# Phonemic Symbols Listed By Language

The phonemic symbol can be used to replace words that are spoken incorrectly. See the Phoneme Interpretation command for information on how to use phonemic symbols.

DECtalk Software provides a unified phoneme set for all supported languages, allowing you to specify phonemes from different languages within the context of your current language.

The following tables list the phonemic symbols DECtalk Software uses for each supported language:

Phonemic Symbols - U.S. English

Phonemic Symbols - U.K. English

Phonemic Symbols - Castilian Spanish

Phonemic Symbols - Latin American Spanish

Phonemic Symbols - German

Phonemic Symbols - French

Some dictionaries put the stress symbol after the vowel nucleus or at the start of the syllable. DECtalk Software requires that the stress symbol appear immediately before a syllable nucleus. Click here for a list of the supported stress symbols.

Phonemes can also be given duration and pitch attributes to create special effects, such as singing and musical tones.

Note

Arpabet mode is a 2-character system. All single character symbols must be followed by a space so that faulty translations do not occur. Consider the phonemic representation of "Whitehorse," [*w’ ayt hxowr s ]. The letter "t" in this phonemic representation must be followed by a space, so that it is not interpreted as part of the phonemic symbol [th] in the representation of "whitehorse."

Some older versions of DECtalk Software supported single characters in arpabet mode. Application programs written for use with those versions may fail to function correctly when used with DECtalk Software V4.6 or higher.

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