Vowels (Microsoft.Speech)

This is a listing and cross reference of the vowel phones that are used by the three phonetic alphabets that Microsoft.Speech supports. See Phonetic Alphabet Reference (Microsoft.Speech).

UPS Labeling Conventions for Vowels

The UPS labeling conventions for vowels were designed to make the phones more intuitive and maintain phonetic similarity across each class. The labels follow these conventions:

Cardinal or main vowels use single character labels
Non-cardinal vowels and common diphthongs use two characters
Maximum label length is three characters
Centralized vowel labels use X, as in AX, IX, UX
Checked vowel (usually must be followed by a consonant in a stressed syllable) labels use H, as in IH, UH
U or O signifies lip rounding, as in AU, AO, EU

The vowel chart below is based on the 1993 IPA vowel chart and displays each IPA vowel followed by its UPS equivalent. The cardinal vowels are marked in red, the checked vowels in blue, and the centralized vowels down the middle in green.

Vowel Chart

Figure 1. Correspondence Between IPA and UPS Vowels

Vowel Tables

There are four tables, each listing a different category of vowel phones:

Monophthong
Diphthong
German Diphthong
Nasal

The table columns contain the following information:

UPS. The phone label specified in Microsoft’s Universal Phone Set (UPS).
IPA. The phone label specified in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) phone set.
Unicode. The Unicode value from the IPA phone set.
SAPI ID. The Speech API (SAPI) phone ID, which in most cases is the Unicode value.
IPA Description. This column describes the features of the phone, such as place of articulation, manner of articulation, phonation type, and airstream mechanism. See the Glossary of Phonetic Terms (Microsoft.Speech) for more information about the features of phones.
ipaASCII. The equivalent phone in ipaASCII phone set for reference.
X-SAMPA. The equivalent phone in X-SAMPA for reference.
Example. A word that uses the phone and illustrates its sound.
Language. The language of the example word.

Monophthong Vowel Phones

Monophthong (literally “one sound” or “one tone”) vowels are those whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation.

UPS	IPA	Unicode	SAPI ID	IPA Description	IpaASCII	X-SAMPA	Example	Language
I	i	U+0069	0069	{hgh,fnt,unr,vwl}	I	i	feel	English
Y	y	U+0079	0079	{hgh,fnt,rnd,vwl}	Y	y	du	French
IX	ɨ	U+0268	0268	{hgh,cnt,unr,vwl}	i"	1
YX	ʉ	U+0289	0289	{hgh,cnt,rnd,vwl}	U"	}
UU	ɯ	U+026F	026F	{hgh,bck,unr,vwl}	u-	M
U	u	U+0075	0075	{hgh,bck,rnd,vwl}	u	u	too	English
IH	ɪ	U+026A	026A	{smh,fnt,unr,vwl}	I	I	fill	English
YH	ʏ	U+028F	028F	{smh,fnt,rnd,vwl}	I.	Y	hübsch	German
UH	ʊ	U+028ª	028ª	{smh,bck,rnd,vwl}	U	U	book	English
E	e	U+0065	0065	{umd,fnt,urd,vwl}	e	e	ses	French
EU	ø	U+00F8	00F8	{umd,fnt,rnd,vwl}	Y	2	blöd	German
EX	ɘ	U+0258	0258	{umd,cnt,urd,vwl}	@<umd>	@\
OX	ɵ	U+0275	0275	{umd,cnt,rnd,vwl}		8
OU	ɤ	U+0264	0264	{umd,bck,urd,vwl}	o-	7
O	o	U+006F	006F	{umd,bck,rnd,vwl}	o	o	go	English
AX	ə	U+0259	0259	{mid,cnt,unr,vwl}	@	@	ago	English
AX rho	ɚ	U+025ª	0259 02DE	{mid,cnt,rho,vwl}	R		forensic	English
EH	ɛ	U+025B	025B	{lmd,fnt,unr,vwl}	E	E	pet	English
OE	œ	U+0153	0153	{lmd,fnt,rnd,vwl}	W	9	plötzlich	German
ER	ɜ	U+025C	025C	{lmd,cnt,unr,vwl}	V"	3	bird	UK English
ER rho	ɝ	U+025D	025C 02DE	{lmd,cnt,unr,rho,vwl}	@.		bird	US English
UR	ɞ	U+025E	025E	{lmd,cnt,rnd,vwl}	O"	3\
AH	ʌ	U+028C	028C	{lmd,bck,unr,vwl}	V	V	cut	English
AO	ɔ	U+0254	0254	{lmd,bck,rnd,vwl}	O	O	dog	English
AE	æ	U+00E6	00E6	{sml,fnt,unr,vwl}	&	{	cat	English
AEX	ɐ	U+0250	0250	{sml,cnt,unr,vwl}		6	Besser	German
A	a	U+0061	0061	{low,fnt,unr,vwl}	a	a	valle	Spanish
AOE	ɶ	U+0276	0276	{low,fnt,rnd,vwl}	&.	&
AA	ɑ	U+0251	0251	{low,bck,unr,vwl}	A	A	father	English
Q	ɒ	U+0252	0252	{low,bck,rnd,vwl}	A.	Q	hot	English

Diphthong Vowel Phones

In addition to monophthongs, many languages contain diphthongs or even triphthongs. Diphthong (literally "two sounds" or "two tones") vowels are those that change quality during their pronunciation, or "glide", with a smooth movement of the tongue from one articulation to another, as in the English words eye, boy, and cow.

Diphthongs and triphthongs can be represented in UPS as vowel compounds, using the + symbol. However to make lexicons more readable, UPS also contains phones for common diphthongs. The table below shows both the compounding of two phones using the + symbol and the resultant UPS phone.

UPS Compound	UPS	IPA	SAPI ID	X-SAMPA	Example	Language	Example	Language
E + I	EI	e.ɪ	006503610069	eI	late	English	late	English
A + UH	AU	ɑ.ʊ	00610361028A	aU	foul	English	Haus	German
AO + I	OI	ɔ.ɪ	025403610069	OI	toy	English	Kreuz	German
A + I	AI	ɑ.ɪ	006103610069	ai	bite	English	Eis	German
I + AX	IYX	i.ə	006903610259	i:6	Tier	German	fear	English
Y + AX	UYX	y.ə	007903610259	y:6	Tür	German
EH + AX	EHX	ɛ.ə	025B03610259	E6	Berg	German	stairs	English
U + AX	UWX	u.ə	007503610259	u:6	Kur	German	lure	English
O + AX	OWX	o.ə	006F03610259	o:6	Ohr	German	boa	English
AO + AX	AOX	ɔ.ə	025403610259	O6	dort	German	four	English

German Diphthong Vowels

The German language has several more centering diphthongs that must be represented as phone compounds and do not have explicit UPS phones assigned to them. The ‘lng’ diacritic is included for phonetic completeness.

UPS Compound	IPA	X-SAMPA	Example	Language
IH + AX	ɪ.ə	I6	Wirt	German
YH + AX	ʏ.ə	Y6	Türke	German
EY lng + AX	e.ə	e:6	schwer	German
EH lng + AX	ɛ:.ə	E:6	Bär	German
EU lng + AX	ø.ə	2:6	Föhr	German
OE + AX	œ.ə	96	Wörter	German
A lng + AX	a.ə	a:6	Haar	German
A + AX	a.ə	a6	hart	German
UH + AX	ʊ.ə	U6	kurz	German

Nasal Vowel Phones

UPS contains phones for four nasal vowels. These are shown in the following table with French examples. The SAPI phone ID for these phones is formed from the phone IDs of the primary vowel and the nasality diacritic. The UPS phone is therefore equivalent to the compound shown in the first column.

Compound	UPS	SAPI ID	X-SAMPA	Example	Language
E nas	EN	00650303	e~	vin	French
A nas	AN	00610303	a~	vent	French
O nas	ON	006F0303	o~	bon	French
OE nas	OEN	01530303	9~	brun	French

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