Phonetically Intuitive English

Phonetically Intuitive English (PIE) is an English spelling proposal and a free Chrome browser extension[1] that automatically adds diacritics to English words on Web pages to show pronunciation, intended for English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners to learn correct pronunciations as they browse the Web, and for children in English-speaking countries to learn to read.

PIE running in Lite mode showing the Wikipedia article "Hamlet"

Description

The free and open source browser extension uses American English pronunciation data from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary and a one-page scheme also called "Phonetically Intuitive English" (PIE) to mark up English words with diacritics. The project claims that the scheme is designed to be very easy to learn[2]; the satirical magazine Speculative Grammarian questioned the appropriateness of diacritics and overall clarity of the spelling system in a featured article[3].

Depending on the English level of the user, PIE offers three modes, Full, Lite and Extra Lite, to show diacritics to different extents. The Full mode shows pronunciations to a great detail (such as silent g and h in "light" being marked with a "silence mark"); the so-called Lite mode simplifies the notation (e.g. the silence marks on w, h, y and e will be omitted, as in "low", "she", "bay" and "take"); and the Extra Lite mode further omits all schwa marks (e.g. the second and third a in "Canada" will have no marks).

See also

References
  1. PCWorld (English) story on PIE
  2. PIE's official project website
  3. Speculative Grammarian (satirical linguistics magazine) story on PIE
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