Uralic Phonetic Alphabet

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system 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.

UPA 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 voicelessness, and in more frequent use of diacritics to differentiate places of articulation.

The basic UPA 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, the UPA 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 any good phonetics font, such as (among free fonts) Gentium, Andika, Noto, DejaVu and EB Garamond, though lower-case and small-capital 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 stacked the diacritics in š́, ᴢ̌́, ž́.

Vowels

A vowel to the left of a dot is illabial (unrounded); to the right is labial (rounded).

	Palatal	Central		Velar
Close	i • ü i̮ • u̮ ị • u e • ö e̮ • o̮ ẹ • o ä • α̈ a̮ • α̮ a • α
Mid
Open

Some sources use a å as the only pair of open vowels. y and ɯ are sometimes used for rounded ü and u̮.

If a distinction between close-mid vowels and open-mid vowels is needed, the IPA letters ⟨ɛ⟩ and ⟨ɔ⟩ can be used. That row is then:

ɛ ɔ̈ — ɛ̮ ɔ̮ — ɛ̣ ɔ

The UPA has dedicated characters for wildcards or to denote a vowel of uncertain quality:

• ʌ (or in some sources ɜ) denotes any vowel;
• ᴕ denotes any back vowel;
• ᴕ̈ denotes any front vowel.

Consonants

The following table describes the consonants of the UPA. A 'spirant' in this usage is a non-sibilant fricative. Under 'approximants', v w j ɦ and their voiceless counterparts are 'semivowels', while ɹ ɹ̤ are 'vibrationless rhotics'. Palatalized consonants are indicated with an acute accent. Only a few are shown in the table; the velar letters with an acute are commonly used for palatal consonants.

UPA consonants

	Plosive			Spirant		Sibilant			Approx.		Lateral		Trill		Flap		Nasal
Bilabial	p	ʙ	b	φ	β				ᴡ	w			ᴪ	ψ			ᴍ	m
Labiodental	p̦	ʙ̦	b̦	f	v̌				ᴠ	v								m̦
Dental	ț	ᴅ̦	d̦
Alveolar	t	ᴅ	d	ϑ	δ	s	ᴢ	z	ᴚ	ɹ	ʟ	l	ʀ	r	ᴆ	ð	ɴ	n
						š	ᴢ̌	ž			ᴌ	ł
Palatalised alveolar	t́	ᴅ́	d́	ϑ́	δ́	ś	ᴢ́	ź			ʟ́	ĺ	ʀ́	ŕ			ɴ́	ń
						š́	ᴢ̌́	ž́
Retroflex	ṭ	ᴅ̣	ḍ	ϑ̣	δ̣	ṣ	ᴢ̣	ẓ			ʟ̣	ḷ	ʀ̣	ṛ			ɴ̣	ṇ
						ṣ̌	ᴢ̣̌	ẓ̌
Palatal (prevelar)	k͕	ɢ͕	g͐
Palatalised velar	ḱ	ɢ́	ǵ	χ́	γ́					j							ᴎ́	ή
Velar	k	ɢ	g	χ	γ						ᴫ	л *					ᴎ	η
Postvelar	k͔	ɢ͔	g᷾
Uvular	k̤	ɢ̤	g̈						ᴚ̤	ɹ̤			ʀ̤	r̤	ᴆ̤	ð̤	ɴ̤	n̤
Glottal	ʔ			ȟ	ᴤ				h	ɦ

Small-cap (voiceless) and lower-case (voiced) л are distinct when italic.

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

ʟ̌ l‌̌ (not shown in the table) are lateral fricatives. v̌ and ȟ in the table are also fricatives derived from letters for approximants.

* ᴫ л are defined as dark alveolars, with ᴌ ł being 'half-dark', but other sources define ᴫ л as velar. They are distinct in italic typeface, which is the norm for UPA phonetic notation.

Other sources have ᴃ and ᴆ for fricative ʙ ᴅ, and ᴩ ρ for the uvular trills.

The Uralic languages transcribed with this alphabet do not contain non-pulmonic consonants except paralinguistically, thus only clicks are supported by the UPA. There are two conventions: a leftward arrow, for p˿ b˿ t˿ d˿ ḱ˿ ǵ˿ etc., and Greek letters, for ᴨ π ᴛ τ ᴋ κ etc. Nasal clicks can presumably be written ᴍ˿ m˿ ɴ˿ n˿ ᴎ́˿ ή˿ etc. under the first convention.

Modifiers

UPA modifier characters

Example	Description	Use
ä	diaeresis above	'Palatal' (front) vowel; interdental consonant (e.g. ẗ interdental t)
ạ	dot below	'Velar' (back) vowel; 'cacuminal' (retroflex) consonant
a̤	diaeresis below	Uvular consonant
ā	macron	Long form of a vowel or consonant
aa	doubled character
a͔	left arrowhead below	Retracted form of a vowel or consonant (e.g. t͔ post-alveolar t)
a͕	right arrowhead below	Advanced form of a vowel or consonant (e.g. t͕ pre-alveolar t)
a̭	circumflex below	Raised variant of a vowel
a̬	caron below	Lowered variant of a vowel
ǎ	caron above	Fricative variant of an approximant; 'wide' variant of a sibilant
ă	breve	Shorter or reduced vowel
a̮	breve below	Central vowel
a̯	inverted breve below	Non-syllabic variant of a vowel
á	acute accent	Palatalized variant of a consonant; may be moved to the right of letters with an ascender, as with δˊ.
ᴀ	small capital	Unvoiced or lenis variant of a sound
ᵃ	superscripted character	Very short sound
ₐ	subscripted character	Coarticulation due to surrounding sounds
ɐ	Rotated character	Reduced form of sound. Letters ambiguous when rotated 180° are rotated 90°, as with ᴞ.

For diphthongs, triphthongs and prosody, the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet uses several forms of the tie or double breve:

• 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 [aɪ pʰiː eɪ] or slashes /ai pi e/. UPA instead used italic typeface for the former and bold typeface for the latter.

For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance:

• UPA e, o denote mid vowels with no particular bias towards open or close, as are found in most Uralic languages. IPA [e], [o] denote close-mid vowels in particular, common in Romance and West Germanic languages.
• Being designed for languages largely featuring vowel harmony, UPA has no simple way to denote a basic schwa sound, IPA [ə]. The letter ə denotes a reduced form of e, corresponding to IPA [e̽]. The two alphabets match with a reduced a sound, which is ɐ in both UPA and IPA.
• For the voiced dental fricative, UPA uses a Greek delta δ, while IPA uses the letter eth [ð]. In UPA, eth ð stands for an alveolar tap, IPA [ɾ].
• UPA uses Greek chi χ for the voiceless velar fricative. In IPA, [χ] stands for a voiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is [x] (not used in UPA except as a wildcard for any consonant).
• UPA uses small caps for voiceless sounds (ᴀ ʙ ᴅ ɢ ᴇ etc.), while IPA uses a ring diacritic.

Examples:

Sound	UPA	IPA
Close-mid back rounded vowel	o̭	[o]
Mid back rounded vowel	o	[o̞] or [ɔ̝]
Open-mid back rounded vowel	o̬ or α̭	[ɔ]
Alveolar tap	ð	[ɾ]
Voiced dental fricative	δ	[ð]
Voiceless alveolar lateral approximant	ʟ	[l̥]
Velar lateral approximant	л	[ʟ]
Voiceless alveolar nasal	ɴ	[n̥]
Uvular nasal	n̤	[ɴ]
Voiceless alveolar trill	ʀ	[r̥]
Uvular trill	r̤	[ʀ]
Reduced vowel	ə	[e̽]

Encoding

The IETF language tags register fonupa as a subtag for text in this notation.

Font support

Few system fonts support the small capitals. Free computer fonts that do may not distinguish them from lower case, and stacked diacritics can sometimes be a problem as well. Following are pairs of small capital and lower case in a sample of free founds that are available online; they must be installed on your computer or phone to display here.

Free fonts

Browser default font	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
Gentium Plus	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
Andika	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
Noto Serif	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
Noto Sans	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
DejaVu Serif	italic	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	ᴫ л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
EB Garamond	italic	- л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́
	bold	- л	ᴏ o	ᴜ u	ᴠ v	ᴡ w	ᴢ z	š́ ž́

Sample

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

Sample UPA words

Language	UPA	IPA	Meaning
English	šᴉp	[ʃɪp]	'ship'
English	rän	[ɹæn]	'ran'
English	ʙo̭o̭d	[b̥oːd]	'bored'
Moksha	və̂ďän	[vɤ̈dʲæn]	'I sow'
Udmurt	miśkᴉ̑nᴉ̑	[miɕkɪ̈nɪ̈]	'to wash'
Forest Nenets	ŋàrŋū̬"ᴲ	[ŋɑˑrŋu̞ːʔə̥]	'nostril'
Hill Mari	pᴞ·ń₍ᴅ́ᴢ̌́ö̭	[ˈpʏnʲd̥͡ʑ̥ø]	'pine'
Skolt Sami	pŭə̆ī̮ᵈt̄ėi	[pŭə̆ɨːd̆tːəi]	'ermine'

See also

• Americanist phonetic notation

Literature

• Setälä, E. N. (1901). "Über transskription der finnisch-ugrischen sprachen". Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen (in German) (1). Helsingfors, Leipzig: 15–52.
• Sovijärvi, Antti; Peltola, Reino (1970). "Suomalais-ugrilainen tarkekirjoitus" (PDF). Helsingin Yliopiston Fonetiikan Laitoksen Julkaisuja (in Finnish) (9). University of Helsinki. hdl:10224/4089.
• Posti, Lauri; Itkonen, Terho (1973). "FU-transkription yksinkertaistaminen. Az FU-átírás egyszerűsítése. Zur Vereinfachung der FU-Transkription. On Simplifying of the FU-transcription". Castrenianumin Toimitteita (7). University of Helsinki. ISBN 951-45-0282-5. ISSN 0355-0141.
• Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27). "L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet" (PDF). Unicode.