Re: y sound

From: "Alexandre Lang" <allexpro@...>

> How does the IPA write zh though? just /zh/? Also, how does it write z?
And you also asked how English J is pronounced. The IPA for "zh" resembles a
numeral 3 with a flat top dropped below the baseline, and is called "ezh".
The Americanist phonetic alphabet has z with a v-shaped diacritic above it
called a "caron" or "hacek" (and the c in the latter has one of those things
above it!).

English J is pronounced as an affricate, as G before E or I in Italian or
Jeem in non-Egyptian Arabic: [dZ)] in SAMPA, or a ligature of "d" and "ezh"
in IPA. A less common value is simply "ezh", the same value as French (but
there are cases in French where J has the English pronunciation).

"Ezh" is one of those funny words created for some IPA symbols not found in
the Latin or Greek alphabet (or inverted/reversed variants thereof). Others
are:

"esh" for the "sh" sound, an "stretched s" resembling the integral function
in calculus,
"edh" for an Irish-looking d with a stroke through the top, for the "th"
sound in "mother",
"ash" is a ligature of a and e, the fronted a sound of "bat", "cat", "hat",
"pad", "sap" etc.
"schwa" is the inverted e, the "neutral" vowel sound of the last a in
"America" the first a in "about".

And there are others I can't think of right off top...

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