International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. It is intended as a notational standard for the phonemic and phonetic representation of all spoken languages.

For a treatment of the English language using the IPA, see International Phonetic Alphabet for English; for a brief chart, see IPA chart for English.

File:IPA chart 2005.png

The International Phonetic Alphabet.

History

Main article: History of the International Phonetic Alphabet

Description

The general principle of the IPA is to provide a separate symbol for each speech segment, avoiding letter combinations (digraphs) such as sh and th in English orthography, and avoiding ambiguity such as that of c in English.

The principle of formation

The IPA is what MacMahon (1996) has termed a "selective" phonetic alphabet. It aims to provide a separate symbol for every contrastive (that is, phonemic) sound occurring in human language. For instance, a flap and a tap are two different articulations, but since no language has (yet) been found to make a phonemic distinction between them, the IPA does not provide them with dedicated symbols. Instead, it provides a single symbol, ɾ, that covers both. For non-contrastive (that is, phonetic or subphonemic) details of these sounds, the IPA relies on diacritics, which are optional. Thus there is a certain level of flexibility in representing a language with the IPA.

Principles behind the symbols

The letters chosen for the IPA are generally drawn from the Latin and Greek alphabets, or are modifications of Latin or Greek letters. There are also a few letters derived from Latin punctuation, such as the glottal stop ʔ (originally an apostrophe, but later given the form of a "gelded" question mark to have the visual impact of the other consonants), and one, ʕ, although Latin in form, was inspired by Arabic letter <ﻉ> `ain. On the other hand, the original Latin-derived symbols for the clicks have been abandoned in favor of iconic Khoisanist symbols such as ǁ.

The sound-values of the consonants taken from the Latin alphabet correspond to usage in French and Italian, and are close to those of most other European languages as well: [b], [d], [f], [ɡ], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], (unvoiced) [s], [t], [v], [z]. English values are used for [h] and [w].

The vowels from the Latin alphabet ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) correspond to the vowels of Spanish and are similar to Italian. [i] is like the vowel in piece, [u] like rule, etc.

The other symbols from the Latin alphabet, [c], [j], [q], [r], [x], and [y], correspond to sounds these letters represent in various other languages. [j] has the Slavic and Germanic value of <j>, that of English y in yoke; [y] has the Scandinavian and Old English value: Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, Dutch u.

Letters that share a particular modification sometimes correspond to a similar type of sound. For example, all the retroflex consonants have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonant, with the addition of a rightward facing hook at the bottom. Although there is some correspondence between modified letters, generally the IPA symbols do not have a systematic featural relationship between shape and articulation. For instance, there is not a consistent relationship between lowercase letters and their small capital counterparts, nor are all labial consonants linked through a common design.

Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA letters to transcribe modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone.

Types of transcriptions

The International Phonetic Association recommends that a phonetic transcription should be enclosed in square brackets "[ ]". A transcription that specifically denotes only phonological contrasts may be enclosed in slashes "/ /" instead. If one is in doubt, it is best to use brackets, for by setting off a transcription with slashes one makes a theoretical claim that every symbol within is phonemically contrastive for the language being transcribed.

Phonetic transcriptions try to objectively capture the actual pronunciation of a word, whereas phonemic transcriptions are model dependent. For example, Noam Chomsky transcribed the English word night phonemically as /nixt/. In his model, the phoneme /x/ is often silent, but shows its presence by “lengthening” the preceding vowel. The preceding vowel in this case is the phoneme /i/, which is pronounced [aj] when long. So phonemic /nixt/ is equivalent to phonetic [najt], but only if you share Chomsky's belief that historical sounds such as the gh in night may remain in a word long after they have ceased to be pronounced.

For phonetic transcriptions, there is flexibility in how closely sounds may be transcribed. A transcription that gives only a basic idea of the sounds of a language in the broadest terms is called a "broad transcription"; in some cases this may be equivalent to a phonemic transcription (only without any theoretical claims). A close transcription, indicating precise details of the sounds, is called a "narrow transcription". These are not binary choices, but the ends of a continuum, with many possibilities in between. All are enclosed in brackets.

For example, in some dialects the English word pretzel in a narrow transcription would be [ˈpʰɹ̥ʷɛʔt.sɫ̩], which notes several phonetic features that may not be evident even to a native speaker. An example of a broader transcription is [ˈpʰɹɛt.sɫ̩], which only indicates some of the easier to hear features. A yet broader transcription would be [ˈpɹɛtsl]. Here every symbol represents an unambiguous speech sound, but without making any claims as to their status in the language.

There are also several possibilities in how to transcribe this word phonemically, but here the differences are generally not of precision, but of analysis. For example, pretzel could be /ˈprɛtsl/ or /ˈpretsəl/. The special symbol for English r is not used, for it is not meaningful to distinguish it from a rolled r. The differences in the letter e reflect claims as to what the essential difference is between the vowels of pretzel and pray; there are half a dozen ideas in the literature as to what this may be. The second transcription claims that there are two vowels in the word, even if they can't both be heard, while the first claims there is only one.

However, phonemic transcriptions may also be broad or narrow, or perhaps it would be better to say abstract vs. concrete. They may show a fair amount of phonetic detail, usually of a phoneme's most common allophone, but because they are abstract symbols they do not need to directly resemble any sound at all. Phonemic symbols will frequently be chosen to avoid diacritics as much as possible, under a 'one sound one symbol' policy, or may even be restricted to the ASCII symbols of a typical keyboard. For example, the English word church may be transcribed as /tʃɚtʃ/, a close approximation of its actual pronunciation, or more abstractly as /crc/ (three phonemes, three symbols), which is easier to type. Phonemic symbols should always be explained, especially when they are as divergent from actual pronunciation as /crc/.

Occasionally a transcription will be enclosed in pipes ("| |"). This goes beyond phonology into morphological analysis. For example, the words pets and beds could be transcribed phonetically as [pʰɛʔts] and [b̥ɛdz] (in a fairly narrow transcription), and phonemically as /pets/ and /bedz/. Because /s/ and /z/ are separate phonemes in English (unlike Spanish, for example), they receive separate symbols in the phonemic analysis. However, you probably recognize that underneath this, they represent the same plural ending. This can be indicated with the pipe notation. If you believe the plural ending is essentially an s, as English spelling would suggest, the words can be transcribed |pets| and |beds|. If, as most linguists would probably suggest, it is essentially a z, these would be |petz| and |bedz|.

To avoid confusion with IPA symbols, it may be desirable to specify when native orthography is being used, so that, for example, the English word jet is not read as "yet". This is done with angle brackets or chevrons: U+〈jet〉x                . It is also common to italicize such words, but the chevrons indicate specifically that they are in the original language's orthography, and not in English transliteration.

The Extended IPA for speech pathology has added additional bracket notations. Parentheses are used to indicate mouthing (silent articulation), as in (ʃːː), a silent sign to hush; parentheses are also used to indicate silent pauses, for example (...). Double parentheses indicate obscured or unintelligible sound, as in ((2 syll.)), two audible but unidentifiable syllables. Curly brackets with Italian musical terms are used to mark prosodic notation, such as [{_falsetto hɛlp _falsetto}].

Consonants (pulmonic)

Single articulation

Closeup of the main pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart

The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation and columns that designate place of articulation. The main chart only includes consonants with a single place of articulation.

Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal				Radical				(none)
Manner of articulation ↓	Bi­la­bial	La­bio‐ den­tal	Den­tal	Al­veo­lar	Post‐ al­veo­lar	Re­tro‐ flex	Pa­la­tal	Ve­lar	Uvu­lar		Pha­ryn‐ geal		Epi‐ glot­tal		Glot­tal
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Plosive	p b	* *	t d			ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k ɡ	q ɢ				ʡ		ʔ
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	ʜ	ʢ	h ɦ
Approx­imant	β̞	ʋ	ɹ			ɻ	j	ɰ
Trill	ʙ		r			*			ʀ				*
Tap or Flap	*	Labiodental flap†	ɾ			ɽ							*
Lateral Fricative			ɬ ɮ			*	*	*
Lateral Approx­imant			l			ɭ	ʎ	ʟ
Lateral Flap			ɺ			*	*	*

Notes:

• Asterisks (*) mark reported sounds that do not (yet) have official IPA symbols. See the articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
• Daggers (†) mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: Labiodental flap (Proposal to add this symbol to Unicode)
• In rows where some symbols appear in pairs (the obstruents), the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant (except for breathy-voiced [ɦ]). However, [ʔ] cannot be voiced. In the other rows (the sonorants), the single symbol represents a voiced consonant.
• Although there is a single symbol for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, when dealing with a particular language, the symbols are treated as specifically alveolar, post-alveolar, etc., as appropriate for that language.
• Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
• The symbols [ʁ, ʕ, ʢ] represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
• It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives [ʃ ʒ], [ɕ ʑ], and [ʂ ʐ].
• The labiodental nasal [ɱ] is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.

Coarticulation

Closeup of the co-articulated consonant section of the IPA chart

ʍ	Voiceless labialized velar approximant
w	Voiced labialized velar approximant
ɥ	Voiced labialized palatal approximant
ɕ	Voiceless palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
ʑ	Voiced palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
ɧ	Voiceless "palatal-velar" fricative

Notes:

• [ɧ] is described as a "simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]". However, this analysis is disputed. See the article for discussion.

Consonants (non-pulmonic)

Closeup of the non-pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart

Click releases		Implosives		Ejectives
ʘ	Bilabial	ɓ	Bilabial	ʼ	For example:
ǀ	Laminal alveolar ("dental")	ɗ	Alveolar	pʼ	Bilabial
ǃ	Apical (post-) alveolar ("retroflex")	ʄ	Palatal	tʼ	Alveolar
ǂ	Laminal postalveolar ("palatal")	ɠ	Velar	kʼ	Velar
ǁ	Lateral coronal ("lateral")	ʛ	Uvular	sʼ	Alveolar fricative

Notes:

• All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar or uvular stop, plus a symbol for the anterior release: [k͡ǂ, ɡ͡ǂ, ŋ͡ǂ, q͡ǂ, ɢ͡ǂ, ɴ͡ǂ] etc., or [ǂ͡k, ǂ͡ɡ, ǂ͡ŋ, ǂ͡q, ǂ͡ɢ, ǂ͡ɴ]. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a [k] may usually be assumed.
• Symbols for the voiceless implosives [ƥ, ƭ, ƈ, ƙ, ʠ] are no longer supported by the IPA, though they remain in Unicode. Instead, the IPA uses the voiced equivalent with a voiceless diacritic: [ɓ̥, ʛ̥], etc.
• Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, U+[ᶑ]x                , is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite [ɗ̢].
• The ejective symbol is often seen for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as [mʼ], [lʼ], [wʼ], [aʼ], but these are more properly transcribed as creaky ([m̰], [l̰], [w̰], [a̰]).

Vowels

Closeup of the vowel chart of the IPA Template:CSS IPA vowel chart

Notes:

• Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel, as does [ʊ] (at least prototypically). All others are unrounded.
• [ɶ] is not confirmed as a distinct phoneme in any language.
• [a] is officially a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and [a] is frequently used for an open central vowel.

Affricates and double articulation

Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar, either above or below the symbols. The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third affricate transcription sometimes seen uses the superscript notation for a consonant release, for example tˢ for t​͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. The symbols for the palatal plosives, <c ɟ>, are often used as a convenience for [t​͡ʃ d͡ʒ] or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care.

Image of the six common affricate ligatures and their official IPA equivalents

Tie bar	Ligature	Description
t​͡s	ʦ	voiceless alveolar affricate
d​͡z	ʣ	voiced alveolar affricate
t​͡ʃ	ʧ	voiceless postalveolar affricate
d​͡ʒ	ʤ	voiced postalveolar affricate
t​͡ɕ	ʨ	voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
d​͡ʑ	ʥ	voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
t​͡ɬ	–	voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
k͡p	–	voiceless labial-velar plosive
ɡ͡b	–	voiced labial-velar plosive
ŋ͡m	–	labial-velar nasal stop

Note:

• If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: ts͡, tʃ͡, tɕ͡, dz͡, dʒ͡, dʑ͡, tɬ͡, kp͡, ɡb͡, ŋm͡.

Extended IPA

The Extended IPA was designed for disordered speech. However, some of the symbols (especially diacritics, below) are occasionally used for transcribing normal speech as well.

View a pdf file here.

ʩ	Velopharyngeal fricative (often occurs with a cleft palate)
ʪ	Voiceless central-plus-lateral alveolar fricative, [ɬ͡s] (a lisp)
ʫ	Voiced central-plus-lateral alveolar fricative, [ɮ͡z] (a lisp)
ʬ	Bilabial percussive (smacking lips)
ʭ	Bidental percussive (gnashing teeth)
¡	Sublaminal lower alveolar click (sucking tongue)

The last symbol may be used with the alveolar click for [ǃ¡], a combined alveolar and sublaminal click or "cluck-click".

Suprasegmentals

Closeup of the suprasegmental section of the IPA chart

ˈ	Primary stress
ˌ	Secondary stress
ː	Long (long vowel or geminate consonant)
ˑ	Half-long
˘	Extra-short
.	Syllable break
‿	Linking (absence of a break)

Intonation

|	Minor (foot) break
‖	Major (intonation) break
↗	Global rise
↘	Global fall

Tone

IPA allows for the use of either tone diacritics or tone letters to indicate tones.

e̋ or ˥	Extra high
é or ˦	High
ē or ˧	Mid
è or ˨	Low
ȅ or ˩	Extra low
ě	Rise
ê	Fall
↓e	Downstep
↑e	Upstep

Note:

• With regard to tone diacritics, Unicode encodes marks for some contour tones, but not all. In Unicode version 4.1, only hacek (rising) and circumflex (falling) diacritics were encoded. Subsequent versions may also include six additional diacritics for contour tones, such as the macron-acute and the grave-acute-grave ligatures. (See an image here.) Note that contour tone diacritics are not encoded as sequences of level tone diacritics in Unicode.
• With regard to tone letters, Unicode does not have separate encodings for contour tones. Instead, sequences of level tone letters are used, with proper display dependent on the font, usually by means of OpenType font rendition: [˥˩] or [˦˥˧]. (These are probably not displaying correctly in your browser. See the image for a sample of how they should appear.) Since few fonts support combination tone letters (see the external links for one that is free), a common solution is to use the old system of superscript numerals from '1' to '5', for example [e⁵³, e³¹²]. However, this depends on local linguistic tradition, with '5' generally being high and '1' being low for Asian languages, but '1' being high and '5' low for African languages. An old IPA convention sometimes still seen is to use sub-diacritics for low contour tones: [e̖, e̗] for low-falling and low-rising.
• The upstep and downstep modifiers are superscript arrows. Unicode version 4.1 does not encode these, though subsequent versions will. The arrows for upstep and downstep should not be confused with the full-height arrows, which are used to indicate airflow direction.

Diacritics

Closeup of the diacritic section of the IPA chart

Sub-diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, i.e. ŋ̊. The dotless i, <ı>, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: tˢ (fricative release), bʱ (breathy voice), ˀa (glottal onset), U+ᵊx                 (epenthetic schwa), o^ʊ (diphthongization).

Syllabicity diacritics
ɹ̩ n̩	Syllabic	e̯ ʊ̯	Non-syllabic
Consonant-release diacritics
tʰ dʰ	Aspirated 2	d̚	No audible release
dⁿ	Nasal release	dˡ	Lateral release
Phonation diacritics
n̥ d̥	Voiceless	s̬ t̬	Voiced
b̤ a̤	Breathy voiced 1	b̰ a̰	Creaky voiced
Articulation diacritics
t̪ d̪	Dental	t̼ d̼	Linguolabial
t̺ d̺	Apical	t̻ d̻	Laminal
u̟ t̟	Advanced	i̠ t̠	Retracted
ë ä	Centralized	e̽ ɯ̽	Mid-centralized
e̝ ɹ̝ ˔	Raised (ɹ̝ = voiced alveolar nonsibilant fricative)
e̞ β̞ ˕	Lowered (β̞ = bilabial approximant)
Co-articulation diacritics
ɔ̹ x̹	More rounded	ɔ̜ x̜ʷ	Less rounded
tʷ dʷ	Labialized	tʲ dʲ	Palatalized
tˠ dˠ	Velarized	tˁ dˁ	Pharyngealized
ɫ z̴	Velarized or pharyngealized
e̘ o̘	Advanced tongue root	e̙ o̙	Retracted tongue root
ẽ z̃	Nasalized	ɚ ɝ	Rhoticity

Notes:

1. Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as bʱ.
2. With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice.

The state of the glottis can be finely transcribed with diacritics. A series of alveolar plosives ranging from an open to a closed glottis phonation are:

[t]	voiceless
[d̤]	breathy voice, also called murmured
[d̥]	slack voice
[d]	modal voice
[d̬]	stiff voice
[d̰]	creaky voice
[ʔ͡t]	glottal closure

Extended IPA diacritics

The letters and diacritics of the ExtIPA

The ExtIPA has widened the use of some of the regular IPA symbols, such as ʰp for pre-aspiration, tʶ for uvularization, or s̼ for a linguolabial sibilant, as well as adding some new ones. Some of the ExtIPA diacritics are occasionally used for non-disordered speech, for example for the unusual airstream mechanisms of Damin.

One modification is the use of subscript parentheses around the phonation diacritics to indicate partial phonation; a single parenthesis at the left or right of the voicing indicates that it is partially phonated at the beginning or end of the segment. For example, ₍s̬₎ is a partially voiced [s], ₍s̬ shows partial initial voicing, and s̬₎ partial final voicing; also ₍z̥₎ is a partially devoiced [z], ₍z̥ shows partial initial devoicing, and z̥₎ partial final devoicing. These conventions may be convenient for representing various voice onset times.

Phonation diacritics may also be prefixed or suffixed rather than placed directly under the segment to represent relative timing. For instance,  ̬z is a pre-voiced [z], z ̬ a post-voiced [z], and a ̰ is an [a] with a creaky offglide.

Other ExtIPA diacritics are,

Airstream mechanism
p↓	Ingressive airflow	!↑	Egressive airflow
Phonation
p⁼	Unaspirated	ạ	Whispery phonation
aĦ	Faucalized voice (stretched pharynx, as in a yawn)	a!	Harsh voice, ('pressed voice'; involves the false vocal cords, as when lifting a load)
ʰp	Pre-aspiration	a‼	Ventricular vibration
Nasalization
n͋    v͋	Nasal fricative or frication	m͊	Denasal (as with a headcold)
Articulatory strength
f͈	Strong articulation	v͉	Weak articulation
Articulation
v͆	Dentolabial	n̪͆    h̪͆	Interdental or bidental
s͇    f͇	Alveolar(ized)	s͎	Whistled articulation
Secondary articulation
s͍	Labial spreading (see rounded vowel)	ʒœ	Open-rounded labialization
kʋ	Labiodentalized	s͌	Velopharyngeal friction
Timing
s͢θ	Slurred/sliding articulation	p\p\p	Stutter (reiterated articulation)

In addition to these symbols, a subscript < or > indicates that an articulation is laterally offset to the left or right.

Prosodic notation

The ExtIPA also makes use of Italian musical notation for the tempo and dynamics of connected speech. These are subscripted on the insides of a {brace} notation that indicates that they are comments on the prosody.

Pauses are indicated with periods or numbers inside parentheses.

(.)	Short pause	(..)	Medium pause	(...)	Long pause	(1.2)	1.2-second pause
f	Loud speech ('forte')	[{f lɑʊdf}]		ff	Louder speech ('fortissimo')	[{ff lɑʊdɚ ff}]
p	Quiet speech ('piano')	[{p kwaɪət p}]		pp	Quieter speech ('pianissimo')	[{pp kwaɪətɚ pp}]
allegro	Fast speech	[{allegro fɑːst allegro}]		lento	Slow speech	[{lento sloʊ lento}]
crescendo, rallentando, and other musical terms may also be used.

Obsolete symbols, nonstandard symbols, and capital variants

The IPA inherited alternate symbols from various traditions, but eventually settled on one for each sound. The other symbols are now considered obsolete. An example is ɷ for standard ʊ. Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that such things should be indicated with diacritics: ƍ for zʷ is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ has been dropped.

There are also unsupported symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as ƛ.

While the IPA does not itself have a set of capital letters (the ones that look like capitals are actually small capitals), many languages have adopted symbols from the IPA as part of their orthographies, and in such cases they have invented capital variants of these. This is especially common in Africa. An example is Kabye of northern Togo, which has U+Ɔ Ɛ Ŋ Ɣ Ʃx                 (capital ʃ). Other pseudo-IPA capitals supported by unicode are U+Ɓ/Ƃ Ƈ Ɗ/Ƌ Ə/Ǝ Ɠ Ħ Ɯ Ɲ Ɵ Ʈ Ʊ Ʋ Ʒx                .

ɩ	Iota, rejected 1989 in favor of [ɪ]
ɷ	Closed omega, rejected 1989 in favor of [ʊ]
ʚ	Closed epsilon, a mistake for [ɞ]
ɼ	Long-leg R, voiced strident apico-alveolar trill (Czech ř), withdrawn 1989, = [r̝]
ɿ	Reversed fishhook R / turned iota, apical dental unrounded vowel used by Sinologists, = [z̩]
ʅ	Squat reversed esh (actually ɿ with retroflex tail), apical retroflex unrounded vowel used by Sinologists, = [ʐ̩]
ʮ	turned h with fishhook, apical dental rounded vowel used by Sinologists, = [z̩ʷ]
ʯ	turned h with fishhook and tail, apical retroflex rounded vowel used by Sinologists, = [ʐ̩ʷ]
ȶ	t with curl, voiceless palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) plosive, used by Sinologists
ȡ	d with curl, voiced palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) plosive, used by Sinologists
ȵ	n with curl, voiced palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) nasal, used by Sinologists
A	small capital A, open central vowel used by Sinologists, between [a] and [ɑ]
E	small capital E, mid front unrounded vowel used by Sinologists, between [e] and [ɛ]
ʆ	Curly-tail esh, withdrawn 1989, = [ʃʲ]
ʓ	Curly-tail ezh, withdrawn 1989, = [ʒʲ]
ƫ	Left-hook T, withdrawn 1989, = [tʲ]
d̡ etc.	Subscript left hook, superseded 1989 by [dʲ] etc.
σ	= [θʷ, sʷ]
ƍ	= [ðʷ, zʷ]
ƪ	= [ʃʷ]
ƺ	= [ʒʷ]
k̫ etc.	Subscript w, superseded 1989 by [kʷ] etc.
ɑ̢ etc.	= [ɑ˞] etc. ("retroflex" or r-colored vowels)
ʇ	Turned T, superseded 1989 by [ǀ]
ʖ	Inverted glottal stop, superseded 1989 by [ǁ]
ʗ	Stretched C, superseded 1989 by [ǃ]
ʞ	Proposed symbol for velar click, withdrawn 1970
ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ	Hooktop P, T, C, K, Q, withdrawn 1993, = [ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̥ ɠ̥ ʛ̥]
ƞ	Right-leg N, withdrawn 1976, = [n̩]
š	Americanist usage, = [ʃ]
ž	Americanist usage, = [ʒ]
č	Americanist usage, = [t͡ʃ]
ǰ, ǧ, ǯ	Americanist, Slavicist etc. usage, = [d͡ʒ]
ƛ	Americanist usage, = [t͡ɬ]
λ	Americanist usage, = [d͡ɮ]
ƾ	Withdrawn 1976, = [t͡s]
ƻ	Barred two, withdrawn 1976, = [d͡z]

How to transcribe sounds that don't have symbols in the IPA charts

The remaining blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc symbols have appeared in the literature, for example for the lateral flaps and voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. For example, the Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, [β̞]. Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, [ɭ˔ ʎ̝ ʟ̝]. A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap symbol and the advanced diacritic, [v̛̟]. Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written [ʙ̪] (bilabial trill and the dental sign). Palatal and uvular taps, if they exist, and the epiglottal tap could be written as extra-short plosives, [ɟ˘ ɢ˘ ʡ˘]. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted [r̠], just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals and the palatal trill, while not strictly impossible, are very difficult to pronounce and are unlikely to occur even as allophones in the world's languages.

The vowels are similarly manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering. For example, the unrounded equivalent of [ʊ] can be transcribed as mid-centered [ɯ̽], and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised [ɶ̝]. True mid vowels are lowered [e̞ ø̞ ɘ̞ ɵ̞ ɤ̞ o̞], while centered [ɪ̈ ʊ̈] and [ä] are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The vowels that aren't representable in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic.

Names of the symbols

It is often desirable to distinguish an IPA symbol from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not a one-to-one correspondance between symbol and sound in broad transcription. The symbol's names and phonetic descriptions are described in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. The symbols also have nonce names in the Unicode standard. In some cases, the Unicode names and the IPA names do not agree. For example, IPA calls ɛ "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".

The letters

The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the symbols from the Greek section.

Examples:

	IPA symbol name	phonetic description	Unicode name
p	(lower-case) P	voiceless bilabial plosive	LATIN SMALL LETTER P
x	(lower-case) X	voiceless velar fricative	LATIN SMALL LETTER X
r	(lower-case) R	coronal trill	LATIN SMALL LETTER R
β	beta	voiced bilabial fricative	GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA
ɛ	epsilon	open-mid front unrounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN E
ɣ	gamma	voiced velar fricative	LATIN SMALL LETTER GAMMA
θ	theta	voiceless dental fricative	GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA
χ	chi	voiceless uvular fricative	GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI
ɸ	phi	voiceless bilabial fricative	LATIN SMALL LETTER PHI
ʊ	upsilon 1	near-close near-back rounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER UPSILON

Note

1. The Latin "upsilon" is frequently called "horseshoe u" in order to distinguish it from the Greek upsilon. Historically, it derives from a Latin small capital U.

The IPA standard includes some small capital letters, such as ʀ, although it is common to refer to these symbols as simply "capital" or "cap" letters, because the IPA standard does not include any full-size capital letters.

A few letters have the forms of cursive or script letters. Examples:

	IPA symbol name	phonetic description	Unicode name
ɑ	script A	open back unrounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER ALPHA
ɡ	opentail G 1	voiced velar plosive	LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT G
ʋ	cursive V 2	labiodental approximant	LATIN SMALL LETTER V WITH HOOK

Note

1. The "looptail G" File:Looptail g.PNG is not strictly an IPA character, but is an acceptable alternative.
2. In form and origin, but not in name, this is the Greek upsilon.

Ligatures are called precisely that, although some have alternate names. Examples:

	IPA symbol name	phonetic description	Unicode name
œ	(lower-case) o-e ligature	open-mid front rounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LIGATURE OE
ɮ	L-Ezh ligature	voiced coronal lateral fricative	LATIN SMALL LETTER LEZH
æ	ash; (lower-case) a-e ligature	near-open front unrounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER AE

Many letters are turned, or rotated 180 degrees. Examples:

	IPA symbol name	phonetic description	Unicode name
ʎ	turned Y	palatal lateral approximant	LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED Y
ɥ	turned H	labial-palatal approximant	LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED H
ɒ	turned script A	open back rounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED ALPHA
ʌ	turned V	open-mid back unrounded vowel	LATIN SMALL TURNED V
ɔ	open O	open-mid back rounded vowel	LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O

The symbol ɔ can be described as a turned cee, but it is almost always referred to as open o, which described both its articulation and its shape. The symbol ʌ is often also called "caret" or "wedge" for it similarity to that diacritic.

A few letters are reversed (flipped on a vertical axis): ɘ reversed E, ɜ reversed epsilon, ʕ reversed glottal stop [often called by its Arabic name, ayin].

One letter is inverted (flipped on a horizontal axis): ʁ inverted R. (ʍ could also be called an inverted double-u, but turned double-u is more common.)

When a horizontal stroke is added, it is called a bar: ħ barred H, ɵ barred o, ʢ reversed barred glottal stop or barred ayin, ɟ barred dotless J or barred gelded J [apparently never 'turned F'], ǂ double-barred pipe, etc.

One letter instead has a slash through it: ø slashed O.

The implosives have hook tops: ɓ hook-top B, as does ɦ hook-top H.

Such an extension at the bottom of a letter is called a tail. It may be specified as left or right depending on which direction it turns: ɳ right-tail N, ɻ right-tail turned R, ɲ left-tail N [note that ŋ has its own traditional name, engma], ɱ left-tail em, ʐ tail Z [or just retroflex Z], etc.

When the tail loops over itself, it's called curly: ʝ curly-tail jay, ɕ curly-tail C.

There are also a few unique modifications: ɬ belted L, ɞ closed reversed epsilon [there was once also a ɷ closed omega], ɰ right-leg turned M, ɺ turned long-leg R [there was once also a long-leg R], ǁ double pipe, and the obsolete ʗ stretched C.

Several non-English letters have traditional names: ç C cedilla, ð eth (also spelled edh), ŋ engma, ə schwa, ǃ exclamation mark, ǀ pipe.

Other symbols are unique to the IPA, and have developed their own quirky names: ɾ fish-hook R, ɤ ram's horns, ʘ bull's eye, ʃ esh [apparently never 'stretched ess'], ʒ ezh [sometimes also yogh], ɧ hook-top heng.

The ʔ is usually called by the sound it represents, glottal stop. This is not normally a problem, because this symbol is seldom used to represent anything else. However, to specify the symbol itself, it is sometimes called a gelded question mark.

The diacritic marks

Diacritics with traditional names:

é acute, ē macron, è grave, ê circumflex, ě caron, wedge, or háček, ë diaeresis or umlaut, ĕ breve, ẽ (superscript) tilde, plus variants such as ḛ subscript tilde, ɫ superimposed tilde, etc.

Non-traditional diacritics:

d̼ seagull, e˞ hook, e̽ over-cross, d ̚ corner, d̪ bridge, d̺ inverted bridge, d̻ square, e̥ under-ring, e̊ over-ring, e̜ left half-ring, e̹ right half-ring, e̟ plus, e̠ under-bar, e̯ arch, d̬ subscript wedge, e̝ up tack, e̞ down tack, e̘ left tack, e̙ right tack, d͡z tie bar, ẹ under-dot, n̩ under-stroke.

Diacritics are alternately named after their function: The bridge is also called the dental sign, the under-stroke the syllabicity sign, etc.

Comparison to other phonetic notation

The IPA is not the only phonetic transcription system in use. The other common Latin-based system is the Americanist phonetic notation, devised for representing American languages, but used by some US linguists as an alternate to the IPA. There are also sets of symbols specific to Slavic, Indic, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian linguistics, as well as other regional specialies. The differences between these alphabets and IPA are relatively small, although often the special characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of diacritics or digraphs.

Other alphabets, such as Hangul, may have their own phonetic extensions. There also exist featural phonetic transcription systems, such as Alexander Bell's Visible Speech and its derivatives.

There is an extended version of the IPA for disordered speech (extIPA), which has been included in this article, and another set of symbols used for voice quality (VoQS). There are also many personal or idiosyncratic extensions, such as Luciano Canepari's ^canIPA.

Since the IPA uses symbols that are outside the ASCII character set, several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Two notable systems are Kirshenbaum and SAMPA (or X-SAMPA). These systems are often used in electronic media, although their usage has been declining with the development of computer technology, specifically because of spreading support for Unicode.

See also: Unicode and HTML

See also

• International Phonetic Alphabet for English explains those IPA symbols used to represent the phonemes of English.
• IPA chart for English: simplifed version.
• Pronunciation respelling for English: overview of several pronunciation guide systems used in English dictionaries.
• TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX.
• SAMPA, X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum are other methods of mapping IPA designations into ASCII.
• List of phonetics topics
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA)

External links

• Official home page of the IPA
• Learning the IPA for English
• French IPA characters

Free IPA font downloads

• Gentium, a professionally designed international font (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) in roman and italic typefaces that includes the IPA, but not yet tone letters or the new labiodental flap.
• Charis SIL, a very complete international font (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) in roman, italic, and bold typefaces that includes tone letters and pre-composed tone diacritics on IPA vowels, the new labiodental flap, and many non-standard phonetic symbols.
• Doulos SIL, a Times/Times New Roman style font. It contains the same characters as Charis SIL, but only in a single face, roman.
• SIL93 the legacy SIL IPA93 fonts (Manuscript and Sophia) recoded in Unicode.
• Test page for installed fonts. Includes alternate variants and tone letters.

Keyboards

• Online keyboard
• Online keyboard and machine pronunciation
• Downloadable IPA-SIL keyboard layout for Mac OS X for Unicode IPA input
• WikiTeX supports editing IPA sequences directly in Wiki articles.

Sound files

• Peter Ladefoged's Course in Phonetics (with sound files)
  • Pronounceable IPA chart
• An introduction to the sounds of languages
• IPA Lab Chart with sound files at University of Victoria. (Works with QuickTime.)
• Flash version of IPA charts, with sound samples
• Another set of IPA sound samples

Charts

• IPA chart source
• IPA Chart in Unicode and XHTML/CSS

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• IPA number chart, at University of Victoria.

Unicode

Official Unicode PDF files:

• Unicode chart for main IPA letters
• Unicode chart for IPA modifier letters
• Unicode chart including IPA diacritics

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• International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode
• Unicode-HTML codes for IPA symbols: Tables of symbol names and HTML codes at PennState.

Personal extensions of the IPA

• ^canIPA : Luciano Canepari's system (500 base symbols)

References

• Albright, Robert W. (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its background and development. International journal of American linguistics (Vol. 24, No. 1, Part 3); Indiana University research center in anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, publ. 7. Baltimore. (Doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, 1953).
• Ball, Martin J.; Esling, John H.; & Dickson, B. Craig. (1995). The VoQS system for the transcription of voice quality. Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet, 25 (2), 71-80.
• Canepari, Luciano. (2005a). "A Handbook of Phonetics: ‹Natural› Phonetics." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 518. ISBN 3-8958-480-3 (hb).
• Canepari, Luciano. (2005b) "A Handbook of Pronunciation: English, Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto." München: Lincom Europa, pp. 436. ISBN 3-89586-481-1 (hb).
• Duckworth, M.; Allen, G.; Hardcastle, W.; & Ball, M. J. (1990). Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 4, 273-280.
• Ellis, Alexander J. (1869-1889). On early English pronunciation (Parts 1 & 5). London: Philological Society by Asher & Co.; London: Trübner & Co.
• Hill, Kenneth C. (1988). [Review of Phonetic symbol guide by G. K. Pullum & W. Ladusaw]. Language, 64 (1), 143-144.
• Hultzen, Lee S. (1958). [Review of The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its backgrounds and development by R. W. Albright]. Language, 34 (3), 438-442.
• International Phonetic Association. (1949). The principles of the International Phonetic Association, being a description of the International Phonetic Alphabet and the manner of using it, illustrated by texts in 51 languages. London: University College, Department of Phonetics.
• International Phonetic Association. (1989). Report on the 1989 Kiel convention. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 19 (2), 67-80.
• International Phonetic Association. (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-65236-7 (hb); ISBN 0-521-63751-1 (pb).
• Jespersen, Otto. (1889). The articulations of speech sounds represented by means of analphabetic symbols. Marburg: Elwert.
• Jones, Daniel. (1989). English pronouncing dictionary (14 ed.). London: Dent.
• Kelly, John. (1981). The 1847 alphabet: An episode of phonotypy. In R. E. Asher & E. J. A. Henderson (Eds.), Towards a history of phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Kemp, J. Alan. (1994). Phonetic transcription: History. In R. E. Asher & J. M. Y. Simpson (Eds.), The encyclopedia of language and linguistics (Vol. 6, pp. 3040-3051). Oxford: Pergamon.
• Ladefoged, Peter. (1990). The revised International Phonetic Alphabet. Language, 66 (3), 550-552.
• Ladefoged, Peter; & Halle, Morris. (1988). Some major features of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Language, 64 (3), 577-582.
• MacMahon, Michael K. C. (1996). Phonetic notation. In P. T. Daniels & W. Bright (Ed.), The world's writing systems (pp. 821-846). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
• Passy, Paul. (1888). Our revised alphabet. The Phonetic Teacher, 57-60.
• Pike, Kenneth L. (1943). Phonetics: A critical analysis of phonetic theory and a technic for the practical description of sounds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Pullum, Geoffrey K.; & Laduslaw, William A. (1986). Phonetic symbol guide. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-68532-2.
• Sweet, Henry. (1880-1881). Sound notation. Transactions of the Philological Society, 177-235.
• Sweet, Henry. (1971). The indispensable foundation: A selection from the writings of Henry Sweet. Henderson, Eugénie J. A. (Ed.). Language and language learning 28. London: Oxford University Press.
• Wells, John C. (1987). Computer-coded phonetic transcription. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 17, 94-114.

Technical note

Most IPA symbols are not included in Times New Roman, the default font for Latin scripts in Internet Explorer for Windows. To properly view IPA symbols in Internet Explorer for Windows, you must set your browser font to a typeface that includes the IPA extensions, such as Lucida Sans Unicode, which comes with Windows XP; Gentium, Charis (SIL), and Doulos (SIL), which are freely available (see links above); or Arial Unicode MS, which comes with Microsoft Office. Alternatively, the style sheet could try using unicode-range specifications to note the gaps where Times does not have glyphs for IPA, Hawaiian ‘okina (glottal stop), etc. and thus hopefully force the browser to check further down the list of fonts.

On this page, we have forced the browser to use such a font, so it should appear correctly, but this hasn't yet been done to all the other pages containing IPA. This also applies to other pages using special symbols. Bear this in mind if you see error symbols such as "蚟" in articles.

Special symbols should display properly without further configuration with Mozilla Firefox, Konqueror, Opera, Safari and most other recent browsers.

This article incorporates text from Wikipedia, and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
For the original article please see the "external links" section.