Finno-Ugric transcription (FUT) or theUralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) is aphonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for thetranscription andreconstruction ofUralic languages. It was first published in 1901 byEemil Nestor Setälä, aFinnish linguist; it was somewhat modified in the 1970s.^[1]

FUT differs from theInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notation in several ways, notably in exploiting italics or boldface rather than using brackets to delimit text, in the use of small capitals fordevoicing, and in more frequent use of diacritics to differentiate places of articulation.

The basic FUT characters are based on theFinnish alphabet where possible, with extensions taken fromCyrillic andGreekorthographies. Small-capital letters and some noveldiacritics are also used.

Unlike the IPA, which is usually transcribed inRoman typeface, FUT is transcribed initalic andbold typeface. Its extended characters are found in thePhonetic Extensions andPhonetic Extensions Supplement blocks. Computer font support is available through any good phonetics font, though lower-case and small-capital may not be visibly distinct in letters such aso where these look similar.

Several vowel transcription systems have been used in FUT;^[2] the chart below is just one example.^[3] Avowel to the left of a dot isillabial (unrounded); to the right islabial (rounded). Theopen-mid row may be omitted for certain lects.^[4]

In addition:

• y andɯ may be used for close front and central roundedü andu̮.^[5]
• æ may be used for the vowel betweenä andɛ;œ betweenɑ̈ andɔ̈;ø betweenɔ̈ andö.^[6]
• å (oraₒ when other diacritics are present)^[2] may be used for rounded open vowels instead ofɑ.^[4]
• ᴖ may be used for open-mid rounded vowels instead ofɔ;ᴗ for open unrounded vowels instead ofa.^[2]
• FUT has dedicated characters for wildcards or to denote a vowel of uncertain quality:^[7]
  • ʌ (or in some sourcesɜ)^[2] denotes any vowel.
  • ᴕ (in some sources with the top ring closed)^[2] denotes anyback vowel.
  • ᴕ̈ denotes anyfront vowel.
  • ə may denote anycentral vowel,^[4] though more typically denotes a reducede.
  • ɔ (orsmall capitalᴐ)^{[citation needed]} may denote anydevoiced vowel in systems which do not use it for roundedopen-mid vowels.

The following table describes the consonants of FUT. A 'spirant' in this usage is a non-sibilant fricative. Under 'approximants',v w j ɦ and their voiceless counterparts are 'semivowels', whileɹ ɹ̤ are 'vibrationless rhotics'. Palatalized consonants are indicated with an acute accent. Only a few are shown in the table; the velar letters with an acute are commonly used for palatal consonants.

When there are two consonants in a given space, the bottom row is voiced and the top row is voiceless; when there are three, the centre row is lenis or partially devoiced, and the top row is fortis or fully devoiced (tenuis). Some sources add a second middle row for the plosives and affricates^[b] with small capitals of the voiceless consonants, so that a four way distinction between fortis, lenis, partially voiced, and fully voiced is maintained.^[2]

ʟ̌ l‌̌ (not shown in the table) are lateral fricatives.v̌ andȟ in the table are also fricatives derived from letters for approximants.

Other sources haveᴃ andᴆ (ᴅ̶) for fricativeʙ ᴅ,ᴩ ϱ for the uvular trills, andᴥ for the glottal stopʔ.^[2]

The Uralic languages transcribed with this system do not contain non-pulmonic consonants except paralinguistically, thus onlyclicks are supported by FUT. There are two conventions: a leftward arrow, forp˿ b˿ t˿ d˿ ḱ˿ ǵ˿ etc., and Greek letters, forᴨ π ᴛ τ ᴋ κ etc. Nasal clicks can presumably be writtenᴍ˿ m˿ ɴ˿ n˿ ᴎ́˿ ή˿ etc. under the first convention.

From extremely short (superscript) to extra-long (circumflex), length of vowels and consonants is indicated as follows:

ᵃ ă a a˴ à a͐ ā â

For diphthongs, triphthongs and prosody, Finno-Ugric transcription uses several forms of thetie or double breve:^[2][8]

• The triple inverted breve or triple breve below indicates atriphthong^{[clarification needed]}
• The double inverted breve, also known as the ligature tie, marks adiphthong^{[clarification needed]}
• The double inverted breve below indicates a syllable boundary between vowels^{[clarification needed]}
• The undertie is used forprosody^{[clarification needed]}
• The inverted undertie is used for prosody.^{[clarification needed]}

A major difference is that IPA notation distinguishes between phonetic and phonemic transcription by enclosing the transcription between either brackets[aɪpʰiːeɪ] or slashes/aipie/. FUT instead usesitalic typeface for the former andbold typeface for the latter.^[9]

For phonetic transcription, numerous small differences from IPA come into relevance:

• For thevoiced dental fricative, FUT uses a Greek deltaδ, while IPA uses the lettereth[ð]. In FUT, ethð stands for analveolar tap, IPA[ɾ].
• FUT uses Greek chiχ for thevoiceless velar fricative. In IPA,[χ] stands for avoiceless uvular fricative, while the velar counterpart is[x] (not used in FUT except as a wildcard for any consonant).
• FUT usessmall caps fordevoiced sounds (ᴀ ʙ ᴅ ɢ ᴇ etc.), while IPA uses a ring diacritic.

Examples:

*Not recognized in any sources, shown for example purposes.

TheIETF language tags registerfonupa as a subtag for text in this notation.^[10]

Few system fonts support the small capitals. Support is available through any good phonetics font, such as (among free fonts)Gentium,Andika,Noto,Segoe andEB Garamond, though lower-case and small-capitalᴄ,л,o,v,w andz may not be distinct in italic typeface and are rarely distinct in bold. DejaVu and EB Garamond do not support the stacked diacritics inš́, ᴢ̌́, ž́. EB Garamond includes the Unicode small capitals in its roman typeface but not in italic or bold, so automated formatting is applied, which makes the small capitals more distinct. Following are pairs of small capital and lower case in these fonts; the fonts must be installed on your computer or phone to display here.

This section contains some sample words from both Uralic languages and English (usingAustralian English) along with comparisons to the IPA transcription.

• Americanist phonetic notation

• Setälä, E. N. (1901)."Über transskription der finnisch-ugrischen sprachen".Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen (in German) (1). Helsingfors, Leipzig:15–52.
• Sovijärvi, Antti; Peltola, Reino (1970)."Suomalais-ugrilainen tarkekirjoitus"(PDF).Helsingin Yliopiston Fonetiikan Laitoksen Julkaisuja (in Finnish) (9). University of Helsinki.hdl:10224/4089.
• Posti, Lauri; Itkonen, Terho (1973). "FU-transkription yksinkertaistaminen. Az FU-átírás egyszerűsítése. Zur Vereinfachung der FU-Transkription. On Simplifying of the FU-transcription".Castrenianumin Toimitteita (7). University of Helsinki.ISBN 951-45-0282-5.ISSN 0355-0141.
• Ruppel, Klaas; Aalto, Tero; Everson, Michael (2009-01-27)."L2/09-028: Proposal to encode additional characters for the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet"(PDF).Unicode.

• Phonetic alphabets
• Unicode
• Uralic languages
• Writing systems introduced in the 1900s
• 1901 introductions

• CS1 maint: location missing publisher
• CS1 German-language sources (de)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from January 2026
• Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2024
• Pages with plain IPA
• CS1 Finnish-language sources (fi)