Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

Upper Volta

proper noun

Forms the Upper Volta

  1. proper noun A territory now coextensive with Burkina Faso.
  2. proper noun (historical) A colony of French West Africa established in 1919 in the territory occupied by present-day Burkina Faso, dissolved in 1932, revived in 1947 as a part of the French Union (with its previous boundaries), and in 1958 reconstituted as a self-governing country (sense 1.2).
  3. proper noun Former name of Burkina Faso: a country in West Africa, used from 1958 to 1984.

Synonyms

Burkina Faso

Etymology

Calque of French Haute-Volta, from haute (“high; upper”) + Volta (“the Volta, a river in West Africa”), from Portuguese Volta.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Upper Volta”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details