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 many font for phonetic transcription, though some lower-case and small-capital letters may not be visibly distinct in instances such as o.

Vowels

Several vowel transcription systems have been used in FUT;

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

Differences from IPA

A major difference is that IPA notation distinguishes between phonetic and phonemic transcription by enclosing the transcription between either brackets or slashes . 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 ', while IPA uses the letter eth . In FUT, eth ' stands for an alveolar tap, IPA .
FUT uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is (not used in FUT except as a wildcard for any consonant).
FUT uses small caps for devoiced sounds (' etc.), while IPA uses a ring diacritic.

Examples:

{| class="wikitable"

! Sound !! FUT !! IPA

! Alveolar tap

| style="background-color: aqua;"|'||

! Voiced dental fricative

| '|| style="background-color: aqua;"|

! Voiceless alveolar lateral approximant

| style="background-color: aqua;"|'||

! Velar lateral approximant

| '|| style="background-color: aqua;"|

! Voiceless alveolar nasal

| style="background-color: aqua;"|'||

! Uvular nasal

| '*|| style="background-color: aqua;"|

!Voiceless alveolar trill

| style="background-color: aqua;"|'

!Uvular trill

| '

| style="background-color: aqua;"|

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Not recognized in any sources, shown for example purposes.

Encoding

The IETF language tags register 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 '. 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.

{| class=wikitable

|+ Comparison of free fonts

!rowspan=2|Browser <br>default font||italic

| <big><big>ᴄ c</big></big> || <big><big>ᴫ л</big></big> || <big><big>ᴏ o</big></big> || <big><big>ᴜ u</big></big> || <big><big>ᴠ v</big></big> || <big><big>ᴡ w</big></big> || <big><big>ᴢ z</big></big> || <big><big>š́ ž́</big></big>

!bold

|- style="font-family: Gentium"

!rowspan=2|Gentium||italic

|- style="font-family: Gentium"

!bold

|- style="font-family: Andika"

!rowspan=2|Andika||italic

|- style="font-family: Andika"

!bold

|- style="font-family: Noto Serif"

!rowspan=2|Noto<br>Serif||italic

|- style="font-family: Noto Serif"

!bold

|- style="font-family: Noto Sans"

!rowspan=2|Noto<br>Sans||italic

|- style="font-family: Noto Sans"

!bold

|- style="font-family: Segoe UI"

!rowspan=2|Segoe UI||italic

|- style="font-family: Segoe UI"

!bold

|- style="font-family: EB Garamond"

!rowspan=2|EB <br>Garamond||italic

| <big><big>ᴄ c</big></big> || <big><big>- л</big></big> || <big><big>ᴏ o</big></big> || <big><big>ᴜ u</big></big> || <big><big>ᴠ v</big></big> || <big><big>ᴡ w</big></big> || <big><big>ᴢ z</big></big> || <big><big>š́ ž́</big></big>

|- style="font-family: EB Garamond"

!bold

Sample

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

{|class="wikitable" style="text-align: center"

|+ Sample FUT words

! Language !! FUT !! IPA !! Meaning

| English || || || 'ship'

| English || || || 'ran'

| English || || || 'bored'

| Moksha || || || 'I sow'

| Udmurt || || || 'to wash'

| Forest Nenets || || || 'nostril'

| Hill Mari || || || 'pine'

| Skolt Sami || || || 'ermine'

Finno-Ugric transcription

Vowels

Differences from IPA

Encoding

Font support

Sample

See also

Notes

References

Bibliography