The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription of Finno-Ugric languages. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist. Year 1901 ( MCMI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Eemil Nestor Setälä, (1864&ndash1935 was the acting Head of state of Finland from November 7, 1917 to November 15, 1917 Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe.

Unlike the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notational standard which concentrates on accurately and uniquely transcribing the phonemes of a language, the UPA is also used to denote the functional categories of a language, as well as their phonetic quality. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech For this reason, it is not possible to automatically convert a UPA transcription into an IPA one.

The basic UPA characters are based on the Finnish alphabet where possible, with extensions taken from Cyrillic and Greek orthographies. The Finnish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Small-capital letters and some novel diacritics are also used. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation

General

Unlike the IPA, which is usually transcribed with upright characters, the UPA is usually transcribed with italic characters. In Typography, "roman" type has two principal meanings both stemming from the stylistic origin of text typefaces from inscriptional capitals used in In Typography, italic type /ɪˈtælɪk/ or /aɪˈtælɪk/ refers to cursive Typefaces based on a stylized form of calligraphic Handwriting. Although many of its characters are also used in standard Latin, Greek, Cyrillic orthographies or the IPA, and are found in the corresponding Unicode blocks, many are not. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's These have been encoded in the Phonetic Extensions and Phonetic Extensions Supplement blocks. Font support for these extended characters is very rare; Code2000 is one font which does support them. Code2000 is a pan- Unicode digital font, which includes characters and symbols from a very large range of Writing systems It is designed and implemented

Vowels

A vowel to the left of a dot is illabial (unrounded); to the right is labial (rounded). In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the Lips during the articulation of a Vowel.

	Palatal	Central	Velar
Close	i • ü • u e • ö • o ə ä • a • å
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Other vowels are denoted using diacritics; see the section below. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as The close front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close front rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents Close-mid front unrounded vowel The close-mid front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the The close-mid front rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents The close-mid back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents In Linguistics, specifically Phonetics and Phonology, schwa can mean the following An unstressed and toneless neutral The open front unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The open back unrounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The open back rounded vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that A near-close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an The open-mid vowels make a class of Vowel sounds used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned A near-open vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as

The UPA also uses three characters to denote a vowel of uncertain quality:

• ɜ denotes a vowel of uncertain quality;
• ᴕ denotes a back vowel of uncertain quality;
• ᴕ́̈ denotes a front vowel of uncertain quality

Consonants

The following table describes the consonants of the UPA. Note that the UPA does not distinguish voiced fricatives from approximates, and does not contain many characters of the IPA such as [ɹ].

When there are two or more consonants in a column, the rightmost one is voiced; when there are three, the centre one is partially devoiced.

Modifiers

UPA modifier characters

Character	Unicode	Image	Description	Use
ạ	U+0323		dot below	Palatal variant of vowel
a̮	U+032F		breve below	Velar variant of a vowel
ā	U+0304		macron	Long form of a vowel; also by duplication
a͔	U+0354		left arrowhead below	Advanced form of a vowel or consonant
a͕	U+0355		right arrowhead below	Retracted form of a vowel or consonant
a̭	U+032D		circumflex below	Raised variant of a vowel
a̬	U+032C		caron below	Lowered variant of a vowel
ă	U+0306		breve	Shorter or reduced vowel
a̯	U+032F		inverted breve below	Non-syllabic, glide or semi-vowel
ʀ	—		small capital	Unvoiced or partially voiced version of voiced sound
i	—		superscripted character	Very short sound
ə	—		subscripted character	Coarticulation due to surrounding sounds
ᴞ	—		Rotated (180°) or sideways (−90°)	Reduced form of sound

Sample use of UPA

This section contains some sample words from both Finno-Ugric languages and English (using Australian English) along with comparisons to the IPA transcription. In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians

External links

• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet characters for the UCS