The Kenyon & Knott (or KK) system is a collection of symbols, most of which correspond to the symbols of the IPA, used for representing the pronunciation of standard American English. The system is named after John Samuel Kenyon and Thomas A. Knott, who developed this system for their publication A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English, published in the early 1950s. The International Phonetic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) the human vocal apparatus can produce. ... American English or U.S. English is the diverse form of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. ... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium Events and trends Technology United States tests the first fusion bomb. ...

KK is a broad phonemic system rather than a narrow phonetic one. For example, the long o vowel of "toe", which is a diphthong in open syllables in most American accents, is represented by the single symbol [o], rather than [oʊ] as it would be represented in a narrow transcription. In spoken language, a phoneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words (i. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word phone = sound/voice) is the study of speech sounds (voice). ... In phonetics, a diphthong ( Greek δίφθογγος, diphthongos, literally with two sounds) is a vowel combination usually involving a quick but smooth movement from one vowel to another, often interpreted by listeners as a single vowel sound or phoneme. ...

Deviations from the IPA found in KK are mostly made for typographical convenience:

• The symbol [U] (a small capital U) is used instead of [ʊ] for the vowel of foot and the second part of the diphthong of mouth.
• The "looptail g" (as usually found in serif fonts like Times New Roman) is used instead of the "handwritten g" of the IPA.
• The symbol [r] is used instead of [ɹ] to denote the alveolar approximant of American English.
• The markers for primary and secondary stress tilt slightly toward the center rather than being absolutely vertical. In other words, they look more like and _/ than like ^| and _|.
• The colon [:] is used in place of IPA [ː] to indicate length, although length is rarely marked in KK.
• In foreign words, a barred g is used instead of [ɣ] to indicate a voiced velar fricative.

One principal application of the system is to teach American English pronunciation to non-native speakers of English. It is commonly used for this purpose, not without controversy, in Taiwan. In typography, serifs are the small features at the end of strokes within letters. ... In typography, a typeface is a co-ordinated set of character designs, which usually comprises an alphabet of letters, a set of numerals and a set of punctuation marks. ... Times New Roman is a serif typeface, developed for The Times newspaper in the early 1930s, designed by Starling Burgess, Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison and produced by the Monotype Corporation. ... The alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...