The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents pronunciations of most Australian Aboriginal languages in Wikipedia articles. Only a few languages on the continent have sounds not in the tables below. For a guide to adding IPA characters to Wikipedia articles, see Template:IPA and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation § Entering IPA characters.
| IPA | English approximation |
|---|---|
| b̥, b | spy, by[1] |
| d̥, d | stool, do[1][2] |
| d̪̥, d̪ | width[1][2] |
| ɖ̥, ɖ | strudle, drew[1][3] |
| ɡ̊, ɡ | sky, guy[1] |
| ɟ̊, ɟ | skew, argue[1][4] |
| j | yes |
| l[2] | lose |
| l̪[2] | wealth |
| ɭ | heirloom[3] |
| ʎ | million, (UK) lewd[4] |
| m | mother |
| n[2] | noose |
| n̪[2] | tenth |
| ɳ | Arnold[3] |
| ɲ | canyon, (UK) new[4] |
| ŋ | sing |
| r | Spanish Río |
| ɾ | atom (US) |
| ɹ | red |
| ɽ | barter (US)[3] |
| ɻ | red (some Irish or West Country dialects; pronounced with rounded lips) |
| w | water |
Notes
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 The sounds [b̥ d̪̥ d̥ ɖ̥ ɟ̊ ɡ̊] are often pronounced tenuis, like spy, sty, stew/chew, sky (like French or Spanish p, t, tch/ch, k) at the beginnings of words, and voiced, like buy, die, dew/Jew, guy between vowels, but that is variable, and the distinction is not meaningful in almost all Australian languages.
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 The plain consonants [d̥ l n] are like English sty, noose, lose, with the tip of the tongue touching the gums, and the consonants with the 'bridge' under them, [d̪̥ l̪ n̪], are like t n l in French or Spanish, with the tip of the tongue touching the teeth and its upper surface touching the gums, giving them a light sound. The alveolar–dental distinction is very important in most Australian languages.
- 1 2 3 4 The consonants with a 'tail', [ɖ̥ ɭ ɳ ɽ], are pronounced with the tonɡue curled back, which gives them a dark "r"-like retroflex quality
- 1 2 3 The consonants [ɟ̊ ʎ ɲ] are pronounced with a y-like quality. English dy, ly, ny are similar.
- 1 2 3 4 The vowels i and u typically vary across [i] ~ [ɪ] ~ [e] and [u] ~ [ʊ] ~ [o], respectively. However, a few Australian languages distinguish both sounds.