Phonetic notation of the American Heritage Dictionary

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (abbreviated AHD) uses a phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet to transcribe the pronunciation of spoken English. It and similar respelling systems, such as those used by the Merriam-Webster and Random House dictionaries, are familiar to US schoolchildren.

The following tables show the AHD representations of English phonemes,^[1] along with the IPA equivalents as used on Wikipedia.

In general, long vowels are marked with a macron, and short vowels with a breve. A circumflex may also be used to indicate a pre-rhotic vowel. Usage of other symbols vary.

Stress is indicated by a prime character following stressed syllables. The character is in boldface when it indicates primary stress.

• Pronunciation respelling for English
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)