Help:IPA/Shan and Tai Lue

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Shan and Tai Lue on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Shan and Tai Lue in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here; do not change any symbol or value without establishing consensus on the talk page first.

For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Shortcuts

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Shan and Tai Lue pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA, and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

Consonants
IPA	Shan	Burmese	New Tai Lue	English approximation
b	ၿ ^[1]	ဘ	ᦢ,ᦥ	abash
d	ၻ,ꩨ ^[1]	ဒ	ᦡ,ᦤ	ado
f	ၾ	ဖှ	ᦚ,ᦝ	food
ɡ	ၷ ^[1]	ဂ	—	good
h	ႁ	ဟ	ᦠ,ᦣ	head
j	ယ	ယ	ᦊ,ᦍ	yak
k	ၵ	က	ᦂ,ᦅ	scan
kʰ^[2]	ၶ	ခ	ᦃ,ᦆ	can
l	လ,ꩮ	လ	ᦜ,ᦟ	live
m	မ	မ	ᦖ,ᦙ	much
n	ၼ	န	ᦐ,ᦓ	not
ŋ	င	င	ᦄ,ᦇ	bang
ɲ	ၺ^[1]	ည	—	canyon
p	ပ	ပ	ᦔ,ᦗ	span
pʰ	ၽ	ဖ	ᦕ,ᦘ	pan
r	ရ,꩹ ^[1]	ရ	ᦣ ^[1]	roughly like water (American English)
s	ၸ ^[3]	စ	ᦉ,ᦌ	sue
sʰ	သ	ဆ	—	grasshopper
ʃ	သျ	ရှ	—	shoe
t	တ,ꩦ	တ	ᦎ,ᦑ	stable
tʰ	ထ,ꩧ,ꩪ,ꩩ	ထ	ᦏ,ᦒ	table
ts	ၸ ^[3]	စ/ကျ	ᦈ,ᦋ	Betsy
tsʰ	ၶျ	ချ	—	chang
θ	ႀ ^[4]	သ	—	thing
v^[5]	—	ဝ	ᦛ,ᦞ	village
w^[5]	ဝ	ဝ	ᦛ,ᦞ	way
x^[2]	—	ခ	ᦃ,ᦆ	loch in Scottish English
z	ၹ ^[4]	ဇ	—	zebra
ʔ	ဢ	အ/ ဩ	ᦀ,ᦁ	the catch in uh-oh

Tone
IPA	Description
a or ā	mid [aː˧]
à	low [a˨˩] or [a˩]
â	falling [a˥˩] (Tai Lü only)
a̰	creaky falling [a̰˥˩] (Shan only)
á	high [a˥]
ǎ	rising [a˨˦] (Shan only)
a᷄	high rising [a˧˥] (Tai Lü only)
a᷅	low rising [a˩˧] (Tai Lü only)

Vowels
IPA	Shan	Burmese	New Tai Lü	English approximation
Short vowels
a	unmarked	အး	ᦰ	cat
e	ေ,ဵ	ေ	ᦵ	roughly like say
ɛ	ႄ, ႅ	ဲ	ᦶ	bet
i	ီ	ီ	ᦲ	happy
o	ူဝ်	ို	ᦷ	story
ɔ	ေႃ, ွ	ော	ᦸ	off
u	ု, ူ	ူ	ᦳ	cool
ɯ or ɨ	ိုဝ်	ု	ᦹ	good
ɤ or ə	ိူဝ်	ော်/ယ်	ᦵᦲ	roughly like hurt (shorter)
Long vowels
aː	ၢ, ႃ	ာ, ါ	ᦱ	bra

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f In foreign words
^ ^a ^b /kʰ/ and /x/ are in free variation.
^ ^a ^b Sometimes /s/ and /ts/ are used interchangeably.
^ ^a ^b In Burmese loanwords
^ ^a ^b /v/ and /w/ are in free variation

[foreign-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f In foreign words

[khx-2] /kʰ/ and /x/ are in free variation.

[sts-3] Sometimes /s/ and /ts/ are used interchangeably.

[Burmese-4] In Burmese loanwords

[vw-5] /v/ and /w/ are in free variation

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]