Czech SAMPA

This document uses UTF-8 encoding. Here is the standard sentence for encoding verification - you should see the same letters in both lines:

 "příliš žluťoučký kůň úpěl ďábelské ódy" ... with accents
 "prilis zlutoucky kun upel dabelske ody" ... without accents

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CZECH-SAMPA-uni.html HTML version in Unicode UTF 8 encoding
CZECH-SAMPA.html HTML version in Windows 1250 encoding
CZECH-SAMPA.pdf PDF version (for Acrobat Reader), also good for compact print (2 pages, required symbols on first page)
CZECH-SAMPA.ps Postscript version (for ghostview or PS printer), also on two pages
CZECH-SAMPA.dvi DVI version (for xdvi)
CZECH-SAMPA.tex TeX version (for Plain TeX)

SAMPA           ORTHOGRAPHIC    SAMPA           ENGLISH
SYMBOL          TRANSCRIPTION   TRANSCRIPTION   TRANSLATION

Vowels

i               myš             miS             mouse
e               les             les             forest
a               pas             pas             passport
o               rok             rok             year
u               kus             kus             piece

i:              pít             pi:t            to drink
e:              lék             le:k            drug
a:              rád             ra:t            glad
o:              móda            mo:da           fashion
u:              půl             pu:l            half

diphthongs

o_u             mouka           mo_uka          flour
a_u             auto            a_uto           car

Consonants

plosives

p               pes             pes             dog
b               bota            bota            shoe
t               tam             tam             there
d               dům             du:m            house
c               tito            cito            these
J\              děd             J\et            grandfather
k               krk             krk             neck
g               kde             gde             where

affricates

t_s             cíl             t_si:l          aim
d_z             leckdy          led_zgdi        at times
t_S             čas             t_Sas           time
d_Z             léčba           le:d_Zba        medical treatment

fricatives

f               forma           forma           form
v               vak             vak             bag
s               sen             sen             dream
z               zub             zup             tooth
Q\              tři             tQ\i            three
P\              řád             P\a:t           order
S               šaty            Sati            clothes
Z               žal             Zal             regret
j               jas             jas             brightness
x               chata           xata            cottage
h\              had             h\at            snake

liquids

r               ret             ret             lip
l               led             let             ice

nasals

m               mák             ma:k            poppy
n               noc             not_s           night
N               banka           baNka           bank
J               nic             Jit_s           nothing

The symbols described below are not required. However it is likely that people interested in more detailed transcription would define and use their own symbols for the phenomena mentioned below, so we prefer to define common symbols here:

syllabic versions of consonants

l=              vlk             vl=k            wolf
m=              osm             osm=            eight
r=              krk             kr=k            neck

additional allophones

PHONE     ALLOPHONE OF     ORTHOGRAPHY    TRANSCRIPTION      MEANING

F         m                tramvaj        traFvaj            tram
G         x                abych byl      abiGbil            so as I am

additional diphthong

e_u             euforie         e_uforie        euphoria

and possibly also diphthongs like a_j, e_j etc.

glottal stop

(glyph similar to ? in IPA)

?               na okně         na?okJe         on the window

Note that pronunciation without the glottal stop is also possible.

schwa

(reduced vowel, turned e in IPA)

@               DTW             d@t@v@          spelling of DTW

stress

"               kabát           "kaba:t         coat
"               bez práce       "bes pra:t_se   without work

foreign phones

(used in special situations)

E:              ä               ä               in spelling of Häusler
2:              ö               ö               in spelling of Röder
y:              ü               ü               in spelling of Müller

(When asked to spell certain Czech names of foreign origin, some speakers produce sounds very different from Czech phones but close to German ones. It is possible to use these three phones from German SAMPA to describe this situation.)

The design of the Czech SAMPA was initiated by Robert Batůšek in 1999. Many people have contributed to this work. The final version is very compatible with the overall design of prof. Wells and was adopted by large consensus and published in February 2003. Reasoning, explanations and all the discussions can be found at http://noel.feld.cvut.cz/sampa.

SAMPA home page

Czech SAMPA home page (http://noel.feld.cvut.cz/sampa)

Czech SAMPA authors discussions file list

Pages pointing to this page (and thereby supporting this standard)