The Microsoft.com Speech websiteMicrosoft Speech SDK SAPI 5.1

American English Phoneme Representation

This is a brief introduction to the use and implementation of the SAPI phoneme representations.

Symbolic and Numerical Representation

Application developers can create pronunciations for words that are not currently in the lexicon by using the English phonemes represented in the following table. The phoneme set is composed of a symbolic phonetic representation (SYM).

The application developer will be able to enter the SYM representation to create the pronunciation using the XML PRON tag, or by creating a new lexicon entry. Each phoneme entry should be space delimited.
 
Tag Description
PRON SYM Tag used to insert a pronunciation using symbolic representation.

Example: pronunciation for "hello": 

<PRON SYM = "h eh l ow"/>
For improved accuracy, the primary (1), secondary (2) stress markers, and the syllabic markers (-) can be added to the pronunciation.

Example: pronunciation for "hello" using the primary stress (1) and syllabic (-) markers: 

<PRON SYM = "h eh - l ow 1"/>

American English Phoneme Table

SYM IPA Unicode Example PhoneID
- 002D syllable boundary (hyphen) 1
! 0021 Sentence terminator (exclamation mark) 2
& 0023, 0020 word boundary 3
, 002C Sentence terminator (comma) 4
. 002E Sentence terminator (period) 5
? 003F Sentence terminator (question mark) 6
_ 005F Silence (underscore) 7
1 02C8 Primary stress 8
2 02CC Secondary stress 9
aa 0251 father 10
ae 00E6 cat 11
ah 028C cut 12
ao 0254 dog 13
aw 0251+028A foul 14
ax 0259 ago 15
ay 0251+026A bite 16
b 0062 big 17
ch 0074+0283 chin 18
d 0064 dig 19
dh 00F0 then 20
eh 025B pet 21
er 025A fur 22
ey 0065 ate 23
f 0066 fork 24
g 0067 gut 25
h 0068 help 26
ih 026A fill 27
iy 0069 feel 28
jh 02A4 joy 29
k 006B cut 30
l 006C lid 31
m 006D mat 32
n 006E no 33
ng 014B sing 34
ow 006F go 35
oy 0254+026A toy 36
p 0070 put 37
r 0279 red 38
s 0073 sit 39
sh 0283 she 40
t 0074 talk 41
th 03B8 thin 42
uh 028A book 43
uw 0075 too 44
v 0076 vat 45
w 0077 with 46
y 006A yard 47
z 007A zap 48
zh 0292 pleasure 49

Please see International Phonemes for information on other phoneme sets.