Finno-Ugric transcription

Finno-Ugric transcription (FUT) or the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist; it was somewhat modified in the 1970s.

FUT differs from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notation in several ways, notably in exploiting italics or boldface rather than using brackets to delimit text, in the use of small capitals for devoicing, and in more frequent use of diacritics to differentiate places of articulation.

The basic FUT characters are based on the Finnish alphabet where possible, with extensions taken from Cyrillic and Greek orthographies. Small-capital letters and some novel diacritics are also used.

Unlike the IPA, which is usually transcribed in Roman typeface, FUT is transcribed in italic and bold typeface. Its extended characters are found in the Phonetic Extensions and Phonetic Extensions Supplement blocks. Computer font support is available through any good phonetics font, though lower-case and small-capital may not be visibly distinct in letters such as o where these look similar.

Vowels

Several vowel transcription systems have been used in FUT; the chart below is just one example. A vowel to the left of a dot is illabial (unrounded); to the right is labial (rounded). The open-mid row may be omitted for certain lects.

In addition:

• y and ɯ may be used for close front and central rounded ü and u̮.
• æ may be used for the vowel between ä and ɛ; œ between ɑ̈ and ɔ̈; ø between ɔ̈ and ö.
• å (or aₒ when other diacritics are present) may be used for rounded open vowels instead of ɑ.
• ᴖ may be used for open-mid rounded vowels instead of ɔ; ᴗ for open unrounded vowels instead of a.
• FUT has dedicated characters for wildcards or to denote a vowel of uncertain quality: ʌ (or in some sources ɜ) denotes any vowel. ᴕ (in some sources with the top ring closed) denotes any back vowel. ᴕ̈ denotes any front vowel. ə may denote any central vowel, though more typically denotes a reduced e. ɔ may denote any devoiced vowel in systems which do not use it for rounded open-mid vowels.

Consonants

The following table describes the consonants of FUT. The following can be noted:

• A 'spirant' in this usage is a non-sibilant fricative.
• Under 'approximants', v w j ɦ and their voiceless counterparts are 'semivowels', while ɹ ɹ̤ are 'vibrationless rhotics'.
• Palatalized consonants are indicated with an acute accent. Only a few are shown in the table; the velar letters with an acute are commonly used for palatal consonants.
• A few obvious expansions have been made, such as voiceless ʟ̣ to pair with voiced ḷ, and the fully expanded affricate series.

When there are two consonants in a given space, the bottom row is voiced and the top row is voiceless; when there are three, the centre row is lenis or partially devoiced, and the top row is fortis or fully devoiced (tenuis). Some sources add a second middle row for the plosives and affricates with small capitals of the voiceless consonants, so that a four way distinction between fortis, lenis, partially voiced, and fully voiced is maintained.

ʟ̌ l‌̌ (not shown in the table) are lateral fricatives. v̌ and ȟ in the table are also fricatives derived from letters for approximants.

Other sources have ᴃ and ᴆ (ᴅ̶) for fricative ʙ ᴅ, ᴩ ϱ for the uvular trills, and ᴥ for the glottal stop ʔ.

The Uralic languages transcribed with this system do not contain non-pulmonic consonants except paralinguistically, thus only clicks are supported by FUT. There are two conventions: a leftward arrow, for p˿ b˿ t˿ d˿ ḱ˿ ǵ˿ etc., and Greek letters, for ᴨ π ᴛ τ ᴋ κ etc. Nasal clicks can presumably be written ᴍ˿ m˿ ɴ˿ n˿ ᴎ́˿ ή˿ etc. under the first convention.

Modifiers

From extremely short (superscript) to extra-long (circumflex), length of vowels and consonants is indicated as follows:

ᵃ ă a a˴ à a͐ ā â

For diphthongs, triphthongs and prosody, Finno-Ugric transcription uses several forms of the tie or double breve:

• The triple inverted breve or triple breve below indicates a triphthong[clarification needed]
• The double inverted breve, also known as the ligature tie, marks a diphthong[clarification needed]
• The double inverted breve below indicates a syllable boundary between vowels[clarification needed]
• The undertie is used for prosody[clarification needed]
• The inverted undertie is used for prosody.[clarification needed]

Differences from IPA

A major difference is that IPA notation distinguishes between phonetic and phonemic transcription by enclosing the transcription between either brackets [aɪpʰiːeɪ] or slashes /aipie/. FUT instead uses italic typeface for the former and bold typeface for the latter.

For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance:

• For the voiced dental fricative, FUT uses a Greek delta δ, while IPA uses the letter eth [ð]. In FUT, eth ð stands for an alveolar tap, IPA [ɾ].
• FUT uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, [χ] stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is [x] (not used in FUT except as a wildcard for any consonant).
• FUT uses small caps for devoiced sounds (ᴀ ʙ ᴅ ɢ ᴇ etc.), while IPA uses a ring diacritic.

Examples:

*Not recognized in any sources, shown for example purposes.

Encoding

The IETF language tags register fonupa as a subtag for text in this notation.

Font support

Few system fonts support the small capitals. Support is available through any good phonetics font, such as (among free fonts) Gentium, Andika, Noto, Segoe and EB Garamond, though lower-case and small-capital ᴄ, л, o, v, w and z may not be distinct in italic typeface and are rarely distinct in bold. DejaVu and EB Garamond do not support the stacked diacritics in š́, ᴢ̌́, ž́. EB Garamond includes the Unicode small capitals in its roman typeface but not in italic or bold, so automated formatting is applied, which makes the small capitals more distinct. Following are pairs of small capital and lower case in these fonts; the fonts must be installed on your computer or phone to display here.

Sample

This section contains some sample words from both Uralic languages and English (using Australian English) along with comparisons to the IPA transcription.

See also

• Americanist phonetic notation

Notes

Bibliography

• Setälä, E. N. (1901). . Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen (in German) (1). Helsingfors, Leipzig: 15–52.
• Sovijärvi, Antti; Peltola, Reino (1970). (PDF). Helsingin Yliopiston Fonetiikan Laitoksen Julkaisuja (in Finnish) (9). University of Helsinki. hdl:.
• Posti, Lauri; Itkonen, Terho (1973). "FU-transkription yksinkertaistaminen. Az FU-átírás egyszerűsítése. Zur Vereinfachung der FU-Transkription. On Simplifying of the FU-transcription". Castrenianumin Toimitteita (7). University of Helsinki. ISBN 951-45-0282-5. ISSN .
• Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). (PDF). Unicode.