PHONEMES AND PHONEMICS PRIMER

To understand what a phonemic alphabet is, one must first understand what a phoneme  is.  

 

Now a phone is any sound, be it vowel or non-vowel (consonant, fricative etc., see APPENDIX 1). A phoneme is a phone (sound) with a linguistic significance in a particular language. Phonemes are specific to individual languages or sometimes to language families. Two phones (sounds) in a particular language may belong to different phonemes, or they may belong to the same phoneme, i.e. have the same “value” in that language. (You can also find basic definitions of phoneme here:  https://literarydevices.net/phoneme/ ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme ; https://www.britannica.com/topic/phoneme .).

 

A very quick and foolproof test of a phoneme in a particular language is to substitute one phone (sound) for another in a word and see if it changes the meaning of the word; if it doesn’t, the two phones are (or “belong to”) the same phoneme (they are called allophones of the same phoneme).  Phonemes are indicated by two slashes; e.g. the p-phoneme in English is indicated as /p/. 

 

Let us cite some illustrative examples which will better explain what a phoneme is: 

 

(1) In English, the “unvoiced” p sound  and the “voiced” b sound are clearly different phonemes, witness the words pet and bet, which clearly have different meanings. However, in the Chinese languages (such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujienese and Shanghainese), these two sounds, p and b, have the same value; i.e. they are part of the same phoneme. Thus, whether one says pu or bu in Mandarin, it still means “no”; whether one says Peijing or Beijing, it still signifies the same city; the substitution does not change the meaning of the word. Thus, we say that in Mandarin, the p and b phones (sounds) are the same phoneme.

 

(2) In Hindi, we have the two phones p and ph (aspirated version of p). Now if one substitutes the p in the Hindi word pal (“a moment or instant of time”) with ph, one gets phal (“fruit”), which has obviously completely changed the meaning of the word. Therefore, in Hindi, the two phones p and ph are different, distinct phonemes, with different values. On the other hand, if one pronounces the p in the English word put with a slight aspiration (like a ph), as in its  standard American and British pronunciation (as opposed to, say, the Indian or Irish pronunciation), or pronounces it without any aspiration (like plain p), as in Indian or Irish pronunciation, it is still understood as the same word, put; i.e. the meaning of the word is unchanged. So in English, p and ph are phones that belong to the same phoneme; i.e. in English, /p/ = p + ph. Or in general, in English, all unvoiced, aspirated (with breath, e.g. ph or kh) and unaspirated (e.g. p or k) phones belong to the same phoneme. 

 

(3) In Hindi, one can pronounce the words van (“forest”) and vikas (“development”) with an initial w or v sound, and it doesn’t make any difference; thus, in Hindi, the w and v sounds belong to the same phoneme. However, in English, these sounds quite evidently belong to different phonemes, witness the words vent and went, which clearly have very different meanings. 

 

(4) In Parisian French, substitution of the “uvular-r” (coming from deep in the throat, the most common pronunciation) by the “rolled-” or “trilled-“ r  (“rrrrr”, coming from the tip of the tongue) in a word like rouler does not change the meaning of the word. Thus, these two sounds are the same phoneme in French, even though they are very different sounds. 

 

NAVLIPI claims to be the only practical alphabet that conveys such phonemic information to the reader; this in spite of the fact that, really, any universal script must be able to clearly indicate such phonemic information to be truly universal.  Thus, English or Hindi speakers, when reading words of Mandarin written in NAVLIPI script, will immediately understand that, in Mandarin, the p and b sounds have the same value and are interchangeable in words without changing the meaning of the word. Similarly, Hindi or Mandarin speakers reading English written in NAVLIPI script will immediately understand that the p and ph sounds have the same value in English and are interchangeable in words without changing the meaning of the word. 

 

It is important to remember that there are situations where certain phones (sounds) simply don’t exist in certain languages. For example, the p sound simply does not exist in most forms of Arabic, so some Arabic speakers when pronouncing English pay will say bay; and the l sound simply does not exist in standard Japanese, so some Japanese speakers when pronouncing English lay will say ray). As another, odder example, in Mexican Spanish, the x in many proper names (e.g. Ixtapa) which are of Nauhatl (one of the Aztec languages) origin, are pronounced with as an sh sound. Such situations are not related in a direct way with phonemes, and so are beyond the purview of NAVLIPI; so NAVLIPI is not involved in any way in such situations. 

 

Here are some examples of phonemic transcription in NAVLIPI: 

• Mandarin: 
  • For both the p- and b-sounds; written in NAVLIPI as b_∞ . 
  • For both alveolar t and d-sounds written in NAVLIPI as d_∞ 
  • Example>: “Apple”, ping2 guo3 (numbers denote tones), 苹果.  Written in NAVLIPI as b_∞i⌡n_og (or b_∞i⌡~g)   g_∞uo⌠ᴗ (including NAVLIPI tone marks (⌡) and (⌠ᴗ)).
• English: 
  • p_o for both p (unaspirated) and ph (aspirated) sounds, which are part (“allophones”) of the same phoneme in English; i.e. they have the same value, and interchanging them does not change the meaning of a word. 
  • tt_o for both alveolar t and th-sounds, which are again part of the same phoneme in English.
• Hindi, several other North Indian languages:  
  • vw for both the v and w sounds. As is well known, in these languages, these two sounds are part of the same phoneme and have the same value; they can be freely interchanged without changing the meaning of a word. E.g., one can say van and wan and still be understood to mean “forest”. To convey this information, and accommodate this, NAVLIPI uses the diglyph vw. 
  • ph₈ for both f and ph-sounds. Again, in these languages, these two sounds are freely interchanged without changing the meaning of a word; e.g., one can say phal (फल) or fal (फ.ल) and still be understood to mean “fruit”.   In NAVLIPI, this word would be rendered ph₈al. 
• Standard French, Hochdeutsch (standard German):  
  • xr for both the “throaty-r” (uvular sound) and the “rolled-r” (or “trilled”) sounds, which are part of the same phoneme in these languages.  Thus, French rouler would be rendered in NAVLIPI as xrouler.  
• Tamil: 
  • Both dental t and th sounds written in NAVLIPI as t_o . Again, this is because Tamil doesn’t differentiate between aspirated (महाप्राण) and unaspirated (अल्पप्राण) sounds which are part of the same phoneme in Tamil; Tamil speakers frequently freely interchange and confuse the two. 

 

The reader may well ask, “why is a phonemic script or conveying phonemic information necessary at all?”! 

 

Although there are many reasons, expounded in other NAVLIPI documents, one of the most simple reason is that that it becomes very difficult to write different languages which have very different phonemes, such as English and Mandarin, or Hindi and Tamil, in a single, universal script. Even the IPA alphabet has no way of conveying such phonemic information. 

 

Generally speaking, if one wants to read a different language in the same, universal script, one needs to understand the unique, phonemic vagaries of that language. Thus, a native English speaker, when reading Mandarin common speech (Putonghua) in a universal script, needs to know that he/she can pronounce p as b and vice versa without any effect. Or a Tamil speaker needs to know, when reading Hindi in the universal script, that he/she needs to be careful to distinguish aspirated (महाप्राण) from unaspirated (अल्पप्राण) sounds. 

 

Other, less important reasons for conveying phonemic information in a script are that being able to garner phonemic information on a language while reading it in a common, universal script greatly helps greatly in learning or comprehending that language. Thus, such a universal, phonemic script can greatly help in language learning in the world.

 

Just some examples of the manner in which NAVLIPI transcribes phonemic information are given below: 

 

• p_o (the letter p with a subscripted little-circle) is used to represent the /p/ phoneme of English (see description above), i.e. both the p and the ph phones. That is to say, p_o = p + ph. This tells the non-English-speaking reader who may be reading English in the NAVLIPI script that this sound can be uttered as either p or ph and it would not make a difference to the meaning of English words. More generally speaking, the subscripted little-circle is used by NAVLIPI to designate “unaspirated + aspirated” in all languages. In English transcribed in Navlipi then, the words put and spy, would be written as p_outt_o and sp_oaa,. 

 

• b_∞ (the letter b with a subscripted infinity sign) is used to represent the /b/ phoneme of Mandarin common speech (see description above), i.e. both the p and the b sounds. That is to say,  b_∞ = p + b. This tells the non-Mandarin-speaking reader who may be reading Mandarin in the NAVLIPI script that this sound can be uttered as either p or b and it would not make a difference to the meaning of Mandarin words. Now the reader may ask, why is this not written as p_∞? The answer is simple: This Mandarin phoneme is more commonly pronounced as b rather than as p. Thus, one more commonly hears bu rather than pu, although both mean the same thing in Mandarin (“no, not”). More generally speaking, the subscripted infinity-sign is used by NAVLIPI to designate “unvoiced + voiced” in all languages.

 

• The uvular-r + rolled–r phoneme of Parisian French (see description above) is written as two letters (a digraph), xr, showing that one could pronounce this either as the uvular fricative x or the rolled-r. This tells the non-French-speaking reader who may be reading French in the Navlipi script that this sound can be uttered as either x or rr and it would not make a difference to the meaning of French words.

 

• The w + v phoneme of Hindi (see description above) is also written simply as two letters, vw. This tells the non-Hindi-speaking reader who may be reading Hindi in the Navlipi script that this sound can be uttered as either w or v and it would not make a difference to the meaning of Hindi words.