* Czech

The Czech orthography (second column) is represented like this (to avoid any confusion due to encodings): ^ after u indicates ring accent (krouzek) ^ after other characters indicates wedge accent (caron, hacek) / after character indicates acute accent (carka)

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SAMPA           ORTHOGRAPHIC    SAMPA           ENGLISH
SYMBOL          TRANSCRIPTION   TRANSCRIPTION   TRANSLATION

Vowels

There are five short and five long vowels in Czech. 

i               mys^            miS             mouse
e               les             les             forest
a               pas             pas             passport
o               rok             rok             year
u               kus             kus             piece

i:              pi/t            pi:t            to drink
e:              le/k            le:k            drug
a:              ra/d            ra:t            glad
o:              mo/da           mo:da           fashion
u:              pu^l            pu:l            half

diphthongs

o_u             mouka           mo_uka          flour
a_u             auto            a_uto           car

schwa (reduced vowel, turned e in IPA):

@               DTW             d@t@v@          spelling of DTW

Consonants:

plosives:

p               pes             pes             dog
b               bota            bota            shoe
t               tam             tam             there
d               du^m            du:m            house
c               tito            cito            these
J\              de^d            J\et            grandfather
k               krk             kr=k            neck
g               kde             gde             where

affricates:

t_s             ci/l            t_si:l           aim
d_z             leckdy          led_zgdi         at times
t_S             c^as            t_Sas            time
d_Z             dz^ba/n         d_Zba:n          jug

fricatives:

f               forma           forma           form
v               vak             vak             bag
s               sen             sen             dream
z               zub             zup             tooth
P\              r^a/d           P\a:t           order
S               s^aty           Sati            clothes
Z               z^al            Zal             regret
j               jas             jas             brightness
x               chata           xata            cottage
h\              had             h\at            snake

liquids

r               ret             ret             lip
l               led             let             ice

nasals:

m               ma/k            ma:k            poppy
n               noc             not_s           night
N               banka           baNka           bank
J               nic             Jit_s           nothing

The symbols described below are not required in the Czech SAMPA transcription. It is however likely that people interested in more detailed transcription would define and use their own symbols for the phenomena mentioned below, so we rather define a common symbols here:

  1. syllabic versions of consonants (thought the sound is the same)
    2. l=              vlk             vl=k            wolf
m=              osm             osm=            eight
r=              krk             kr=k            neck
  2. additional allophones:
    3. PHONE     ALLOPHONE OF     ORTHOGRAPHY    TRANSCRIPTION      MEANING

F         m                tramvaj        traFvaj            tram
G         x                abych byl      abiGbil            so as I am
Q\        P\               tr^i           tQ\i               three
  3. additional diphthongs:
    4. e_u             euforie         e_uforie        euphoria
and maybe also diphthongs like /a_j/, /e_j/ etc.

Reasoning and explanation can be found in:

and all the discussions are in: http://noel.feld.cvut.cz/sampa

This design is very compatible with overall design of prof. Wells, so it may be possible to borrow from other languages. For example, when asked to spell certain Czech names of foreign origin (e.g. Häusler, Röder, Müller), some speakers produce sounds very different from Czech phones but close to German ones. Therefore three phones from German SAMPA are also used in transcription of spelled items in Czech SPEECHDAT: 

E:              ä
2:              ö
y:              ü

SAMPA home page

This page was created 2001 November 22 on the initiative of a group of Czech researchers interested in speech technology, namely (in alphabetical order):