Pronunciation · Science and learning

How to pronounce edinburgh

Edinburgh does not end in "burg": CMUdict gives EH1 D AH0 N B ER0 OW0, ED-in-bur-oh, with stress on the first syllable.

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The dictionary sound sequence

CMUdict lists this North American English pronunciation for edinburgh. Read each sequence from left to right. The numbers mark vowel stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.

Dictionary variant 1

EH1 D AH0 N B ER0 OW0

Syllable estimate: 4 vowel nuclei
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

Check edinburgh in Merriam-Webster and listen to available dictionary audio.

Syllable counts come from vowel tokens; CMUdict does not supply syllable boundaries here. Variant order follows the dictionary and does not rank correctness. This lexicon does not represent every accent or context.

Use edinburgh in context

Travel guides, history lessons and festival coverage all name the Scottish capital, and the spelling misleads many readers into a hard g ending. The CMU entry stresses "ED", runs through a light "in", and ends on an unstressed "bur-oh". Scottish speakers commonly reduce that final vowel even further.

The festival fills Edinburgh with performers every August.
We took the early train from London to Edinburgh.

Read the sound tokens

Each example word below is a cue for the named sound, rather than a respelling of edinburgh. Unstressed vowels may sound reduced. These cues follow the CMU phoneme-set key (Appendix A).

EHsound in Edvowel

Dsound in deeconsonant

AHsound in hutvowel

Nsound in kneeconsonant

Bsound in beconsonant

ERsound in hurtvowel

OWsound in oatvowel

Take it to your next recording

Make an audition worksheet

Select a dictionary variant for your checklist. The two original sentences retain their normal spelling; this worksheet helps you review a recording rather than forcing a speech engine to use phonemes.

Worksheet pronunciation variant

Your plain-text audition worksheet

How to pronounce edinburgh

Word: edinburgh
Dictionary variant: 1 of 1
CMUdict ARPABET: EH1 D AH0 N B ER0 OW0
Vowel nuclei / estimated syllables: 4
Primary stress: 1st vowel position

ORIGINAL AUDITION SCRIPT
The festival fills Edinburgh with performers every August.
We took the early train from London to Edinburgh.

REVIEW CHECKLIST
[ ] Read both sentences naturally; keep the source wording.
[ ] Compare the intended pronunciation with the selected dictionary variant.
[ ] Listen for vowel sounds, consonants, and word stress in context.
[ ] Check with a speaker or another dictionary when accent or meaning matters.
[ ] Generate and listen to a short Murmur sample before exporting the full script.

Practice note: Strike out the g mentally before you read. Say the last two syllables as one soft unit and keep the stress on the opening syllable so the name does not tip forward.

CMUdict is a North American English lexicon, not a recording or a complete accent guide.
Variant order is dictionary order; it is not a ranking of correctness.
Source: https://github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict/blob/74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690/cmudict.dict
Source commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690
License: https://www.murmurtts.com/downloads/cmudict-license.txt
Reference: https://www.murmurtts.com/pronunciation/edinburgh

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Dictionary source

The phonemes on this page come from CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. The dictionary maintainers acknowledge that errors and omissions can remain; check another source or a speaker when the pronunciation matters.

CMUdict README · Included dictionary license

Source version and checksum

Commit: 74790861f652b15e4ac49015a90074ad62a27690

Dictionary SHA-256: 81917843c7f44ce2b094ac63873c2c7a4cf802040792c455ba3ca406891c3d22

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