Here is what I think should be a unified phoneme system for English, to be used when a word contains the same phonemes in all major dialects. This is in order to avoid cases such as voter which would be transcribed as /vəʊtə(ɹ)/ by our RP rules and /voʊtɚ/ by our GA rules. My unified system would transcribe voter as /voʊtə(ɹ)/ since there is no reason for a word like this to need two separate transcriptions. This does not apply to words such as lever which have different phonemes altogether, although my unified system may still be used for them as /ˈliː.və/ and /ˈlɛ.vɚ/ does not as clearly show phonemic differences as /ˈliː.və(ɹ)/ and /ˈlɛ.və(ɹ)/. Of course, being a system for phonemic transcription, this unified system cannot and should not be used for narrow transcriptions.
Note on rhotic vowels: Parentheses should be removed when followed by a vowel and kept in all other cases. Many people seem to forget that the US also has many non-rhotic dialects and the UK also has rhotic dialects.
| enPR (AHD) |
IPA | Examples | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RP | GA | UP | ||
| ă | æ | bad, cat, ran | ||
| ăr | æɹ | carry | ||
| ā | eɪ | bait, play, same | ||
| ä | ɑː | ɑ | ɑː | father |
| är | ɑː(ɹ) | ɑɹ | ɑː(ɹ) | arm, bard, aria |
| âr | ɛə(ɹ) | ɛɹ | eɪ(ɹ) | hair, pear, there, scary |
| ĕ | ɛ | bed, bet, end | ||
| ĕr | ɛɹ | merry | ||
| ē | iː | i | iː | ease, see |
| ĭ | ɪ | city, bit | ||
| i | i | city, very, ready | ||
| ĭr | ɪɹ | syrup, Sirius | ||
| ī | aɪ | my, rise | ||
| îr | ɪə(ɹ) | ɪɹ | iː(ɹ) | here, near, peer, serious |
| ŏ | ɒ | ɑ | ɒ | not |
| ō | əʊ | oʊ | oʊ | go, hope, know |
| ōr | ɔə(ɹ) | oɹ, ɔɹ | oʊ(ɹ) | hoarse, glory |
| ô | ɔː | ɔ | ɔː | law, caught, saw |
| ôr | ɔː(ɹ) | ɔɹ | ɔː(ɹ) | horse, more, laureate |
| oi | ɔɪ | boy, noise | ||
| o͝o, ŏŏ | ʊ | put, foot | ||
| o͝or, ŏŏr | ʊə(ɹ) | ʊɹ | uː(ɹ) | poor, tour, tourism |
| o͞o, ōō | uː | u | uː | lose, soon, through |
| ou | aʊ | house, now | ||
| ŭ | ʌ | run, enough, up | ||
| ûr | ɜː(ɹ) | ɝ | ɜː(ɹ) | fur, bird |
| ə | ə | about | ||
| ər | ə(ɹ) | ɚ | ə(ɹ) | enter |