Americanist phonetic notation

Americanist phonetic notation, also called the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), is a special way to write down sounds in words. It was created by people who study languages and cultures, especially those from Europe and America. They made it to help write the sounds of many different languages, including those spoken by indigenous peoples of the Americas and languages from Europe.

Even though its name says “Americanist,” this system is used all over the world. For example, it is used to write Arabic in a famous German journal. It uses special symbols called diacritics to show small differences in sounds, which helps when writing languages that have many similar sounds.

Americanist notation is a bit different from another system called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). While IPA tries to use few diacritics, Americanist notation uses them more often. This makes it very useful for showing the exact sounds in many different languages.

Summary contrast with the IPA alphabet

Some symbols in NAPA used to look the same as those in the International Phonetic Alphabet, but they don’t anymore. For example, the symbol ⟨ι⟩ is no longer used in the International Phonetic Alphabet. Over time, NAPA has become more like the International Phonetic Alphabet, but there are still big differences.

These differences include using special symbols like ⟨y⟩ for a certain sound, ⟨ñ⟩ for another, and special marks above letters to show different sounds. There are also symbols for stress and special vowel sounds.

History

John Wesley Powell used early phonetic symbols in his work on American languages, choosing symbols from other phoneticians and writers. Later, Franz Boas used a different set of symbols, and in 1916, the American Anthropological Society expanded on Boas’s alphabet. This alphabet was discussed and changed by others in the following years. You can see this notation in journals like American Anthropologist, International Journal of American Linguistics, and Language.

Americanist phonetic notation is different from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Unlike IPA, it mixes letters from Greek and Latin alphabets and often adds marks to letters to show different sounds. This approach was chosen because it was easier to create using existing printing styles, saving time and money. Some American linguists preferred this method over IPA for various reasons, including differences in academic traditions.

Alphabet

Consonants

The Americanist Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA) has no central authority. The Western Institute for Endangered Language Documentation (WIELD) recommends certain conventions for Native American languages since 2016, but NAPA is used widely beyond the Americas, such as in Africa.

Special symbols are used for sounds like advanced ⟨C̯⟩ and retracted ⟨C̣⟩. Geminate sounds are shown as ⟨C꞉⟩ or ⟨CC⟩. Glottalization, including ejectives, uses a combining diacritic, for example ⟨č̓⟩ or ⟨m̓⟩. Palatalization is written as ⟨Cʸ⟩. Other features like labialization and aspiration follow the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) rules.

Differences from the IPA include using specific symbols for affricates and diacritics to show dental and retroflex sounds. The symbol y is used for its English consonantal value, and r represents a tap instead of a trill.

Notes:

• Among the dental fricatives, ⟨θ ð⟩ are slit fricatives (non-sibilant) while ⟨s̯ z̯⟩ are grooved fricatives (sibilant).

Rhotics table

About 90% of languages have only one rhotic consonant. Rhotic consonants are usually transcribed with the ⟨r⟩ character, which is common in Americanist and other notation systems like the IPA. This simple approach requires careful reading of a language's description to understand the exact sound. A list of rhotics is provided below.

Other flaps are shown as ⟨ň⟩, ⟨l͏̌⟩, etc.

Common alternate symbols

Many different symbols are used in Americanist transcription. Here are some examples of equivalent symbols:

• ⟨ȼ⟩ may be used for ⟨c⟩ (= ⟨ts⟩), or for ⟨ð⟩.
• ⟨č̣⟩ may be used for ⟨c̣⟩ (= ⟨tṣ⟩).
• ⟨j⟩ may be used for ⟨ʒ⟩ (= ⟨dz⟩).
• ⟨ǰ⟩ may be used for ⟨ǯ⟩ (= ⟨dž⟩).
• ⟨ȷ́⟩ may be used for ⟨ʒ́⟩ (= ⟨dź⟩).
• ⟨ƚ⟩ may be used for ⟨ł⟩.
• ⟨φ⟩ may be used for ⟨ɸ⟩.
• ⟨G⟩ may be used for ⟨ġ⟩.
• ⟨X⟩ may be used for ⟨x̣⟩.
• ʸ may be used for fronted velars (e.g., kʸ = k̯, gʸ = g̑).
• Some transcriptions superscript the onset of doubly articulated consonants and the release of fricatives, e.g. ⟨ᵍɓ⟩, ⟨t̓ᶿ⟩.
• There may be a distinction between laminal retroflex ⟨č̣ ṣ̌ ẓ̌⟩ and apical retroflex ⟨c̣ ṣ ẓ⟩ in some transcriptions.
• The fronting diacritic may be a caret rather than an inverted breve, e.g. dental ⟨ṱ⟩ and palatal ⟨k̭⟩.
• Many researchers use the x-caron (x̌) for the voiceless uvular fricative.
• The use of the standard IPA belted l (ɬ) for the voiceless lateral fricative is becoming increasingly common.

Pullum & Ladusaw

According to Pullum & Ladusaw (1996), typical Americanist usage at the time followed certain patterns. There was little standardization of rhotics, and ⟨ṛ⟩ could be either retroflex or uvular. Only precomposed affricates are shown below; others may be indicated by digraphs (e.g. ⟨dz⟩).

Ejectives and implosives follow the same conventions as in the IPA, with the ejective apostrophe placed above the base letter.

Pike

Pike (1947) provides the following set of symbols:

Voiceless, voiced and syllabic consonants may also be C̥, C̬ and C̩, as in IPA. Aspirated consonants are Cʻ or C̥ʰ / C̬ʱ. Non-audible release is indicated with superscripting, Vꟲ.

Fortis is C͈ and lenis C᷂. Labialization is C̮ or Cʷ; palatalization is Ꞔ, C⁽ⁱ⁾ or Cʸ; velarization is C⁽ᵘ⁾, and pharyngealization is C̴.

Other airstream mechanisms include pulmonic ingressive C^←, ejective Cˀ, implosive Cˁ, click C˂, and lingual ejective (spurt) C˃.

Vowels

WIELD recommends the following conventions for vowels. It does not provide characters for distinctions not found in the literature:

No distinction is made between front and central for the lowest unrounded vowels. Diphthongs can be written as ⟨ai⟩ or ⟨ay⟩, depending on analysis. Nasal vowels are shown as ⟨ą⟩. Long vowels are written as ⟨a꞉⟩. A three-way length distinction may be ⟨a a꞉ a꞉꞉⟩ or ⟨a a· a꞉⟩. Primary and secondary stress are shown as ⟨á⟩ and ⟨à⟩. Voicelessness is shown as ⟨ḁ⟩, similar to IPA. Creak, murmur, rhoticity, etc., follow IPA conventions.

Pullum & Ladusaw

According to Pullum & Ladusaw (1996), typical Americanist usage at the time included the following vowel symbols:

Pike

Pike (1947) presents the following vowel symbols:

Nasalization is shown as V̨ or Vⁿ. A long vowel is V꞉ or V·; half-long is V· (raised dot). Positional variants include fronted V˂, backed V˃, raised V˄ and lowered V˅.

Bloch & Trager

Bloch & Trager (1942) proposed the following schema, which was never widely used. They used a single dot for central vowels and a dieresis to reverse backness. The only central vowels with their own letters are ⟨ɨ⟩ and ⟨ᵻ⟩.

Kurath

Kurath (1939) used the following vowel symbols. Enclosed in parentheses are rounded vowels. Apart from ⟨ʚ, ꭤ⟩ and some alignment differences, it is similar to the IPA.

Chomsky & Halle

Chomsky & Halle (1968) proposed the following schema, which was hardly ever used. In addition to the table, there was ⟨ə⟩ for an unstressed reduced vowel.

Tone and prosody

Pike (1947) provides the following tone marks:

• High: ⟨V́⟩ or ⟨V¹⟩
• Mid: ⟨V̍⟩ or ⟨V²⟩
• Norm: ⟨V̄⟩ or ⟨V³⟩
• Low: ⟨V̀⟩ or ⟨V⁴⟩

Stress is shown as primary ˈCV or ⟨V́⟩ and secondary ˌCV or ⟨V̀⟩.

Short or intermediate and long or final 'pauses' are ⟨|⟩, ⟨||⟩, as in IPA.

Syllable division is CV.CV, as in IPA, and morpheme boundaries are CV-CV.

Historical charts of 1916

The following charts were agreed by a committee of the American Anthropological Association in 1916.

The vowel chart is based on the classification of H. Sweet. The high central vowels are differentiated by moving the centralizing dot to the left rather than with a cross stroke. IPA equivalents are given in a few cases that may not be clear.

Notes:

• surd = voiceless; sonant = voiced; intermed. = partially voiced
• In the glottalized stop column, the phonetic symbol on the left represents a weakly glottalized stop (i.e. weakly ejective). The symbol on the right is strongly glottalized. Example: [k̓ ] = weakly glottalized, [kǃ] = strongly glottalized. This convention applies to glottalized stops and may be used for any glottalized consonant.
• "Laryngeal" refers to either pharyngeal or epiglottal sounds.

Anthropos (1907)

Main article: Anthropos phonetic alphabet

The journal Anthropos published its alphabet for articles in 1907. It is the same basic system that Sapir and Boas introduced to the United States. Transcription is italic, without other delimiters.

Variation between authors

The following symbols vary among well-known Americanist sources.

Encoding

The IETF language tags register fonnapa as a subtag for text using this special way of writing sounds.