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"Sounding" derives from the Old English sund, meaning "swimming, water, sea"; it is not related to the word sound in the sense of noise or tones, [2] but to sound, a geographical term. Traditional terms for soundings are a source for common expressions in the English language, notably "deep six" (a sounding of 6 fathoms).
[2] Within the chart “close”, “open”, “mid”, “front”, “central”, and “back” refer to the placement of the sound within the mouth. [3] At points where two sounds share an intersection, the left is unrounded, and the right is rounded which refers to the shape of the lips while making the sound. [4]
[2] [note 4] However, if a large number of phonemically distinct letters can be derived with a diacritic, that may be used instead. [note 5] The alphabet is designed for transcribing sounds (phones), not phonemes, though it is used for phonemic transcription as well.
The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association. It is not a complete list of all possible speech sounds in the world's languages, only those about which stand-alone articles exist in this encyclopedia.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language. These charts give a diaphoneme for each sound, followed by its realization in different dialects. The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values.
Usually, there is a pattern of even distribution of marks on the chart, a phenomenon that is known as vowel dispersion. For most languages, the vowel system is triangular. Only 10% of languages, including English, have a vowel diagram that is quadrilateral. Such a diagram is called a vowel quadrilateral or a vowel trapezium. [2]
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Pulmonic consonants make up the majority of consonants in the IPA, as well as in human language. All consonants in the English language fall into this category. [2] In the audio samples below, the consonants are pronounced with for demonstration.