International Phonetic Alphabet

International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic

notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International International Phonetic
Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of Alphabet
speech sounds in written form.[1] The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language
students and teachers, linguists, speech-language pathologists, singers, actors,
constructed language creators and translators.[2][3]
"IPA" in IPA ([aɪ pʰiː eɪ])
The IPA is designed to represent those qualities of speech that are part of lexical (and
to a limited extent prosodic) sounds in oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation Script type Alphabet – partially
and the separation of words and syllables.[1] To represent additional qualities of featural
speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft lip and cleft Time since 1888
palate, an extended set of symbols, the extensions to the International Phonetic period
Alphabet, may be used.[2] Languages
IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and Languages Used for phonetic
diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA and phonemic
with a single letter, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [t ̺ʰ], depending on how precise transcription of any
one wishes to be.[note 1] Slashes are used to signal phonemic transcription; thus /t/ is language
more abstract than either [t ̺ʰ] or [t] and might refer to either, depending on the context
Related scripts
and language.
Parent Palaeotype alphabet,
Occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed or modified by the International systems
English Phonotypic
Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005,[4] there are 107 Alphabet
segmental letters, an indefinitely large number of suprasegmental letters, 44 diacritics
(not counting composites) and four extra-lexical prosodic marks in the IPA. These are Romic alphabet
shown in the current IPA chart, also posted below in this article and at the website of
the IPA.[5] International
Phonetic
Alphabet
Contents ISO 15924

ISO 15924 Latn, 215: Latin
History
Unicode
Description
Letter forms Unicode Latin
alias
Capital letters
Typography and iconicity
Brackets and transcription delimiters
Cursive forms
Letter g
Modifying the IPA chart
Usage
Linguists
Dictionaries
English
Other languages
Standard orthographies and case variants
Classical singing
Letters
IPA number
Consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Non-pulmonic consonants
Affricates
Co-articulated consonants
Vowels
Diphthongs
Diacritics and prosodic notation
Suprasegmentals
Stress
Boundary markers
Pitch and tone
Comparative degree
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols
Extensions
Associated notation
Segments without letters
Consonants
Vowels
Symbol names
The official chart of the IPA, revised in 2020
Computer support
Unicode
Typefaces
ASCII and keyboard transliterations
Computer input using on-screen keyboard
See also
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
History
In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what would come to
be known from 1897 onwards as the International Phonetic Association (in French, l'Association phonétique internationale).[6]
Their original alphabet was based on a spelling reform for English known as the Romic alphabet, but to make it usable for
other languages, the values of the symbols were allowed to vary from language to language.[7] For example, the sound [ʃ] (the
sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French.[6] In 1888, the
alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, thus providing the base for all future revisions.[6][8] The idea of
making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis,
Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, and Passy.[9]
Since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After revisions and expansions from the 1890s to the 1940s,
the IPA remained primarily unchanged until the Kiel Convention in 1989. A minor revision took place in 1993 with the
addition of four letters for mid central vowels[2] and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives.[10] The alphabet was last
revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap.[11] Apart from the addition and removal of symbols,
changes to the IPA have consisted largely of renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces.[2]
Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for speech pathology were created in 1990 and officially adopted by the
International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association in 1994.[12]
Description
The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment).[13] This means that:
It does not normally use combinations of letters to represent single sounds, the way English does with ⟨sh⟩,
⟨th⟩ and ⟨ng⟩, or single letters to represent multiple sounds the way ⟨x⟩ represents /ks/ or /ɡz/ in English.
There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values, as do "hard" and "soft" ⟨c⟩ or ⟨g⟩ in several
European languages.
The IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction
between them, a property known as "selectiveness".[2][note 2]
However, if a large number of phonemically distinct letters can be derived with a diacritic, that may be used
instead.[note 3]
The alphabet is designed for transcribing sounds (phones), not phonemes, though it is used for phonemic transcription as well.
A few letters that did not indicate specific sounds have been retired (⟨ˇ⟩, once used for the 'compound' tone of Swedish and
Norwegian, and ⟨ƞ⟩, once used for the moraic nasal of Japanese), though one remains: ⟨ɧ⟩, used for the sj-sound of Swedish.
When the IPA is used for phonemic transcription, the letter–sound correspondence can be rather loose. For example, ⟨c⟩ and ⟨ɟ⟩
are used in the IPA Handbook for /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/.
Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 letters represent consonants and vowels, 31 diacritics are used to modify these, and 19
additional signs indicate suprasegmental qualities such as length, tone, stress, and intonation.[note 4] These are organized into a
chart; the chart displayed here is the official chart as posted at the website of the IPA.
Letter forms
The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet.[note 5] For this reason, most letters are either
Latin or Greek, or modifications thereof. Some letters are neither: for example, the letter denoting the glottal stop, ⟨ʔ⟩, originally
had the form of a dotless question mark, and derives from an apostrophe. A few letters, such as that of the voiced pharyngeal
fricative, ⟨ʕ⟩, were inspired by other writing systems (in this case, the Arabic letter ‫ ﻉ‬ʿayn, via the reversed apostrophe).[10]
Some letter forms derive from existing letters:
1. The right-swinging tail, as in ⟨ɖ ɳ ʂ⟩ marks retroflex articulation. It derives from the hook of an r.
2. The top hook, as in ⟨ɠ ɗ ɓ⟩ marks implosion.
3. Several nasal consonants are based on the form ⟨n⟩: ⟨n ɲ ɳ ŋ⟩. ⟨ɲ⟩ and ⟨ŋ⟩ derive from ligatures of gn and ng,
and ⟨ɱ⟩ is an ad hoc imitation of ⟨ŋ⟩.
4. Letters turned 180 degrees, such as ɐ ɔ ə ɟ ɓ ɥ ɾ ɯ ɹ ʇ ʊ ʌ ʍ ʎ (from a c e f ɡ h ᴊ m r t ꭥ v w y),[14] when either
the original letter (e.g. ɐ ə ɹ ʇ ʍ) or the turned one (e.g. ɔ ɟ ɓ ɥ ɾ ɯ ʌ ʎ) is reminiscent of the target sound. This
was easily done in the era of mechanical typesetting, and had the advantage of not requiring the casting of
special type for IPA symbols, much as the same type had often been used for b and q, d and p, n and u, 6 and
9 to cut down on expense.
Capital letters
Full capital letters are not used as IPA symbols. They are, however, often used in conjunction with the IPA in two cases:
1. for archiphonemes and for natural classes of sounds (that is, as wildcards). The extIPA chart, for example,
uses wildcards in its illustrations.
2. as Voice Quality Symbols.
Wildcards are commonly used in phonology to summarize syllable or word shapes, or to show the evolution of classes of
sounds. For example, the possible syllable shapes of Mandarin can be abstracted as ranging from /V/ (an atonic vowel) to
/CGVNᵀ/ (a consonant-glide-vowel-nasal syllable with tone), and word-final devoicing may be schematicized as C → C̥/_#. In
speech pathology, capital letters represent indeterminate sounds, and may be superscripted to indicate they are weakly
articulated: e.g. [ᴰ] is a weak indeterminate alveolar, [ᴷ] a weak indeterminate velar.[15]
There is a degree of variation between authors as to the capital letters used, but ⟨C⟩ for {consonant}, ⟨V⟩ for {vowel} and ⟨N⟩
for {nasal} are ubiquitous. Other common conventions are ⟨T⟩ for {tone/accent} (tonicity), ⟨P⟩ for {plosive}, ⟨F⟩ for
{fricative}, ⟨S⟩ for {sibilant},[16] ⟨G⟩ for {glide/semivowel}, ⟨L⟩ for {lateral} or {liquid}, ⟨R⟩ for {rhotic} or
{resonant/sonorant},[17] ⟨Ʞ⟩ for {click}, ⟨A, E, O, Ɨ, U⟩ for {open, front, back, close, rounded vowel} and ⟨B, D, J (or Ɉ), K,
Q, Φ, H⟩ for {labial, alveolar, post-alveolar/palatal, velar, uvular, pharyngeal, glottal consonant}, respectively, and ⟨X⟩ for any
sound. The letters can be modified with IPA diacritics, for example ⟨Cʼ⟩ for {ejective}, ⟨Ƈ⟩ for {implosive}, ⟨N͡C⟩ or ⟨ᴺC⟩ for
{prenasalized consonant}, ⟨Ṽ⟩ for {nasal vowel}, ⟨CʰV⟩ for {aspirated CV syllable with high tone}, ⟨S̬ ⟩ for {voiced sibilant},
⟨N̥ ⟩ for {voiceless nasal}, ⟨P͡F⟩ or ⟨P ⟩ for {affricate}, ⟨Cʲ⟩ for {palatalized consonant} and ⟨D̪ ⟩ for {dental consonant}. ⟨H⟩,
⟨M⟩, ⟨L⟩ are also commonly used for high, mid and low tone, with ⟨HL⟩ (occasionally ⟨F⟩ 'falling'), ⟨LH⟩ (occasionally ⟨R⟩
'rising'), etc., rather than transcribing them overly precisely with IPA tone letters or with digits.
Typical examples of archiphonemic use of capital letters are ⟨I⟩ for the Turkish harmonic vowel set {i y ɯ u},[18] ⟨D⟩ for the
conflated flapped middle consonant of American English writer and rider, and ⟨N⟩ for the homorganic syllable-coda nasal of
languages such as Spanish and Japanese (essentially equivalent to the wild-card usage of the letter).
⟨V⟩, ⟨F⟩ and ⟨C⟩ have completely different meanings as Voice Quality Symbols, where they stand for "voice" (though
generally meaning secondary articulation, as in a 'nasal voice', rather than phonetic voicing), "falsetto" and "creak". They may
also take diacritics that indicate what kind of voice quality an utterance has, and may be used to extract a suprasegmental
feature that occurs on all susceptible segments in a stretch of IPA. For instance, the transcription of Scottish Gaelic
[kʷʰuˣʷt ̪ʷs̟ʷ] 'cat' and [kʷʰʉˣʷt͜ʃʷ] 'cats' (Islay dialect) can be made more economical by extracting the suprasegmental
labialization of the words: Vʷ[kʰuˣt ̪s̟] and Vʷ[kʰʉˣt͜ʃ].[19] The usual wildcard X or C might be used instead (Xʷ[...] for all
segments labialized, Cʷ[...] for consonants labialized), or omitted altogether. (See Suprasegmentals below for some
conventions.)
Typography and iconicity
The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.[6] The
Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonant letters taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond
to "international usage".[6] Hence, the letters ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, ⟨f⟩, (hard) ⟨ɡ⟩, (non-silent) ⟨h⟩, (unaspirated) ⟨k⟩, ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩,
(unaspirated) ⟨p⟩, (voiceless) ⟨s⟩, (unaspirated) ⟨t⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨w⟩, and ⟨z⟩ have the values used in English; and the vowel letters from
the Latin alphabet (⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨u⟩) correspond to the (long) sound values of Latin: [i] is like the vowel in machine, [u] is
as in rule, etc. Other letters may differ from English, but are used with these values in other European languages, such as ⟨j⟩,
⟨r⟩, and ⟨y⟩.
This inventory was extended by using small-capital and cursive forms, diacritics and rotation. There are also several symbols
derived or taken from the Greek alphabet, though the sound values may differ. For example, ⟨ʋ⟩ is a vowel in Greek, but an
only indirectly related consonant in the IPA. For most of these, subtly different glyph shapes have been devised for the IPA,
namely ⟨ɑ⟩, ⟨ꞵ⟩, ⟨ɣ⟩, ⟨ɛ⟩, ⟨ɸ⟩, ⟨ꭓ⟩, and ⟨ʋ⟩, which are encoded in Unicode separately from their parent Greek letters, though
one of them – ⟨θ⟩ – is not, while both Latin ⟨ꞵ⟩, ⟨ꭓ⟩ and Greek ⟨β⟩, ⟨χ⟩ are in common use.[20]
The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters.[21] For example, letters with a
rightward-facing hook at the bottom represent retroflex consonants; and small capital letters usually represent uvular
consonants. Apart from the fact that certain kinds of modification to the shape of a letter generally correspond to certain kinds
of modification to the sound represented, there is no way to deduce the sound represented by a symbol from its shape (as for
example in Visible Speech) nor even any systematic relation between signs and the sounds they represent (as in Hangul).
Beyond the letters themselves, there are a variety of secondary symbols which aid in transcription. 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 that are often employed.
Brackets and transcription delimiters
There are two principal types of brackets used to set off (delimit) IPA transcriptions:
[square brackets] are used with phonetic notation, whether broad or narrow[22] – that is, for actual
pronunciation, possibly including details of the pronunciation that may not be used for distinguishing words in
the language being transcribed, which the author nonetheless wishes to document. Such phonetic notation is
the primary function of the IPA.
/slashes/ are used for abstract phonemic notation,[22] which note only features that are distinctive in the
language, without any extraneous detail. For example, while the 'p' sounds of English pin and spin are
pronounced differently (and this difference would be meaningful in some languages), the difference is not
meaningful in English. Thus phonemically the words are usually analyzed as /pɪn/ and /spɪn/, with the same
phoneme /p/. To capture the difference between them (the allophones of /p/), they can be transcribed
phonetically as [pʰɪn] and [spɪn]. Phonemic notation commonly uses IPA symbols that are rather close to the
default pronunciation of a phoneme, but for legibility or other reasons can use symbols for something that
diverges from their designated values, such as /c, ɟ/ for affricates, as found in the Handbook, or /r/ (which
according to the IPA is a trill) for English r.
Other conventions are less commonly seen:
{Braces} are used for prosodic notation.[23] See Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for
examples in this system.
(Parentheses) are used for indistinguishable[22] or unidentified utterances. They are also seen for silent
articulation (mouthing),[24] where the expected phonetic transcription is derived from lip-reading, and with
periods to indicate silent pauses, for example (…) or (2 sec). The latter usage is made official in the extIPA,
with unidentified segments circled.[25]
Double parentheses indicate an obscured sound,[23] as in ⸨2σ⸩, two audible syllables obscured by another
noise. The extIPA specifies double parentheses for extraneous noise (as a knock on a door), but the IPA
Handbook identifies IPA and extIPA usage as equivalent.[26]
All three of the above are provided by the IPA Handbook. The following are not, but may be seen in IPA transcription:
Double square brackets ⟦...⟧ are used for extra-precise (especially narrow) transcription. This is consistent
with the IPA convention of doubling a symbol to indicate greater degree. Double brackets may indicate that a
letter has its cardinal IPA value. For example, ⟦a⟧ is an open front vowel, rather than the perhaps slightly
different value (such as open central) that "[a]" may be used to transcribe in a particular language. Thus two
vowels transcribed for easy legibility as ⟨[e]⟩ and ⟨[ɛ]⟩ may be clarified as actually being ⟦e̝ ⟧ and ⟦e⟧; ⟨[ð]⟩ may
be more precisely ⟦ð̠̞ ˠ⟧.[27] Double brackets may also be used for a specific token or speaker, for example the
pronunciation of a child as opposed to the adult phonetic pronunciation that is their target.[28]
Double slashes ⫽...⫽ are used for morphophonemic transcription. This is also consistent with the IPA
convention of doubling a symbol to indicate greater degree (in this case, more abstract than phonemic
transcription). Other symbols sometimes seen for morphophonemic transcription are pipes |...|, double pipes
‖...‖ (as in Americanist phonetic notation) and braces {...} (from set theory, especially when enclosing a set of
member phonemes rather than a single letter, e.g. {t d} or {t|d}), but all of these conflict with IPA indications of
prosody.[29] See morphophonology for examples.
Angle brackets[30] are used to mark orthography and transliteration. Within the IPA, they are used to indicate
that the letters stand for themselves and not for the sound values that they carry. For example, ⟨cot⟩ would be
used for the orthography of the English word cot, as opposed to its pronunciation /ˈkɒt/. Italics are more
commonly used for this purpose when full words are being written (as "cot" just above), but italics may not be
sufficiently clear when demarcating individual letters and digraphs. It may occasionally be useful to distinguish
original orthography from transliteration with double angle brackets ⟪...⟫.
Cursive forms
IPA letters have cursive forms designed for use in manuscripts and when taking field notes, but the 1999 Handbook of the
International Phonetic Association recommended against their use, as cursive IPA is "harder for most people to decipher."[31]
Letter g
In the early stages of the alphabet, the typographic variants of g, opentail ⟨ɡ⟩ ( ) and looptail ⟨g⟩ ( ), represented different
values, but are now regarded as equivalents. Opentail ⟨ɡ⟩ has always represented a voiced velar plosive, while ⟨ ⟩ was
distinguished from ⟨ɡ⟩ and represented a voiced velar fricative from 1895 to 1900.[32][33] Subsequently, ⟨ǥ⟩ represented the
fricative, until 1931 when it was replaced again by ⟨ɣ⟩.[34]
In 1948, the Council of the Association recognized ⟨ɡ⟩ and ⟨ ⟩ as typographic equivalents,[35] and this decision was reaffirmed
in 1993.[36] While the 1949 Principles of the International Phonetic Association recommended the use of ⟨ ⟩ for a velar
plosive and ⟨ɡ⟩ for an advanced one for languages where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian,[37] this
practice never caught on.[38] The 1999 Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, the successor to the Principles,
abandoned the recommendation and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.[39]
Modifying the IPA chart
The International Phonetic Alphabet is occasionally modified by the Association. After
each modification, the Association provides an updated simplified presentation of the
alphabet in the form of a chart. (See History of the IPA.) Not all aspects of the alphabet
can be accommodated in a chart of the size published by the IPA. The alveolo-palatal and
epiglottal consonants, for example, are not included in the consonant chart for reasons of
space rather than of theory (two additional columns would be required, one between the
retroflex and palatal columns and the other between the pharyngeal and glottal columns),
and the lateral flap would require an additional row for that single consonant, so they are
listed instead under the catchall block of "other symbols".[40] The indefinitely large
number of tone letters would make a full accounting impractical even on a larger page,
and only a few examples are shown.
Typographic variants include a
double-story and single-story g.
The procedure for modifying the alphabet or the chart is to propose the change in the
Journal of the IPA. (See, for example, August 2008 on an open central unrounded vowel
and August 2011 on central approximants.)[41] Reactions to the proposal
may be published in the same or subsequent issues of the Journal (as in
August 2009 on the open central vowel).[42] A formal proposal is then
put to the Council of the IPA[43] – which is elected by the membership[44]
– for further discussion and a formal vote.[45][46]
Only changes to the alphabet or chart that have been approved by the
Council can be considered part of the official IPA. Nonetheless, many
users of the alphabet, including the leadership of the Association itself,
deviate from the official system.[47]
Usage
Of more than 160 IPA symbols, relatively few will be used to transcribe
speech in any one language, with various levels of precision. A precise
phonetic transcription, in which sounds are specified in detail, is known as
a narrow transcription. A coarser transcription with less detail is called a
broad transcription. Both are relative terms, and both are generally
enclosed in square brackets.[1] Broad phonetic transcriptions may restrict
themselves to easily heard details, or only to details that are relevant to the
discussion at hand, and may differ little if at all from phonemic
The authors of textbooks or similar publications
transcriptions, but they make no theoretical claim that all the distinctions
often create revised versions of the IPA chart to
transcribed are necessarily meaningful in the language. express their own preferences or needs. The
image displays one such version. Only the black
For example, the English word little may be transcribed broadly as symbols are part of the IPA; common additional
[ˈlɪtəl], approximately describing many pronunciations. A narrower symbols are in grey. Some of these are in the
transcription may focus on individual or dialectical details: [ˈɫɪɾɫ] in extIPA.
General American, [ˈlɪʔo] in Cockney, or [ˈɫɪːɫ] in Southern US English.
Phonemic transcriptions, which express the conceptual counterparts of

spoken sounds, are usually enclosed in slashes (/ /) and tend to use simpler letters with
few diacritics. The choice of IPA letters may reflect theoretical claims of how speakers
conceptualize sounds as phonemes or they may be merely a convenience for typesetting.
Phonemic approximations between slashes do not have absolute sound values. For
instance, in English, either the vowel of pick or the vowel of peak may be transcribed as Phonetic transcriptions of the
/i/, so that pick, peak would be transcribed as /pik, piːk/ or as /pɪk, pik/; and neither is word international in two English
identical to the vowel of the French pique which is also generally transcribed /i/. By dialects
contrast, a narrow phonetic transcription of pick, peak, pique could be: [pʰɪk], [pʰiːk],
[pikʲ].
Linguists
IPA is popular for transcription by linguists. Some American linguists, however, use a mix of IPA with Americanist phonetic
notation or use some nonstandard symbols for various reasons.[48] Authors who employ such nonstandard use are encouraged
to include a chart or other explanation of their choices, which is good practice in general, as linguists differ in their
understanding of the exact meaning of IPA symbols and common conventions change over time.
Dictionaries
English
Many British dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary and some learner's dictionaries such as the Oxford
Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, now use the International Phonetic
Alphabet to represent the pronunciation of words.[49] However, most American (and some British) volumes use one of a
variety of pronunciation respelling systems, intended to be more comfortable for readers of English. For example, the respelling
systems in many American dictionaries (such as Merriam-Webster) use ⟨y⟩ for IPA [j] and ⟨sh⟩ for IPA [ʃ], reflecting common
representations of those sounds in written English,[50] using only letters of the English Roman alphabet and variations of them.
(In IPA, [y] represents the sound of the French ⟨u⟩ (as in tu), and [sh] represents the pair of sounds in grasshopper.)
Other languages
The IPA is also not universal among dictionaries in languages other than English. Monolingual dictionaries of languages with
phonemic orthographies generally do not bother with indicating the pronunciation of most words, and tend to use respelling
systems for words with unexpected pronunciations. Dictionaries produced in Israel use the IPA rarely and sometimes use the
Hebrew alphabet for transcription of foreign words.[51] Bilingual dictionaries that translate from foreign languages into Russian
usually employ the IPA, but monolingual Russian dictionaries occasionally use pronunciation respelling for foreign words.[52]
The IPA is more common in bilingual dictionaries, but there are exceptions here too. Mass-market bilingual Czech dictionaries,
for instance, tend to use the IPA only for sounds not found in the Czech language.[53]
Standard orthographies and case variants
IPA letters have been incorporated into the alphabets of various languages, notably via the Africa Alphabet in many sub-
Saharan languages such as Hausa, Fula, Akan, Gbe languages, Manding languages, Lingala, etc. This has created the need for
capital variants. For example, Kabiyè of northern Togo has Ɖ ɖ, Ŋ ŋ, Ɣ ɣ, Ɔ ɔ, Ɛ ɛ, Ʋ ʋ. These, and others, are supported by
Unicode, but appear in Latin ranges other than the IPA extensions.
In the IPA itself, however, only lower-case letters are used. The 1949 edition of the IPA handbook indicated that an asterisk ⟨*⟩
may be prefixed to indicate that a word is a proper name,[54] but this convention was not included in the 1999 Handbook.
Classical singing
IPA has widespread use among classical singers during preparation as they are frequently required to sing in a variety of
foreign languages, in addition to being taught by vocal coach to perfect the diction of their students and to globally improve
tone quality and tuning.[55] Opera librettos are authoritatively transcribed in IPA, such as Nico Castel's volumes[56] and
Timothy Cheek's book Singing in Czech.[57] Opera singers' ability to read IPA was used by the site Visual Thesaurus, which
employed several opera singers "to make recordings for the 150,000 words and phrases in VT's lexical database ... for their
vocal stamina, attention to the details of enunciation, and most of all, knowledge of IPA".[58]
Letters
The International Phonetic Association organizes the letters of the IPA into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-
pulmonic consonants, and vowels.[59][60]
Pulmonic consonant letters are arranged singly or in pairs of voiceless (tenuis) and voiced sounds, with these then grouped in
columns from front (labial) sounds on the left to back (glottal) sounds on the right. In official publications by the IPA, two
columns are omitted to save space, with the letters listed among 'other symbols',[61] and with the remaining consonants
arranged in rows from full closure (occlusives: stops and nasals), to brief closure (vibrants: trills and taps), to partial closure
(fricatives) and minimal closure (approximants), again with a row left out to save space. In the table below, a slightly different
arrangement is made: All pulmonic consonants are included in the pulmonic-consonant table, and the vibrants and laterals are
separated out so that the rows reflect the common lenition pathway of stop → fricative → approximant, as well as the fact that
several letters pull double duty as both fricative and approximant; affricates may be created by joining stops and fricatives from
adjacent cells. Shaded cells represent articulations that are judged to be impossible.
Vowel letters are also grouped in pairs—of unrounded and rounded vowel sounds—with these pairs also arranged from front
on the left to back on the right, and from maximal closure at top to minimal closure at bottom. No vowel letters are omitted
from the chart, though in the past some of the mid central vowels were listed among the 'other symbols'.
IPA number
Each character, letter or diacritic, is assigned a number, to prevent confusion between similar characters (such as ɵ and θ, ɤ and
ɣ, or ʃ and ʄ) in such situations as the printing of manuscripts. The categories of sounds are assigned different ranges of
numbers.[62]
Consonants
Pulmonic consonants
A pulmonic consonant is a consonant made by obstructing the glottis (the space between the vocal cords) or oral cavity (the
mouth) and either simultaneously or subsequently letting out air from the lungs. Pulmonic consonants make up the majority of
consonants in the IPA, as well as in human language. All consonants in the English language fall into this category.[63]
The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation,
meaning how the consonant is produced, and columns that designate place of articulation, meaning where in the vocal tract the
consonant is produced. The main chart includes only consonants with a single place of articulation.
Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal

Pharyn‐
Labio‐ Linguo‐ Post‐
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular geal/epi‐ Glottal
dental labial alveolar
Manner ↓ glottal
Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ
Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ
Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ˔̠̊ ɹ ̠˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ
Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞
Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆
Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ ̊r ̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ
Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ɭ˔̊ ɭ˔ ʎ̝̊ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝
Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ ɭ ̥̆ ɭ̆ ʎ̆ ʟ̆
IPA help · audio · full chart · template
Notes
In rows where some letters appear in pairs (the obstruents), the letter to the right represents a voiced
consonant (except breathy-voiced [ɦ]).[64] In the other rows (the sonorants), the single letter represents a
voiced consonant.
While IPA provides a single letter for the coronal places of articulation (for all consonants but fricatives), these
do not always have to be used exactly. When dealing with a particular language, the letters may be treated as
specifically dental, alveolar, or post-alveolar, as appropriate for that language, without diacritics.
Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
The letters [ʁ, ʕ, ʢ] represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
In many languages, such as English, [h] and [ɦ] are not actually glottal, fricatives, or approximants. Rather,
they are bare phonation.[65]
It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives [ʃ ʒ], [ɕ ʑ], and [ʂ
ʐ].
Some listed phones are not known to exist as phonemes in any language.
Non-pulmonic consonants
Non-pulmonic consonants are sounds whose airflow is not dependent on the lungs. These include clicks (found in the Khoisan
languages and some neighboring Bantu languages of Africa), implosives (found in languages such as Sindhi, Hausa, Swahili
and Vietnamese), and ejectives (found in many Amerindian and Caucasian languages).
BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG
Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ
Ejective Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ
Lateral fricative ɬʼ
kʘ kǀ kǃ kǂ
Tenuis
qʘ qǀ qǃ qǂ
ɡʘ ɡǀ ɡǃ ɡǂ
Voiced
ɢʘ ɢǀ ɢǃ ɢǂ
ŋʘ ŋǀ ŋǃ ŋǂ
Nasal
Click ɴʘ ɴǀ ɴǃ ɴǂ
(top: velar;
bottom: uvular) kǁ
Tenuis lateral
qǁ
ɡǁ
Voiced lateral
ɢǁ
ŋǁ
Nasal lateral
ɴǁ
Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Implosive
Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥
IPA help · full chart · template
Notes
Clicks have traditionally been described as consisting of a forward place of articulation, commonly called the
click 'type' or historically the 'influx', and a rear place of articulation, which when combined with the voicing,
aspiration, nasalization, affrication, ejection, timing etc. of the click is commonly called the click
'accompaniment' or historically the 'efflux'. The IPA click letters indicate only the click type (forward articulation
and release). Therefore all clicks require two letters for proper notation: ⟨k͡ǂ, ɡ͡ǂ, ŋ͡ǂ, q͡ǂ, ɢ͡ǂ, ɴ͡ǂ⟩ etc., or with the
order reversed if both the forward and rear releases are audible. The letter for the rear articulation is frequently
omitted, in which case a ⟨k⟩ may usually be assumed. However, some researchers dispute the idea that clicks
should be analyzed as doubly articulated, as the traditional transcription implies, and analyze the rear
occlusion as solely a part of the airstream mechanism.[66] In transcriptions of such approaches, the click letter
represents both places of articulation, with the different letters representing the different click types, and
diacritics are used for the elements of the accompaniment: ⟨ǂ, ǂ̬, ǂ̃⟩ etc.
Letters for the voiceless implosives ⟨ƥ, ƭ, ƈ, ƙ, ʠ⟩ are no longer supported by the IPA, though they remain in
Unicode. Instead, the IPA typically uses the voiced equivalent with a voiceless diacritic: ⟨ɓ̥ , ʛ̥ ⟩, etc..
The letter for the retroflex implosive, ⟨ᶑ ⟩, is not "explicitly IPA approved" (Handbook, p. 166), but has the
expected form if such a symbol were to be approved.
The ejective diacritic is placed at the right-hand margin of the consonant, rather than immediately after the
letter for the stop: ⟨t͜ʃʼ⟩, ⟨kʷʼ⟩. In imprecise transcription, it often stands in for a superscript glottal stop in
glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as [mˀ], [lˀ], [wˀ], [aˀ] (also transcribable as creaky [m̰], [l̰], [w̰ ], [a̰ ]).
Affricates
Affricates and co-articulated stops are represented by two letters joined by a tie bar, either above or below the letters.[67] The
six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures (ʦ, ʣ, ʧ, ʤ, ʨ, ʥ), though this is no longer official IPA
usage,[1] because a great number of ligatures would be required to represent all affricates this way. Alternatively, a superscript
notation for a consonant release is sometimes used to transcribe affricates, for example tˢ for t͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. The letters
for the palatal plosives c and ɟ are often used as a convenience for t͡ʃ and d͡ʒ or similar affricates, even in official IPA
publications, so they must be interpreted with care.
Pulmonic
Sibilant ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ ʒ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɕ dʑ
Non-sibilant pɸ bβ p̪f b̪ v t̪θ d̪ ð tɹ ̝̊ dɹ ̝ t̠ɹ˔̠̊ d̠ ɹ ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʢ ʔh
Lateral tɬ dɮ ʈɭ˔̊ ɖɭ˔ cʎ̝̊ ɟʎ̝ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝
Ejective
Central tsʼ t ̠ʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ qχʼ
Lateral tɬʼ cʎ̝̊ ʼ kʟ̝̊ ʼ
Co-articulated consonants
Co-articulated consonants are sounds that involve two simultaneous places of articulation (are pronounced using two parts of
the vocal tract). In English, the [w] in "went" is a coarticulated consonant, being pronounced by rounding the lips and raising
the back of the tongue. Similar sounds are [ʍ] and [ɥ]. In some languages, plosives can be double-articulated, for example in
the name of Laurent Gbagbo.
Nasal Fricative
n͡mLabial–alveolar ɧ Sj-sound (variable)
ŋ͡mLabial–velar Approximant
Plosive
ɥ̊ ɥ Labialized palatal
t͡p d͡b Labial–alveolar ʍ w Labialized velar
k͡p ɡ͡b Labial–velar Lateral approximant

ɫ Velarized alveolar
q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal
Notes
[ɧ], the Swedish sj-sound, is described by the IPA as a "simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]", but it is unlikely such a
simultaneous fricative actually exists in any language.[68]
Multiple tie bars can be used: ⟨a͡b͡c⟩ or ⟨a͜b͜c⟩. For instance, if a prenasalized stop is transcribed ⟨m͡b⟩, and a
doubly articulated stop ⟨ɡ͡b⟩, then a prenasalized doubly articulated stop would be ⟨ŋ͡m͡ɡ͡b⟩
Vowels
The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center.[69] Below is a chart depicting the vowels of the IPA. The
IPA maps the vowels according to the position of the tongue.
Front Central Back

Close
i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u
Near-close
ɪ ʏ ʊ
Close-mid
e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o
Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞
Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ
Near-open æ ɐ
Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ
IPA help · audio · full chart · template
The vertical axis of the chart is mapped by vowel height. Vowels pronounced with the
tongue lowered are at the bottom, and vowels pronounced with the tongue raised are at Tongue positions of cardinal front
the top. For example, [ɑ] (the first vowel in father) is at the bottom because the tongue is vowels, with highest point
lowered in this position. [i] (the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said indicated. The position of the
with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth. highest point is used to determine
vowel height and backness.
In a similar fashion, the horizontal axis of the chart is determined by vowel backness.
Vowels with the tongue moved towards the front of the mouth (such as [ɛ], the vowel in
"met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as
[ʌ], the vowel in "but") are placed to the right in the chart.
In places where vowels are paired, the right represents a rounded vowel (in which the lips
are rounded) while the left is its unrounded counterpart.
Diphthongs
Diphthongs are typically specified with a non-syllabic diacritic, as in ⟨uɪ̯⟩ or ⟨u̯ ɪ⟩, or with
a superscript for the on- or off-glide, as in ⟨uᶦ⟩ or ⟨ᵘɪ⟩. Sometimes a tie bar is used,
especially if it is difficult to tell if the diphthong is characterized by an on-glide, an off- X-ray photos show the sounds [i,
glide or is variable: ⟨u͡ɪ⟩. u, a, ɑ].
Notes
⟨a⟩ officially represents a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and
⟨a⟩ is frequently used for an open central vowel.[48] If disambiguation is required, the retraction diacritic or the
centralized diacritic may be added to indicate an open central vowel, as in ⟨a̠ ⟩ or ⟨ä⟩.
Diacritics and prosodic notation

Diacritics are used for phonetic detail. They are added to IPA letters to indicate a modification or specification of that letter's
normal pronunciation.[70]
By being made superscript, any IPA letter may function as a diacritic, conferring elements of its articulation to the base letter.
(See secondary articulation for a list of superscript IPA letters supported by Unicode.) Those superscript letters listed below are
specifically provided for by the IPA; others include ⟨tˢ⟩ ([t] with fricative release), ⟨ᵗs⟩ ([s] with affricate onset), ⟨ⁿd⟩
(prenasalized [d]), ⟨bʱ⟩ ([b] with breathy voice), ⟨mˀ⟩ (glottalized [m]), ⟨sᶴ⟩ ([s] with a flavor of [ʃ]), ⟨oᶷ⟩ ([o] with
diphthongization), ⟨ɯᵝ⟩ (compressed [ɯ]). Superscript diacritics placed after a letter are ambiguous between simultaneous
modification of the sound and phonetic detail at the end of the sound. For example, labialized ⟨kʷ⟩ may mean either
simultaneous [k] and [w] or else [k] with a labialized release. Superscript diacritics placed before a letter, on the other hand,
normally indicate a modification of the onset of the sound (⟨mˀ⟩ glottalized [m], ⟨ˀm⟩ [m] with a glottal onset).
Syllabicity diacritics
◌̩ ɹ̩ n̩ ◌̯ ɪ̯ ʊ̯
Syllabic Non-syllabic
◌̍ ɻ̍ ŋ̍ ◌̑ y̑
Consonant-release diacritics
◌ʰ tʰ Aspirated[a] ◌̚ p̚ No audible release
◌ⁿ dⁿ Nasal release
◌ˡ dˡ Lateral release
◌ᶿ tᶿ Voiceless dental fricative release

◌ˣ tˣ Voiceless velar fricative release
◌ᵊ dᵊ Mid central vowel release
Phonation diacritics
◌̥ n̥ d̥
Voiceless ◌̬ s̬ t ̬ Voiced
◌̊ ɻ̊ ŋ̊
◌̤ b̤ a̤ Breathy voiced[a] ◌̰ b̰ a̰ Creaky voiced
Articulation diacritics
◌̪ t ̪ d̪
Dental ◌̼ t ̼ d̼ Linguolabial
◌͆ ɮ͆
◌̺ t ̺ d̺ Apical
◌̻ t ̻ d̻ Laminal
◌̟ u̟ t ̟ ◌̠ i̠ t ̠
Advanced Retracted
◌˖ ɡ˖ ◌˗ y˗ ŋ˗
◌̈ ëä Centralized
◌̽ e̽ ɯ̽ Mid-centralized
◌̝ e̝ r̝ ◌̞ e̞ β̞
Raised Lowered
◌˔ ɭ˔ ◌˕ y˕ ɣ˕
Co-articulation diacritics
ɔ̹ x̹ More rounded ɔ̜ xʷ̜ Less rounded

◌̹ (over-rounding)
◌̜ (under-rounding)[l]
◌͗ y͗ χ͗ ◌͑ y͑ χ͑ʷ
◌ʷ tʷ dʷ Labialized
◌ʲ tʲ dʲ Palatalized
◌ˠ tˠ dˠ Velarized
◌̴ ɫᵶ Velarized or pharyngealized
◌ˤ tˤ aˤ Pharyngealized
◌̘ e̘ o̘ Advanced tongue root

◌̙ e̙ o̙ Retracted tongue root
◌̃ ẽ z̃ Nasalized
◌˞ ɚɝ Rhoticity
Notes
^a With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is usually also voiced (voiced aspirated – but see
voiced consonants with voiceless aspiration). Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy
voice over simple aspiration, such as ⟨b̤ ⟩. Some linguists restrict this diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe
obstruents as ⟨bʱ⟩.
^l These are relative to the cardinal value of the letter. They can also apply to unrounded vowels: [ɛ̜] is more
spread (less rounded) than cardinal [ɛ], and [ɯ̹] is less spread than cardinal [ɯ].[71]
Since ⟨xʷ⟩ can mean that the [x] is labialized (rounded) throughout its articulation, and ⟨x̜⟩ makes no sense
([x] is already completely unrounded), ⟨x̜ʷ⟩ can only mean a less-labialized/rounded [xʷ]. However, readers
might mistake ⟨x̜ʷ⟩ for "[x̜]" with a labialized off-glide, or might wonder if the two diacritics cancel each other
out. Placing the 'less rounded' diacritic under the labialization diacritic, ⟨xʷ̜⟩, makes it clear that it is the
labialization that is 'less rounded' than its cardinal IPA value.
Subdiacritics (diacritics normally placed below a letter) may be moved above a letter to avoid conflict with a descender, as in
voiceless ⟨ŋ̊ ⟩.[70] The raising and lowering diacritics have optional forms ⟨˔⟩, ⟨˕⟩ that avoid descenders.
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:
Open glottis [t] voiceless
[d̤ ] breathy voice, also called murmured
[d̥ ] slack voice
Sweet spot [d] modal voice
[d̬ ] stiff voice
[d̰ ] creaky voice
Closed glottis [ʔ͡t] glottal closure
Additional diacritics are provided by the Extensions to the IPA for speech pathology.
Suprasegmentals
These symbols describe the features of a language above the level of individual consonants and vowels, that is, at the level of
syllable, word or phrase. These include prosody, pitch, length, stress, intensity, tone and gemination of the sounds of a
language, as well as the rhythm and intonation of speech.[72] Various ligatures of pitch/tone letters and diacritics are provided
for by the Kiel convention and used in the IPA Handbook despite not being found in the summary of the IPA alphabet found
on the one-page chart.
Under Capital letters above we saw how a carrier letter may be used to indicate suprasegmental features such as labialization or
nasalization. Some authors omit the carrier letter, for e.g. suffixed [kʰuˣt ̪s̟]ʷ or prefixed [ʷkʰuˣt ̪s̟],[73] or place a spacing
diacritic such as ⟨˔⟩ at the beginning of a word to indicate that the quality applies to the entire word.[74]
Length, stress, and rhythm

Primary stress (appears Secondary stress (appears
ˈke before stressed syllable)
ˌke before stressed syllable)
Long (long vowel or

eˑ Half-long
eː kː geminate consonant)
ə̆ ɢ̆ Extra-short
Syllable break
ek.ste eks.te es‿e Linking (lack of a boundary; a phonological word)[75]
(internal boundary)
Intonation
| Minor or foot break ‖ Major or intonation break
↗ [76] Global rise ↘ [76] Global fall
Pitch diacritics and Chao tone letters
ŋ̋ e̋ ˥e e˥ e꜒ Extra high / top[77] ꜛke Upstep
ŋ́ é ˦e e˦ e꜓ High / half-high ŋ̌ ě Rising (low to high or generic)
ŋ̄ ē ˧e e˧ e꜔ Mid
ŋ̀ è ˨e e˨ e꜕ Low / half-low ŋ̂ ê Falling (high to low or generic)
ŋ̏ ȅ ˩e e˩ e꜖ Extra low / bottom ꜜke Downstep
Stress
Officially, the stress marks ⟨ˈ ˌ⟩ appear before the stressed syllable, and thus mark the syllable boundary as well as stress
(though the syllable boundary may still be explicitly marked with a period).[78] Occasionally the stress mark is placed
immediately before the nucleus of the syllable, after any consonantal onset.[79] In such transcriptions, the stress mark does not
mark a syllable boundary. The primary stress mark may be doubled ⟨ˈˈ⟩ for extra stress (such as prosodic stress). The secondary
stress mark is sometimes seen doubled ⟨ˌˌ⟩ for extra-weak stress, but this convention has not been adopted by the IPA.[78]
Boundary markers
There are three boundary markers: ⟨.⟩ for a syllable break, ⟨|⟩ for a minor prosodic break and ⟨‖⟩ for a major prosodic break.
The tags 'minor' and 'major' are intentionally ambiguous. Depending on need, 'minor' may vary from a foot break to a break in
list-intonation to a continuing–prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a comma), and while 'major' is often any intonation break,
it may be restricted to a final–prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a period). The 'major' symbol may also be doubled, ⟨‖‖⟩,
for a stronger break.
Although not part of the IPA, the following additional boundary markers are often used in conjunction with the IPA: ⟨μ⟩ for a
mora or mora boundary, ⟨σ⟩ for a syllable or syllable boundary, ⟨#⟩ for a word boundary, ⟨$⟩ for a phrase or intermediate
boundary and ⟨%⟩ for a prosodic boundary. For example, C# is a word-final consonant, %V a post-pausa vowel, and T% an
IU-final tone (edge tone).
Pitch and tone

⟨ꜛ ꜜ⟩ are defined in the Handbook as upstep and downstep, concepts from tonal languages. However, the 'upstep' could also be
used for pitch reset, and the IPA Handbook illustration for Portuguese uses it for prosody in a non-tonal language.
Phonetic pitch and phonemic tone may be indicated by either diacritics placed over the nucleus of the syllable or by Chao tone
letters placed before or after the word or syllable. There are three graphic variants of the tone letters: with or without a stave
(the latter obsolete), and facing left or facing right from a stave. Theoretically therefore there are seven ways to transcribe
pitch/tone in the IPA, though in practice for a high pitch/tone only ⟨é⟩, ⟨˦e⟩, ⟨e˦⟩, ⟨e꜓⟩ and obsolete ⟨¯e⟩ are seen.[78][80] Only
left-facing staved letters and a few representative combinations are shown in the summary on the Chart, and in practice it is
currently more common for tone letters to occur after the syllable/word than before, as in the Chao tradition. Placement before
the word is a carry-over from the pre-Kiel IPA convention, as is still the case for the stress and upstep/downstep marks. The
IPA endorses the Chao tradition of using the left-facing tone letters, ⟨˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩⟩, for broad or underlying tone, and the right-
facing letters, ⟨꜒ ꜓ ꜔ ꜕ ꜖⟩, for surface tone or phonetic detail, as in tone sandhi.[81] In the Portuguese illustration in the 1999
Handbook, tone letters are placed before a word or syllable to indicate prosodic pitch (equivalent to [↗] global rise and [↘]
global fall, but allowing more than a two-way contrast), and in the Cantonese illustration they are placed after a word/syllable
to indicate lexical tone. Theoretically therefore prosodic pitch and lexical tone could be simultaneously transcribed in a single
text, though this is not a formalized distinction.
Rising and falling pitch, as in contour tones, are indicated by combining the pitch diacritics and letters in the table, such as
grave plus acute for rising [ě] and acute plus grave for falling [ê]. Only six combinations of two diacritics are supported, and
only across three levels (high, mid, low), despite the diacritics supporting five levels of pitch in isolation. The four other
explicitly approved rising and falling diacritic combinations are high/mid rising [e᷄ ], low rising [e᷅ ], high falling [e᷇ ], and
low/mid falling [e᷆ ].[82]
The Chao tone letters, on the other hand, may be combined in any pattern, and are therefore used for more complex contours
and finer distinctions than the diacritics allow, such as mid-rising [e], extra-high falling [e], etc. There are 20 such
possibilities. However, in Chao's original proposal, which was adopted by the IPA in 1989, he stipulated that the half-high and
half-low letters ⟨˦ ˨⟩ may be combined with each other, but not with the other three tone letters, so as not to create spuriously
precise distinctions. With this restriction, there are 8 possibilities.[83]
The correspondence between tone diacritics and tone letters therefore breaks down once they start combining. For more
complex tones, one may combine three or four tone diacritics in any permutation,[78] though in practice only generic peaking
(rising-falling) e᷈ and dipping (falling-rising) e᷉ combinations are used. Chao tone letters are required for finer detail (e, e,
e, e, etc.). Although only 10 peaking and dipping tones were proposed in Chao's original, limited set of tone letters,
phoneticians often make finer distinctions, and indeed an example is found on the IPA Chart.[84] The system allows the
transcription of 112 peaking and dipping pitch contours, including tones that are level for part of their length.
Original (restricted) set of Chao tone letters[85]
Register Level[86] Rising Falling Peaking Dipping
e˩ e˩ e e e e
e˨ e˨ e e e e

e˧ e˧ e e e e
e˦ e˦ e e
e˥ e˥ e e e e
More complex contours are possible. Chao give an example of [꜔꜒꜖꜔] (mid-high-low-mid) from English prosody.[83]
Chao tone letters generally appear after each syllable, for a language with syllable tone (⟨a˧vɔ⟩), or after the phonological
word, for a language with word tone (⟨avɔ⟩). The IPA gives the option of placing the tone letters before the word or syllable
(⟨˧avɔ⟩, ⟨avɔ⟩), but this is rare for lexical tone. (And indeed reversed tone letters may be used to clarify that they apply to
the following rather than to the preceding syllable: ⟨꜔a꜒꜖vɔ⟩, ⟨꜔꜒꜖avɔ⟩.) The staveless letters are effectively obsolete and are
not supported by Unicode. They were not widely accepted even before 1989 when they were the sole option for indicating
pitch in the IPA, and they only ever supported three pitch levels and a few contours.
Comparative degree
IPA diacritics may be doubled to indicate an extra degree of the feature indicated.[87] This is a productive process, but apart
from extra-high and extra-low tones ⟨ə̋ , ə̏ ⟩ being marked by doubled high- and low-tone diacritics, and the major prosodic
break ⟨‖⟩ being marked as a double minor break ⟨|⟩, it is not specifically regulated by the IPA. (Note that transcription marks
are similar: double slashes indicate extra (morpho)-phonemic, double square brackets especially precise, and double
parentheses especially unintelligible.)
For example, the stress mark may be doubled to indicate an extra degree of stress, such as prosodic stress in English.[88] An
example in French, with a single stress mark for normal prosodic stress at the end of each prosodic unit (marked as a minor
prosodic break), and a double stress mark for contrastive/emphatic stress:
[ˈˈɑ̃ ːˈtre | məˈsjø ‖ ˈˈvwala maˈdam ‖] Entrez monsieur, voilà madame.[89] Similarly, a doubled secondary stress mark ⟨ˌˌ⟩ is
commonly used for tertiary (extra-light) stress.[90] In a similar vein, the effectively obsolete (though still official) staveless tone
letters were once doubled for an emphatic rising intonation ⟨˶⟩ and an emphatic falling intonation ⟨˵⟩.[91]
Length is commonly extended by repeating the length mark, as in English shhh! [ʃːːː], or for "overlong" segments in Estonian:
vere /vere/ 'blood [gen.sg.]', veere /veːre/ 'edge [gen.sg.]', veere /veːːre/ 'roll [imp. 2nd sg.]'
lina /linɑ/ 'sheet', linna /linːɑ/ 'town [gen. sg.]', linna /linːːɑ/ 'town [ine. sg.]'
(Normally additional degrees of length are handled by the extra-short or half-long diacritic, but the first two words in each of
the Estonian examples are analyzed as simply short and long, requiring a different remedy for the final words.)
Occasionally other diacritics are doubled:
Rhoticity in Badaga /be/ "mouth", /be˞/ "bangle", and /be˞˞/ "crop".[92]

Mild and strong aspirations, [kʰ], [kʰʰ].[93]
Nasalization, as in Palantla Chinantec lightly nasalized /ẽ/ vs heavily nasalized /e͌ /,[94] though in extIPA the
latter indicates velopharyngeal friction.
Weak vs strong ejectives, [kʼ], [kˮ].[95]
Especially lowered, e.g. [t]̞ (or [t ̞˕], if the former symbol does not display properly) for /t/ as a weak fricative in
some pronunciations of register.[96]
Especially retracted, e.g. [ø̠̠ ],[97][87] though some care might be needed to distinguish this from indications of
alveolar or alveolarized articulation in extIPA, e.g. [s͇].
The transcription of strident and harsh voice as extra-creaky /a / may be motivated by the similarities of these
phonations.
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols

The IPA once had parallel symbols from alternative proposals, but in most cases eventually settled on one for each sound. The
rejected symbols are now considered obsolete. An example is the vowel letter ⟨ɷ⟩, rejected in favor of ⟨ʊ⟩. Letters for
affricates and sounds with inherent secondary articulation have also been mostly rejected, with the idea that such features
should be indicated with tie bars or diacritics: ⟨ƍ⟩ for [zʷ] is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosives, ⟨ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ⟩, have
been dropped and are now usually written ⟨ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ ⟩. A retired set of click letters, ⟨ʇ, ʗ, ʖ⟩, is still sometimes seen, as the
official pipe letters ⟨ǀ, ǃ, ǁ⟩ may cause problems with legibility, especially when used with brackets ([ ] or / /), the letter ⟨l⟩, or
the prosodic marks ⟨|, ‖⟩ (for this reason, some publications which use the current IPA pipe letters disallow IPA brackets).[98]
Individual non-IPA letters may find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common
with:
Affricates, such as the Americanist barred lambda ⟨ƛ⟩ for [t͜ɬ] or ⟨č⟩ for [t͡ʃ].[99]
The Karlgren letters for Chinese vowels, ɿ, ʅ, ʮ, ʯ
Digits for tonal phonemes that have conventional numbers in a local tradition, such as the four tones of
Standard Chinese. This may be more convenient for comparison between languages and dialects than a
phonetic transcription because tones often vary more than segmental phonemes do.
Digits for tone levels, which may improve readability and avoid confusion among similar tone values, though
the lack of standardization can cause confusion (with e.g. "1" for high tone in some languages but for low tone
in others).
Iconic extensions of standard IPA letters that can be readily understood, such as retroflex ⟨ᶑ ⟩ and ⟨ꞎ⟩.
In addition, there are typewriter substitutions for when IPA support is not available, such as capital ⟨I, E, U, O, A⟩ for [ɪ, ɛ, ʊ,
ɔ, ɑ].
Extensions
The "Extensions to the IPA", often abbreviated as "extIPA" and sometimes called
"Extended IPA", are symbols whose original purpose was to accurately transcribe
disordered speech. At the Kiel Convention in 1989, a group of linguists drew up the
initial extensions,[100] which were based on the previous work of the PRDS (Phonetic
Representation of Disordered Speech) Group in the early 1980s.[101] The extensions
were first published in 1990, then modified, and published again in 1994 in the
Journal of the International Phonetic Association, when they were officially adopted
by the ICPLA.[102] While the original purpose was to transcribe disordered speech,
linguists have used the extensions to designate a number of sounds within standard
communication, such as hushing, gnashing teeth, and smacking lips,[2] as well as word
sounds such as lateral fricatives that do not have regular IPA symbols.
In addition to the Extensions to the IPA for disordered speech, there are the
conventions of the Voice Quality Symbols, which include a number of symbols for
additional airstream mechanisms and secondary articulations in which they call "voice
quality".
Chart of the Extensions to the
Associated notation International Phonetic Alphabet
(extIPA), as of 2015
Besides the IPA itself, and the capital letters for wildcards noted above, there are
various punctuation-like conventions for linguistic transcription that are commonly
used together with IPA. Some of the more common are,
⟨*⟩ (a) a reconstructed form,
(b) an ungrammatical or unphonemic form
⟨**⟩ a deeper reconstruction than a single ⟨*⟩
⟨×⟩ an ungrammatical form (a less common convention than ⟨*⟩, sometimes used when reconstructions and ungrammatical
forms occur in the same text)
⟨?⟩ a doubtfully grammatical form
⟨%⟩ a generalized form (such as a wanderwort that has not actually been reconstructed)[103]
⟨#⟩ a word boundary (e.g. ⟨#V⟩, a word-initial vowel)
⟨$⟩ a phonological word boundary (e.g. ⟨H$⟩, a high tone that occurs in such a position)
Segments without letters

The blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc letters have appeared
in the literature for the retroflex lateral flap and the retroflex clicks (having the expected forms of ⟨ɺ⟩ and ⟨ǃ⟩ plus a retroflex tail;
the analogous ⟨ᶑ⟩ for a retroflex implosive is even mentioned in the IPA Handbook), the voiceless lateral fricatives (now
provided for by the extIPA), the epiglottal trill (arguably covered by the generally-trilled epiglottal "fricatives" ⟨ʜ ʢ⟩), the
labiodental plosives (⟨ȹ ȸ⟩ in some old Bantuist texts) and the near-close central vowels (⟨ᵻ ᵿ⟩ in some publications).
Diacritics can duplicate some of those, such as ⟨ɭ⟩̆ for the lateral flap, ⟨p̪ b̪ ⟩ for the labiodental plosives and ⟨ɪ̈ ʊ̈ ⟩ for the central
vowels, and are able to fill in most of the remainder of the charts.[104] If a sound cannot be transcribed, an asterisk ⟨*⟩ may be
used, either as a letter or as a diacritic (as in ⟨k*⟩ sometimes seen for the Korean "fortis" velar).
Consonants
Representations of consonant sounds outside of the core set are created by adding diacritics to letters with similar sound values.
The Spanish bilabial and dental approximants are commonly written as lowered fricatives, [β̞] and [ð̞ ] respectively.[105]
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 letter and the advanced diacritic, [ⱱ̟ ].[106]
Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written [ʙ̪] (bilabial trill and the dental sign), and labiodental stops [p̪ b̪ ] rather than with
the ad hoc letters sometimes found in the literature. Other taps can be written as extra-short plosives or laterals, e.g. [ɟ̆ ɢ̆ ʟ̆ ],
though in some cases the diacritic would need to be written below the letter. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted [r̠],
just as non-subapical retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals (ʟ̠ etc.) 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.
Vowels
The vowels are similarly manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-
centering.[107] For example, the unrounded equivalent of [ʊ] can be transcribed as mid-centered [ɯ̽], and the rounded
equivalent of [æ] as raised [ɶ̝ ] or lowered [œ̞] (though for those who conceive of vowel space as a triangle, simple [ɶ]
already is the rounded equivalent of [æ]). True mid vowels are lowered [e̞ ø̞ ɘ̞ ɵ̞ ɤ̞ o̞ ] or raised [ɛ̝ œ̝ ɜ̝ ɞ̝ ʌ̝ ɔ̝ ], while centered
[ɪ̈ ʊ̈ ] and [ä] (or, less commonly, [ɑ̈ ]) are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The only known vowels that cannot
be represented in this scheme are vowels with unexpected roundedness, which would require a dedicated diacritic, such as
protruded ⟨ʏʷ⟩ and compressed ⟨uᵝ⟩ (or protruded ⟨ɪʷ⟩ and compressed ⟨ɯᶹ⟩).
Symbol names
An IPA symbol is often distinguished from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not necessarily a one-to-one
correspondence between letter and sound in broad transcription, making articulatory descriptions such as "mid front rounded
vowel" or "voiced velar stop" unreliable. While the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association states that no official
names exist for its symbols, it admits the presence of one or two common names for each.[108] 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 traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are usually used for unmodified letters.[note 6] Letters which are not directly
derived from these alphabets, such as [ʕ], may have a variety of names, sometimes based on the appearance of the symbol or
on the sound that it represents. In Unicode, some of the letters of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use
the letters from the Greek section.
For diacritics, there are two methods of naming. For traditional diacritics, the IPA notes the name in a well known language; for
example, é is acute, based on the name of the diacritic in English and French. Non-traditional diacritics are often named after
objects they resemble, so d̪ is called bridge.
Geoffrey Pullum and William Ladusaw list a variety of names in use for IPA symbols, both current and retired, in addition to
names of many other non-IPA phonetic symbols in their Phonetic Symbol Guide.[10]
Computer support
Unicode
Typefaces
IPA typeface support is increasing, and nearly complete IPA support with good diacritic rendering is provided by a few
typefaces that come pre-installed with various computer operating systems, such as Calibri, as well as some freely available but
commercial fonts such as Brill, but most pre-installed fonts, such as the ubiquitous Arial, Noto Sans and Times New Roman,
are neither complete nor render many diacritics properly.
Typefaces that provide full IPA support, properly render diacritics and are freely available include:
Gentium Plus
Charis SIL
Doulos SIL
Andika
Web browsers generally do not need any configuration to display IPA characters, provided that a typeface capable of doing so
is available to the operating system.
ASCII and keyboard transliterations
Several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Notable systems include SAMPA and X-
SAMPA. The usage of mapping systems in on-line text has to some extent been adopted in the context input methods, allowing
convenient keying of IPA characters that would be otherwise unavailable on standard keyboard layouts.
Computer input using on-screen keyboard

Online IPA keyboard utilities[109] are available, and they cover the complete range of IPA symbols and diacritics. In April
2019, Google's Gboard for Android added an IPA keyboard to its platform.[110][111] For iOS there are multiple free keyboard
layouts available, e.g. "IPA Phonetic Keyboard".[112]
See also
Americanist phonetic notation
Arabic International Phonetic Alphabet
Articulatory phonetics
Case variants of IPA letters
Cursive forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet
Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet
Index of phonetics articles
International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration
International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects
List of international common standards
Luciano Canepari – proponent of an elaborated IPA
NATO phonetic alphabet
Phonetic symbols in Unicode
SAMPA – 7-bit ASCII language-specific version of IPA.
Semyon Novgorodov – inventor of IPA-based Yakut scripts
TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX
Uralic phonetic alphabet
Voice Quality Symbols
X-SAMPA – 7-bit ASCII version of IPA.
Notes
1. The inverted bridge under the ⟨t⟩ specifies it as apical (pronounced with the tip of the tongue), and the
superscript h shows that it is aspirated (breathy). Both these qualities cause the English [t] to sound different
from the French or Spanish [t], which is a laminal (pronounced with the blade of the tongue) and unaspirated
[t ̻]. ⟨t ̺ʰ⟩ and ⟨t ̻⟩ thus represent two different, though similar, sounds.
2. For instance, flaps and taps are two different kinds of articulation, but since no language has (yet) been found
to make a distinction between, say, an alveolar flap and an alveolar tap, the IPA does not provide such sounds
with dedicated letters. Instead, it provides a single letter (in this case, [ɾ]) for both. Strictly speaking, this makes
the IPA a partially phonemic alphabet, not a purely phonetic one.
3. This exception to the rules was made primarily to explain why the IPA does not make a dental–alveolar
distinction, despite one being phonemic in hundreds of languages, including most of the continent of Australia.
Americanist Phonetic Notation makes (or at least made) a distinction between apical ⟨t d s z n l⟩ and laminal ⟨τ
δ ς ζ ν λ⟩, which is easily applicable to alveolar vs dental (when a language distinguishes apical alveolar from
laminal dental, as in Australia), but despite several proposals to the Council, the IPA never voted to accept
such a distinction.
4. There are five basic tone diacritics and five basic tone letters, both sets of which are compounded for contour
tones.
5. "The non-roman letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet have been designed as far as possible to
harmonize well with the roman letters. The Association does not recognize makeshift letters; It recognizes only
letters which have been carefully cut so as to be in harmony with the other letters." (IPA 1949)
6. For example, [p] is called "Lower-case P" and [χ] is "Chi." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook,
p. 171)
References
1. International Phonetic Association (IPA), Handbook.
2. MacMahon, Michael K. C. (1996). "Phonetic Notation". In P. T. Daniels; W. Bright (eds.). The World's Writing
Systems (https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937/page/821). New York: Oxford University Press.
pp. 821–846 (https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937/page/821). ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
3. Wall, Joan (1989). International Phonetic Alphabet for Singers: A Manual for English and Foreign Language
Diction. Pst. ISBN 1-877761-50-8.
4. "IPA: Alphabet" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121010121927/http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html).
Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/ipachart.html) on 10 October
2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
5. "Full IPA Chart" (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/full-ipa-chart). International
Phonetic Association. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
6. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp. 194–196
7. "Originally, the aim was to make available a set of phonetic symbols which would be given different
articulatory values, if necessary, in different languages." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook,
pp. 195–196)
8. Passy, Paul (1888). "Our revised alphabet". The Phonetic Teacher: 57–60.
9. IPA in the Encyclopædia Britannica
10. Pullum and Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, pp. 152, 209
11. Nicolaidis, Katerina (September 2005). "Approval of New IPA Sound: The Labiodental Flap" (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20060902212308/http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/ipa/flap.htm). International Phonetic Association.
Archived from the original (http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/flap.htm) on 2 September 2006. Retrieved
17 September 2006.
12. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 186
13. "From its earliest days [...] the International Phonetic Association has aimed to provide 'a separate sign for
each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language,
can change the meaning of a word'." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 27)
14. Originally, [ʊ] was written as a small capital U. However, this was not easy to read, and so it was replaced with
a turned small capital omega. In modern typefaces, it often has its own design, called a 'horseshoe'.
15. Perry (2000) Phonological/phonetic assessment of an English-speaking adult with dysarthria
16. ⟨S⟩ is particularly ambiguous. It has been used for 'stop', 'fricative', 'sibilant', 'sonorant' and 'semivowel'. On the
other hand, plosive/stop is frequently abbreviated ⟨P⟩, ⟨T⟩ or ⟨S⟩. The illustrations given here use, as much as
possible, letters that are capital versions of members of the sets they stand for: IPA [n] is a nasal, [p] a plosive,
[f] a fricative, [s] a sibilant, [l] both a lateral and a liquid, [r] both a rhotic and a resonant, and [ʞ] a click.
17. The latter typically includes liquids and glides but excludes nasals for CRV syllables, as in Bennett (2020:
115) 'Click Phonology', in Sands (ed.), Click Consonants, Brill
18. For other Turkic languages, ⟨I⟩ may be restricted to {ɯ i} (that is, to ı i), ⟨U⟩ to u ü, ⟨A⟩ to a e/ä, etc.
19. Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics, p. 374.
20. Cf. the notes at the Unicode IPA EXTENSIONS code chart (http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0250.pdf#3) as
well as blogs by Michael Everson (http://evertype.com/blog/blog/category/unicode/) Archived (https://web.archi
ve.org/web/20171010200655/http://evertype.com/blog/blog/category/unicode/) 10 October 2017 at the
Wayback Machine and John Wells here (http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/07/disunification-1.html) and
here (http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/07/disunification-2.html).
21. Handbook, International Phonetic Association, p. 196, "The new letters should be suggestive of the sounds
they represent, by their resemblance to the old ones.".
22. IPA Handbook p. 175
25. IPA (1999) Handbook, p 188, 192
26. IPA (1999) Handbook, p 176, 192
27. Basbøll (2005) The Phonology of Danish pp. 45, 59
28. Karlsson & Sullivan (2005) /sP/ consonant clusters in Swedish: Acoustic measurementsof phonological
development
29. For example, the single and double pipe symbols are used for prosodic breaks. Although the Handbook
specifies the prosodic symbols as "thick" vertical lines, which would be distinct from simple ASCII pipes
(similar to Dania transcription), this is optional and was intended to keep them distinct from the pipes used as
click letters (JIPA 19.2, p. 75). The Handbook (p. 174) assigns to them the digital encodings U+007C, which is
the simple ASCII pipe symbol, and U+2016.
30. The proper angle brackets in Unicode are the mathematical symbols ⟨...⟩ (U+27E8 and U+27E9). Chevrons
‹...› (U+2039, U+203A) are sometimes substituted, as in Americanist phonetic notation, as are the less-than
and greater-than signs <...> (U+003C, U+003E) found on ASCII keyboards (though the latter do not work
online, where they are interpreted as marking html tags).
31. International Phonetic Association (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the
Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge University Press. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-52163751-0.
32. Association phonétique internationale (January 1895). "vɔt syr l alfabɛ" [Votes sur l'alphabet]. Le Maître
Phonétique. 10 (1): 16–17. JSTOR 44707535 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44707535).
33. Association phonétique internationale (February–March 1900a). "akt ɔfisjɛl" [Acte officiel]. Le Maître
Phonétique. 15 (2/3): 20. JSTOR 44701257 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44701257).
34. Association phonétique internationale (July–September 1931). "desizjɔ̃ ofisjɛl" [Décisions officielles]. Le
Maître Phonétique (35): 40–42. JSTOR 44704452 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44704452).
35. Jones, Daniel (July–December 1948). "desizjɔ̃ ofisjɛl" [Décisions officielles]. Le Maître Phonétique (90): 28–
30. JSTOR 44705217 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44705217).
36. International Phonetic Association (1993). "Council actions on revisions of the IPA". Journal of the
International Phonetic Association. 23 (1): 32–34. doi:10.1017/S002510030000476X (https://doi.org/10.101
7%2FS002510030000476X).
37. International Phonetic Association (1949). The Principles of the International Phonetic Association.
Department of Phonetics, University College, London. Supplement to Le Maître Phonétique 91, January–June
1949. JSTOR i40200179 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40200179). Reprinted in Journal of the International
Phonetic Association 40 (3), December 2010, pp. 299–358, doi:10.1017/S0025100311000089 (https://doi.org/
10.1017%2FS0025100311000089).
38. Wells, John C. (6 November 2006). "Scenes from IPA history" (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/blog061
1a.htm). John Wells's phonetic blog. Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, University College London.
39. International Phonetic Association (1999), p. 19.
40. John Esling (2010) "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (eds) The Handbook of Phonetic
Sciences, 2nd ed., pp. 688, 693.
41. Martin J. Ball; Joan Rahilly (August 2011). "The symbolization of central approximants in the IPA". Journal of
the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge Journals Online. 41 (2): 231–237.
doi:10.1017/s0025100311000107 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2Fs0025100311000107).
42. "Cambridge Journals Online – Journal of the International Phonetic Association Vol. 39 Iss. 02" (http://journal
s.cambridge.org/action/displayIssue?decade=2000&jid=IPA&volumeId=39&issueId=02&iid=5907924).
Journals.cambridge.org. 23 October 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
43. "IPA: About us" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121010121905/http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/about.html).
Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/about.html) on 10 October 2012.
Retrieved 20 November 2012.
44. "IPA: Statutes" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121010121941/http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/statutes.html).
Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/statutes.html) on 10 October
2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
45. "IPA: News" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121111181340/http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/news/news20050
9.html). Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/news/news200509.html)
on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
46. "IPA: News" (https://web.archive.org/web/20121111181349/http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/news/news20111
2.html). Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original (http://www.langsci.ucl.ac.uk/ipa/news/news201112.html)
on 11 November 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2012.
47. See "Illustrations of the IPA" for individual languages in the IPA Handbook (1999), which for example may use
⟨/c/⟩ as a phonemic symbol for what is phonetically realized as [tʃ], or superscript IPA letters that have no
official superscript form.
48. Sally Thomason (2 January 2008). "Why I Don't Love the International Phonetic Alphabet" (http://itre.cis.upen
n.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005287.html). Language Log.
49. "Phonetics" (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/help/phonetics.htm). Cambridge Dictionaries Online. 2002.
Retrieved 11 March 2007.
50. "Merriam-Webster Online Pronunciation Symbols" (https://web.archive.org/web/20070601152219/http://mw1.
merriam-webster.com/pronsymbols.html). Archived from the original (http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/pronsy
mbols.html) on 1 June 2007. Retrieved 4 June 2007.
Agnes, Michael (1999). Webster's New World College Dictionary (https://archive.org/details/webstersnewworl
d00agne_0). New York: Macmillan. xxiii. ISBN 0-02-863119-6.
Pronunciation respelling for English has detailed comparisons.
51. Monolingual Hebrew dictionaries use pronunciation respelling for words with unusual spelling; for example,
the Even-Shoshan Dictionary respells ‫ ָּתכְ נִית‬as ‫ ּתו ֹכְ נִית‬because this word uses kamatz katan.
52. For example, Sergey Ozhegov's dictionary adds нэ́ in brackets for the French word пенсне (pince-nez) to
indicate that the final е does not iotate the preceding н.
53. (in Czech) Fronek, J. (2006). Velký anglicko-český slovník (in Czech). Praha: Leda. ISBN 80-7335-022-X. "In
accordance with long-established Czech lexicographical tradition, a modified version of the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is adopted in which letters of the Czech alphabet are employed."
54. Principles of the International Phonetic Association, 1949:17.
55. Severens, Sara E. (2017). "The Effects of the International Phonetic Alphabet in Singing" (https://digitalshowc
ase.lynchburg.edu/studentshowcase/2017/presentations/53/). Student Scholar Showcase.
56. "Nico Castel's Complete Libretti Series" (http://www.castelopera.com/libretti.htm). Castel Opera Arts.
Retrieved 29 September 2008.
57. Cheek, Timothy (2001). Singing in Czech (https://web.archive.org/web/20111007052429/http://scarecrowpres
s.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB%2FCATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=08108400
30). The Scarecrow Press. p. 392. ISBN 978-0-8108-4003-4. Archived from the original (http://scarecrowpress.
com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810840030) on
7 October 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
58. Zimmer, Benjamin (14 May 2008). "Operatic IPA and the Visual Thesaurus" (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/
nll/?p=155). Language Log. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
59. "Segments can usefully be divided into two major categories, consonants and vowels." (International Phonetic
Association, Handbook, p. 3)
60. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 6.
61. "for presentational convenience [...] because of [their] rarity and the small number of types of sounds which are
found there." (IPA Handbook, p 18)
62. A chart of IPA numbers can be found on the IPA website.IPA number chart (https://www.internationalphonetica
ssociation.org/sites/default/files/IPA_Number_chart_(C)2005.pdf)
63. Fromkin, Victoria; Rodman, Robert (1998) [1974]. An Introduction to Language (https://archive.org/details/intro
ductiontola00from_1) (6th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. ISBN 0-03-018682-X.
64. Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §2.1.
65. Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §9.3.
66. Amanda L. Miller et al., "Differences in airstream and posterior place of articulation among Nǀuu lingual stops"
(https://web.archive.org/web/20070609200226/http://ling.cornell.edu/plab/amanda/amiller_jipa.pdf). Submitted
to the Journal of the International Phonetic Association. Retrieved 27 May 2007.
67. "Phonetic analysis of Afrikaans, English, Xhosa and Zulu using South African speech databases" (http://www.
ajol.info/index.php/salas/article/viewFile/6562/13287). Ajol.info. Retrieved 20 November 2012. "It is traditional
to place the tie bar above the letters. It may be placed below to avoid overlap with ascenders or diacritic
marks, or simply because it is more legible that way, as in Niesler, Louw, & Roux (2005)"
68. Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 329–
330. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
70. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp. 14–15.
71. 'Further report on the 1989 Kiel Convention', Journal of the International Phonetic Association 20:2 (December
1990), p. 23.
73. Cf. the /ʷ.../ and /ʲ.../ transcriptions in Eszter Ernst-Kurdi (2017) The Phonology of Mada, SIL Yaoundé.
74. E.g. Aaron Dolgopolsky (2013) Indo-European Dictionary with Nostratic Etymologies.
75. The IPA Handbook variously defines the "linking" symbol as marking the "lack of a boundary" (p. 23) or
"absence of a break" (p. 174), and gives French liaison and English linking r as examples. The illustration for
Croatian uses it to tie atonic clitics to tonic words, with no resulting change in implied syllable structure. It is
also sometimes used simply to indicate that the consonant ending one word forms a syllable with the vowel
beginning the following word.
76. The global rise and fall arrows come before the affected syllable or prosodic unit, like stress and
upstep/downstep. This contrasts with the Chao tone letters (listed below), which most commonly come after.
77. When pitch is transcribed with diacritics, the three pitches ⟨é ē è⟩ are taken as the basic levels and are called
'high', 'mid' and 'low'. Contour tones combine only these three and are called ⟨e᷇ ⟩ 'high-mid' etc. The more
extreme pitches, which do not form contours, are ⟨e̋ ⟩ 'extra-high' and ⟨ȅ⟩ 'extra-low', using doubled diacritics.
When transcribed with tone letters, however, combinations of all five levels are possible. Thus, ⟨e˥ e˧ e˩⟩ may
be called 'high', 'mid' and 'low', with ⟨e˦ e˨⟩ being 'near-high' and 'near-low', analogous to descriptions of
vowel height.
78. P.J. Roach, Report on the 1989 Kiel Convention, Journal of the International Phonetic Association, Vol. 19,
No. 2 (December 1989), p. 75–76
79. Esling, John H. (2013), "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, William J.; Laver, John; Gibbon, Fiona E. (eds.),
The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences (2nd ed.), Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, p. 691, ISBN 978-1-118-35820-7
80. Ian Maddieson (December 1990) The transcription of tone in the IPA, JIPA 20.2, p. 31.
81. As Maddieson and others have noted, a phonemic/phonetic distinction would now be handled by /slash/ or
[bracket] delimiters. However, the reversed tone letters remain in use for phonemic tone sandhi.
82. A work-around for diacritics sometimes seen when a language has more than one phonemic rising or falling
tone, and the author wishes to avoid the poorly legible diacritics e᷄ , e᷅ , e᷇ , e᷆ but does not wish to employ tone
letters, is to restrict generic rising ě and falling ê to the higher-pitched of the rising and falling tones, say e and
e, and to resurrect retired (pre-Kiel) IPA subscript diacritics e̗ and e̖ for the lower-pitched rising and falling
tones, say e and e. When a language has four or six level tones, the two mid tones are sometimes
transcribed as high-mid e̍ (non-standard) and low-mid ē. Non-standard e̍ is occasionally seen combined with
acute and grave diacritcs or the macron.
83. Chao, Yuen-Ren (1930), "ə sistim əv "toun-letəz" " [A system of "tone-letters"], Le Maître Phonétique, 30: 24–
27, JSTOR 44704341 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44704341)
84. The example has changed over the years. In the chart included in the 1999 IPA Handbook, it was [], and
since the 2018 revision of the chart it has been [].
85. Chao did not include tone shapes such as [˦], [˩], which rise or fall and then level off (or vice versa). Such
tone shapes are, however, frequently encountered in the modern literature.
86. In Chao's Sinological convention, single ˥ is used for a high tone on a checked syllable, versus double ˥ for
high tone on an open syllable.
87. Kelly & Local (1989) Doing Phonology, Manchester University Press.
88. Bloomfield (1933) Language p. 91
89. Passy, 1958, Conversations françaises en transcription phonétique. 2nd ed.
90. Yuen Ren Chao (1968) Language and Symbolic Systems, p. xxiii
91. Geoffrey Barker (2005) Intonation Patterns in Tyrolean German, p. 11.
92. Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. p. 314.
ISBN 978-0-631-19815-4.
93. Sometimes the obsolete transcription ⟨kʻ⟩ (with a turned apostrophe) vs. ⟨kʰ⟩ is still seen.
94. Peter Ladefoged (1971) Preliminaries of Linguistic Phonetics, p. 35.
95. Fallon (2013) The Synchronic and Diachronic Phonology of Ejectives, p. 267
96. Heselwood (2013) Phonetic Transcription in Theory and Practice, p. 233.
97. E.g. in Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics, pp. 559–560
98. "John Wells's phonetic blog" (http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2009/09/click-symbols.html). Phonetic-
blog.blogspot.com. 9 September 2009. Retrieved 18 October 2010.
99. The motivation for this may vary. Some authors find the tie bars displeasing but the lack of tie bars confusing
(i.e. ⟨č⟩ for /t͡ʃ/ as distinct from /tʃ/), while others simply prefer to have one letter for each segmental phoneme in
a language.
00. "At the 1989 Kiel Convention of the IPA, a sub-group was established to draw up recommendations for the
transcription of disordered speech." ("Extensions to the IPA: An ExtIPA Chart" in International Phonetic
Association, Handbook, p. 186.)
01. PRDS Group (1983). The Phonetic Representation of Disordered Speech. London: The King's Fund.
02. "Extensions to the IPA: An ExtIPA Chart" in International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp. 186–187.
03. Haynie, Bowern, Epps, Hill & McConvell (2014) Wanderwörter in languages of the Americas and Australia.
Ampersand 1:1–18.
04. "Diacritics may also be employed to create symbols for phonemes, thus reducing the need to create new letter
shapes." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 27)
05. Dedicated letters have been proposed, such as ⟩β⟨ and ⟩ð⟨. Ball, Rahilly & Lowry (2017) Phonetics for speech
pathology, 3rd edition, Equinox, Sheffield.
06. Olson, Kenneth S.; Hajek, John (1999). "The phonetic status of the labial flap". Journal of the International
Phonetic Association. 29 (2): 101–114. doi:10.1017/s0025100300006484 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2Fs00251
00300006484).
07. "The diacritics...can be used to modify the lip or tongue position implied by a vowel symbol." (International
Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 16)
08. "...the International Phonetic Association has never officially approved a set of names..." (International
Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 31)
09. Online IPA keyboard utilities like IPA i-chart by the Association (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.
org/IPAcharts/inter_chart_2018/IPA_2018.html), IPA character picker 19 at GitHub (https://r12a.github.io/picker
s/ipa/), TypeIt.org (http://ipa.typeit.org/full/), and IPA Chart keyboard at GitHub (https://westonruter.github.io/ipa-
chart/keyboard/).
10. "Gboard updated with 63 new languages, including IPA (not the beer)" (https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/0
4/18/gboard-updated-with-63-new-languages-including-ipa-not-the-beer/). Android Police. 18 April 2019.
Retrieved 28 April 2019.
11. "Set up Gboard – Android – Gboard Help" (https://support.google.com/gboard/answer/6380730?co=GENIE.Pl
atform=Android&hl=en). support.google.com. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
12. "IPA Phonetic Keyboard" (https://apps.apple.com/lu/app/ipa-phonetic-keyboard/id1440241497). App Store.
Retrieved 8 December 2020.
Further reading
Ball, Martin J.; John H. Esling; B. Craig Dickson (1995). "The VoQS system for the transcription of voice
quality". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 25 (2): 71–80. doi:10.1017/S0025100300005181 (h
ttps://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0025100300005181).
Duckworth, M.; G. Allen; M.J. Ball (December 1990). "Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the
transcription of atypical speech". Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics. 4 (4): 273–280.
doi:10.3109/02699209008985489 (https://doi.org/10.3109%2F02699209008985489).
Hill, Kenneth C.; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William (March 1988). "Review of Phonetic Symbol Guide by
G. K. Pullum & W. Ladusaw". Language. 64 (1): 143–144. doi:10.2307/414792 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F41
4792). JSTOR 414792 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/414792).
International Phonetic Association (1989). "Report on the 1989 Kiel convention". Journal of the International
Phonetic Association. 19 (2): 67–80. doi:10.1017/s0025100300003868 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2Fs0025100
300003868).
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).
Jones, Daniel (1988). English pronouncing dictionary (https://archive.org/details/englishpronounci00dani)
(revised 14th ed.). London: Dent. ISBN 0-521-86230-2. OCLC 18415701 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/18415
701).
Ladefoged, Peter (September 1990). "The revised International Phonetic Alphabet". Language. 66 (3): 550–
552. doi:10.2307/414611 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F414611). JSTOR 414611 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41
4611).
Ladefoged, Peter; Morris Hale (September 1988). "Some major features of the International Phonetic
Alphabet". Language. 64 (3): 577–582. doi:10.2307/414533 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F414533).
JSTOR 414533 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/414533).
Laver, John (1994). Principles of Phonetics. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-45031-4.
(hb); ISBN 0-521-45655-X (pb).
Pullum, Geoffrey K.; William A. Ladusaw (1986). Phonetic Symbol Guide. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. ISBN 0-226-68532-2.
Skinner, Edith; Timothy Monich; Lilene Mansell (1990). Speak with Distinction (https://archive.org/details/spea
kwithdistinc0000skin). New York: Applause Theatre Book Publishers. ISBN 1-55783-047-9.
Fromkin, Victoria; Rodman, Robert; Hyams, Nina (2011). An Introduction to Language (https://archive.org/detai
ls/introductiontola00from_616) (9th ed.). Boston: Wadsworth, Cenage Learning. pp. 233 (https://archive.org/det
ails/introductiontola00from_616/page/n252)–234. ISBN 978-1-4282-6392-5.
External links
Official website (http://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org)
Interactive IPA chart (https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/IPAcharts/inter_chart_2018/IPA_2018.h
tml)
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International Phonetic Alphabet

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International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic

Contents ISO 15924

Some letter forms derive from existing letters:

Typography and iconicity

Brackets and transcription delimiters

Other conventions are less commonly seen:

Phonemic transcriptions, which express the conceptual counterparts of

Standard orthographies and case variants

Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal

t͡p d͡b Labial–alveolar ʍ w Labialized velar

k͡p ɡ͡b Labial–velar Lateral approximant

Front Central Back

Diacritics and prosodic notation

◌ʰ tʰ Aspirated[a] ◌̚ p̚ No audible release

◌ᶿ tᶿ Voiceless dental fricative release

◌ᵊ dᵊ Mid central vowel release

◌̤ b̤ a̤ Breathy voiced[a] ◌̰ b̰ a̰ Creaky voiced

ɔ̹ x̹ More rounded ɔ̜ xʷ̜ Less rounded

◌̘ e̘ o̘ Advanced tongue root

Open glottis [t] voiceless

[d̤ ] breathy voice, also called murmured

[d̥ ] slack voice

Sweet spot [d] modal voice

[d̬ ] stiff voice

[d̰ ] creaky voice

Closed glottis [ʔ͡t] glottal closure

Length, stress, and rhythm

Long (long vowel or

| Minor or foot break ‖ Major or intonation break

↗ [76] Global rise ↘ [76] Global fall

Pitch diacritics and Chao tone letters

ŋ̋ e̋ ˥e e˥ e꜒ Extra high / top[77] ꜛke Upstep

ŋ́ é ˦e e˦ e꜓ High / half-high ŋ̌ ě Rising (low to high or generic)

ŋ̀ è ˨e e˨ e꜕ Low / half-low ŋ̂ ê Falling (high to low or generic)

ŋ̏ ȅ ˩e e˩ e꜖ Extra low / bottom ꜜke Downstep

Pitch and tone

Original (restricted) set of Chao tone letters[85]

Register Level[86] Rising Falling Peaking Dipping

e˩ e˩ e e e e

e˨ e˨ e e e e

e˥ e˥ e e e e

Occasionally other diacritics are doubled:

Rhoticity in Badaga /be/ "mouth", /be˞/ "bangle", and /be˞˞/ "crop".[92]

Obsolete and nonstandard symbols

⟨*⟩ (a) a reconstructed form,

(b) an ungrammatical or unphonemic form

⟨**⟩ a deeper reconstruction than a single ⟨*⟩

⟨?⟩ a doubtfully grammatical form

⟨#⟩ a word boundary (e.g. ⟨#V⟩, a word-initial vowel)

Segments without letters

ASCII and keyboard transliterations

Computer input using on-screen keyboard

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Phonetic_Alphabet&oldid=1006518417"

This page was last edited on 13 February 2021, at 08:43 (UTC).

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