The Institute for Language, Speech and Hearing

Moby Pronunciator

The Moby Pronunciator consists of 175,000 entries fully International Phonetic Alphabet coded Each pronunciation vocabulary entry consists of a word or phrase field followed by a field delimiter of space " " and the IPA-equivalent field that is coded using the following ASCII symbols (case is significant). Spaces between words in the word or phrase or pronunciation field is denoted with underbar "_".

/&/     sounds like the "a" in "dab"
/(@)/   sounds like the "a" in "air"
/A/     sounds like the "a" in "far"
/eI/    sounds like the "a" in "day"
/@/     sounds like the "a" in "ado"
        or the glide "e" in "system" (dipthong schwa)
/-/     sounds like the "ir" glide in "tire"
        or the  "dl" glide in "handle"
        or the "den" glide in "sodden" (dipthong little schwa)
/b/     sounds like the "b" in "nab"
/tS/    sounds like the "ch" in "ouch"
/d/     sounds like the "d" in "pod"
/E/     sounds like the "e" in "red"
/i/     sounds like the "e" in "see"
/f/     sounds like the "f" in "elf"
/g/     sounds like the "g" in "fig"
/h/     sounds like the "h" in "had"
/hw/    sounds like the "w" in "white"
/I/     sounds like the "i" in "hid"
/aI/    sounds like the "i" in "ice"
/dZ/    sounds like the "g" in "vegetably"
/k/     sounds like the "c" in "act"
/l/     sounds like the "l" in "ail"
/m/     sounds like the "m" in "aim"
/N/     sounds like the "ng" in "bang"
/n/     sounds like the "n" in "and"
/Oi/    sounds like the "oi" in "oil"
/A/     sounds like the "o" in "bob"
/AU/    sounds like the "ow" in "how"
/O/     sounds like the "o" in "dog"
/oU/    sounds like the "o" in "boat"
/u/     sounds like the "oo" in "too"
/U/     sounds like the "oo" in "book"
/p/     sounds like the "p" in "imp"
/r/     sounds like the "r" in "ire"
/S/     sounds like the "sh" in "she"
/s/     sounds like the "s" in "sip"
/T/     sounds like the "th" in "bath"
/D/     sounds like the "th" in "the"
/t/     sounds like the "t" in "tap"
/@/     sounds like the "u" in "cup"
/@r/    sounds like the "u" in "burn"
/v/     sounds like the "v" in "average"
/w/     sounds like the "w" in "win"
/j/     sounds like the "y" in "you"
/Z/     sounds like the "s" in "vision"
/z/     sounds like the "z" in "zoo"

Stress or emphasis is marked in the data with the primary "'" or secondary "," marks: "'" (uncurled apostrophe) marks primary stress"," (comma) marks secondary stress. Moby Pronunciator contains many common names and phrases borrowed from other languages; special sounds include (case is significant):

"A"  sounds like the "a" in "ami"
"N"  sounds like the "n" in "Francoise"
"R"  sounds like the "r" in "Der"
/x/  sounds like the "ch" in "Bach"
/y/  sounds like the "eu" in "cordon bleu"
"Y"  sounds like the "u" in "Dubois"

Words and Phrases adopted from languages other than English have the unaccented form of the roman spelling. For example, "etude" has an initial accented "e"but is spelled without the accent in the Moby Pronunciator II database.

Each two-part vocabulary record is delimited from others with CRLF (ASCII 13/10).

Special feature of this lexicon

several hundred words pronounced differently because of their part-speech have been distinguished. For example,the entries:

    close/v kl/oU/z  and  close/aj kl/oU/s (terminal sibilant varies)

    effect/n '/I/,f/E/kt  and  effect/v ,/I/'f/E/kt (stress varies)

distinguish those two parts of speech. Any word with this information will terminate with the virgule (slash) in the vocabulary field, followed by one ormore of the following part-of-speech abbreviations:n, v, av, aj, interj, followed by the rest of the pronunciation record.

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Last modified: October 24, 2000
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The Institute for Language Speech and Hearing, The University of Sheffield