetic notation

Americanist phonetic notation (also Americanist Phonetic Alphabet, American Phonetic Alphabet, sometimes abbreviated APA) is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and Euro-American anthropologists and language scientists (former Neo-grammarians) for the phonetic and phonemic transcription of Native American languages. However, the system is generally used for transcribing any language (not soley Native American).

Alphabet

It is often useful to compare the Americanist tradition with the another widespread tradition, International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Unlike the IPA, Americanist phonetic notation does not require a strict harmony among character styles: letters from the Greek and Roman alphabets are used side-by-side. Another constrasting feature is that the Americanist tradition relies heavily on diacritics where the IPA, shunning diacritic usage, relies on newly created Greek and Roman letters with character shape modifications. The reason for these differences is the result of a different philosophy. The Americanist linguists were interested in phonetic notation that could be easily created from existing orthographies. This was seen as more practical and more cost-efficient, as most characters already existed in Greek and East European orthographies.

Consonants

Below is a generalized chart of phonetic symbols used by linguists of the Americanist tradition for transcribing consonant sounds.

				Bilabial	Labio-dental	Dental	Alveolar	Retro-flex	Alveo-palatal	Palatal (pre-velar)	Velar	Uvular (post-velar)	Pharyngeal (faucal)	Laryngeal
Stop (oral)	plain		voiceless	p		t̪	t	ṭ	t̯	k̯	k	q
			voiced	b		d̪	d	ḍ	d̯	g̑	g	ġ
	glottalized		voiceless (ejective)	p̓		t̪̕	t̕	ṭ̕	t̯̕		k̓	q̓		ʔ
			voiced (imploded)	b̓			d̓				g̓	ġ̕
Affricate	central	voiceless			pf	tθ	c	č̣	č		kˣ	qˣ̣
		voiced			bv	dð	ʒ	ǯ̣	ǯ		gγ	ġγ̇
		glottalized				t̕θ	c̓		č̓
	lateral	voiceless					ƛ
		voiced					λ
		glottalized					ƛ̕
Fricative	central	voiceless		φ	f	θ	s	ṣ	š	x̯	x	x̣	ḥ	h
						s̪
		voiced		β	v	ð	z	ẓ	ž	γ̑	γ	γ̇	ʕ
						z̪
		glottalized				s̓
	lateral	voiceless				ł
		glottalized				ł̕
Nasal		voiceless		M			N		Ñ		Ṇ
		voiced		m	ɱ	n̪	n	ṇ	ñ	ŋ̑	ŋ	ŋ̇
		glottalized		m̓			n̓				ŋ̓	ŋ̇̕
Liquid	rhotic	plain					r	ṛ				ʀ
		glottalized					r̓
	lateral	plain				l̪	l	ḷ		l̯	ʟ
		glottalized					l̕

Notes:

• Among the dental fricatives, [θ] and [ð] are slit fricatives while [s̪] and [z̪] are grooved fricatives.

Rhotics table

Most languages only have one phonemic rhotic consonant (only about 18% of the world's languages have more than one rhotic). As a result, rhotic consonants are generally transcribed with the < r > character. This usage is common practice in Americanist and also other notational traditions (such as the IPA). This lack of detail, although economical and phonologically sound, requires a more careful reading of a given language's phonological description to determine the precise phonetics. A list of rhotics is given below.

RHOTICS	Dental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Uvular
Tap		r
Flap		ᴅ
Trill		r̃
Fricative (spirant)		ř
Frictionless spirant

Alternate symbols

There are many alternate symbols seen in Americanist transcription. Below are some equivalent symbols matched with the symbols shown in the consonant chart above.

j   =   ʒ   ǰ   =   ǯ   ƚ   =   ł   ɸ   =   φ

G   =   ġ   X   =   ẋ   ʸ   =     ̯     (i.e., kʸ = k̯)

Vocalics (vowels & glides)

		Front		Central		Back
		spread	rounded	spread	rounded	spread	rounded
High	glide	y	ẅ			ÿ	w
	tense	i	ü	ɨ	ʉ	ï	u
	lax	ι	ʊ̈			ϊ	ʊ
Mid	tense	e	ö	ə		ë	o
	lax	ɛ	ɔ̈	ʌ		ɛ̈	ɔ
Low		æ		a		ɑ	ɒ

Notes:

• Voiceless vocalics can be transcribed with capital letters, eg. [W] = voiceless [w], [A] = voiceless [a].

See also

• International phonetic alphabet
• IPA in Unicode
• Phonetics
• Phonology

External links

• description of phonetics using Americanist notation (ancientscripts.com)
• APA symbols guide by David Odden (PDF file)
• Phonetics 001 (contains a simplified consonant chart of Americanist notation)

Bibliography

• Albright, Robert W. (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its background and development. International journal of American linguistics (Vol. 24, No. 1, Part 3); Indiana University research center in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, publ. 7. Baltimore. (Doctoral dissertation, Standford University, 1953).
• American Anthropological Society [Boas, Franz; Goddard, Pliny E.; Sapir, Edward; & Kroeber, Alfred L.]. (1916). Phonetic transcription of Indian languages: Report of committee of American Anthropological Association. Smithsonian miscellaneous collections (Vol. 66, No. 6). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution (American Anthropological Society).
• Bloomfield, Leonard; & Bolling George Melville. (1927). What symbols shall we use? Language, 3 (2), 123-129.
• Campbell, Lyle. (1997). American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-509427-1.
• Clark, John; & Yallop, Colin. (1995). An introduction to phonetics and phonology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19452-5.
• Odden, David. (2005). Introducing phonology. Cambridge introductions to language and linguistics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-82669-1 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-53404-6 (pbk).
• Goddard, Ives (Ed.). (1996). Languages. Handbook of North American Indians (W. C. Sturtevant, General Ed.) (Vol. 17). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-1604-8774-9.
• Herzog, George; Newman, Stanley S.; Sapir, Edward; Swadesh, Mary Haas; Swadesh, Morris; Voegelin, Charles F. (1934). Some orthographic recommendations. American Anthropologist, 36 (4), 629-631.
• Hill, Kenneth C. (1988). [Review of Phonetic symbol guide by G. K. Pullum & W. Ladusaw]. Language, 64 (1), 143-144.
• Kemp, J. Alan. (1994). Phonetic transcription: History. In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (Eds.), The encyclopedia of language and linguistics (Vol. 6, pp. 3040-3051). Oxford: Pergamon.
• MacMahon, Michael K. C. (1996). Phonetic notation. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Ed.), The world's writing systems (pp. 821-846). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
• Maddieson, Ian. (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge studies in speech science and communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The languages of Native North America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-23228-7 (hbk); ISBN 0-521-29875-X.
• Pike, Kenneth L. (1943). Phonetics: A critical analysis of phonetic theory and a technic for the practical description of sounds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Pullum, Geoffrey K.; & Laduslaw, William A. (1986). Phonetic symbol guide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-68532-2.
• Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978-present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1-20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1-3, 16, 18-20 not yet published).