Help:IPA/Romanian

This is the pronunciation key for IPA transcriptions of Romanian on Wikipedia.

It provides a set of symbols to represent the pronunciation of Romanian in Wikipedia articles, and example words that illustrate the sounds that correspond to them. Integrity must be maintained between the key and the transcriptions that link here. Some keys are built on consensus more strongly than others; if the conventions of this key are already in wide use, any substantive change to it should be discussed on the talk page first as it would affect a large number of articles. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Shortcuts

The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Romanian language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see {{IPA-ro}}, {{IPAc-ro}} and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.

See Romanian phonology and Romanian alphabet for a more thorough look at the sounds of Romanian.

Consonants
IPA	Examples in Romanian	English approximation
b	ban	about
d	dop	today
dʒ^[1]	ger	gender
f	foc	face
ɡ	gol, unghie	again
h	horn	hat
k	cal, chip, kilogram, quasar	skip
l	lună	love
m	mic	moon
n	nor	name
ŋ^[2]	lung	long
p	pas	span
r	rac, mare	curd (Scottish English)
s	sare	sun
ʃ	șarpe	shape
t	tare	stop
ts^[1]	țară	cats
tʃ^[1]	cer	choose
v	val, watt	voice
z	zid	zone
ʒ	jar	measure
Non-native consonants
ɲ	Saligny	roughly like canyon

Vowels
IPA	Examples in Romanian	English approximation
a	apă	roughly like father
e	erou	roughly like bet
ə	ăsta	strut
i	inel, mie	beet
ɨ	înspre, cârnat	roses (for some English dialects)
o	oraș	law (British English)
u	uda, dual	fool
Non-native vowels
ɑ̃	Henri	rendez-vous, roughly like on
ɛ̃	chemin de fer	coq au vin, roughly like man
ø	bleu, loess, chemin de fer	roughly like sir
y	ecru, fürer	roughly like few

Semivowels^[3]
IPA	Examples in Romanian	English approximation
j	iarnă, creioane, rai, yoga	you or boy
w	băcăuan, dulău, Twitter	wine or cow
Diphthongs^[3]
e̯a	beată, Andreea	short [e] followed by full [a]; similar to yard
e̯o	vreo	short [e] followed by full [o]; similar to yawn
o̯a	foarte, găoace	short [o] followed by full [a]; similar to wagon

Other symbols
IPA	Examples	Explanation
ˈ	dulău [duˈləw]	primary stress (placed before the stressed syllable)
ˌ	extraordinar [ˌekstra.ordiˈnar]	secondary stress
.	mie [ˈmi.e]	syllable marker, generally used between vowels in hiatus
ʲ^[4]	rupi [ˈrupʲ]	palatalization (placed after the palatalized consonant)

Notes

1 2 3 The affricates may be written more precisely with tie-bars: [t͡s], [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ], but they are omitted in transcriptions as they do not display correctly in all browsers. However, the affricates contrast with the plosive–fricative sequences: [ts], [tʃ] and [dʒ]. Usually, the spelling of the Romanian word indicates the pronunciation, with the affricates spelled ț, c, g, with one letter, and the sequences spelled ts, tș, dj, with two. However, personal names are the most common exceptions.
↑ Not a separate phoneme but an allophone of /n/ before velars.
1 2 The approximants /j/ and /w/ can appear before and after vowels, including the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/, in almost any combination.
↑ Palatalization occurs only with a single final i.

References

Chițoran, Ioana (2001), The Phonology of Romanian: A Constraint-based Approach, Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, ISBN 3110167662

[affricate-1] 1 2 3 The affricates may be written more precisely with tie-bars: [t͡s], [t͡ʃ], [d͡ʒ], but they are omitted in transcriptions as they do not display correctly in all browsers. However, the affricates contrast with the plosive–fricative sequences: [ts], [tʃ] and [dʒ]. Usually, the spelling of the Romanian word indicates the pronunciation, with the affricates spelled ț, c, g, with one letter, and the sequences spelled ts, tș, dj, with two. However, personal names are the most common exceptions.

[2] Not a separate phoneme but an allophone of /n/ before velars.

[semivowels-3] 1 2 The approximants /j/ and /w/ can appear before and after vowels, including the diphthongs /e̯a/ and /o̯a/, in almost any combination.

[pal-4] Palatalization occurs only with a single final i.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

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