PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION
The symbols are those employed by the International Phonetic Association. An introduction to this system is to be found in ‘The principles of the International Phonetic Association’ London, 1912, and ‘L’E´criture phonétique international,’ London, 1921 publication of the Association. See also G. Noël-Armfield’s ‘General Phonetics,’ 3rd ed., Cambridge, 1924. The symbols occurring in the present book are given below.
[:] after a symbol denotes length of the sound indicated by it, whether a vowel or a consonant; [~] on the top of a vowel indicates nasalised pronunciation; and [´] before a syllable indicates stress upon it and [˝] indicates strong stress. The little vertical bar [|] beside a stop sound shows that it is unexploded, e.g., [p|, t|, k|].
[a]: ‘front a,’ as in North English man, cat, beard in dialectal West Bengali pronunciation of a word like কা’ল [ka:l] yesterday, tomorrow, as opposed to কাল [kɑ:l] time. Nasalised form = [ã].
[ɐ]: a central vowel occurring in Modern Portuguese: see pp. 621-622.
[ɑ]: ‘back’ or ‘central’ a—as in Standard Bengali কাকা [kɑkɑ] uncle, আমি [ɑmi] I. Nasalised form=[ɑ̃].
[æ]: the sound of a as in Southern English man, cat=West Bengali sound as in কেন [kæno] why, ত্যাগ [tæ:g] abandonment. Nasalised form=[æ̃].
[ɒ]: the sound of o as in Southern English hot, lot: it occured in Old Bengali for the letter অ=[ɔ] (see below): see Text, p. 258. it is a kind of [ɔ] without lip-rounding.
[b]: as in English=the Bengali ব.
[bʼ]: made with simultaneous glottal closure, as in Sindhī, or in dialectal East Bengali, e.g., [bʼɑ:t] boiled rice=Standard ভাত [bɦɑ:t].
