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Revision as of 17:16, 27 February 2013

Not to be confused with NATO phonetic alphabet or Americanist phonetic notation. "IPA" redirects here. For other uses, see IPA (disambiguation). This article contains phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of phonetic symbols. For usage of IPA in Misplaced Pages, see Misplaced Pages:IPA or Misplaced Pages:IPA/Introduction
International Phonetic Alphabet
Script type Alphabet, partially featural
Time periodsince 1888
LanguagesUsed for phonetic and phonemic transcription of any language
Related scripts
Parent systemsRomic alphabet
  • Phonotypic alphabet
    • International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of oral language. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, Speech-Language Pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.

The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are distinctive in oral language: phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables. To represent additional qualities of speech such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft palate, an extended set of symbols called the Extensions to the IPA may be used.

IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, letters and diacritics. For example, the sound of the English letter ⟨t⟩ may be transcribed in IPA with a single letter, , or with a letter plus diacritics, , depending on how precise one wishes to be. Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription; thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to, either or depending on the context and language.

Occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent change in 2005, there are 107 letters, 52 diacritics, and four prosodic marks in the IPA. These are shown in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA.

History

Main article: History of the IPA

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). Their original alphabet was based on a spelling reform for English known as the Romic alphabet, but in order to make it usable for other languages, the values of the symbols were allowed to vary from language to language. For example, the sound [ʃ] (the sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the letter ⟨x⟩ in French. However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, thus providing the base for all future revisions.

Since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989. A minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid-central vowels and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives. The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap. Apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces.

Extensions to the IPA for speech pathology were created in 1990 and officially adopted by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association in 1994.

Description

A chart of the full International Phonetic Alphabet, expanded and re-organized from the official chart. Only the black symbols are part of the IPA; additional symbols are in grey.
For a guide to pronouncing IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English dialects.

The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment) although this practice is not followed if the sound itself is complex. 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 ⟨c⟩ does in English and several other European languages, and finally, 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".

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. These are organized into a chart; the chart displayed here is an unofficial expansion and re-organization of the official chart posted at the website of the IPA and below in this article.

Letterforms

The letters chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet. 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⟩, has the form of a dotless question mark, and derives originally 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 Template:Rtl-lang ‘ain).

Despite its preference for harmonizing with the Latin script, the International Phonetic Association has occasionally admitted other letters. For example, before 1989, the IPA letters for click consonants were ⟨ʘ⟩, ⟨ʇ⟩, ⟨ʗ⟩, and ⟨ʖ⟩, all of which were derived either from existing IPA letters, or from Latin and Greek letters. However, except for ⟨ʘ⟩, none of these letters were widely used among Khoisanists or Bantuists, and as a result they were replaced by the more widespread symbols ⟨ʘ⟩, ⟨ǀ⟩, ⟨ǃ⟩, ⟨ǂ⟩, and ⟨ǁ⟩ at the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989. Although the IPA diacritics are fully featural, there is little systemicity in the letter forms. A retroflex articulation is consistently indicated with a right-swinging tail, as in ⟨ɖ ʂ ɳ⟩, and implosion by a top hook, ⟨ɓ ɗ ɠ⟩, but other pseudo-featural elements are due to haphazard derivation and coincidence. For example, all nasal consonants but uvular ⟨ɴ⟩ are based on the form ⟨n⟩: ⟨m ɱ n ɲ ɳ ŋ⟩. However, the similarity between ⟨m⟩ and ⟨n⟩ is a historical accident, ⟨ɲ⟩ and ⟨ŋ⟩ are derived from ligatures of gn and ng, and ⟨ɱ⟩ is an ad hoc imitation of ⟨ŋ⟩. In none of these is the form consistent with other letters that share these places of articulation.

Some of the new letters were ordinary Latin letters turned upside-down, such as ɐ ɔ ə ɟ ɥ ɯ ɹ ᴚ ʇ ʌ ʍ ʎ (turned a c e f h m r ʀ t v w y). This was easily done with mechanical typesetting machines, and had the advantage of not requiring the casting of special type for IPA symbols.

Symbols and sounds

The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible. The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonant letters taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to "international usage". 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: is like the vowel in machine, 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 capital or 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 IPA, in particular ⟨ɑ⟩, ⟨ɣ⟩, ⟨ɛ⟩, ⟨ɸ⟩, and ⟨ʋ⟩ which are encoded in Unicode separately from their Greek "parent" letters, three of these (⟨β⟩, ⟨θ⟩ and ⟨χ⟩) are often used unmodified in form as they have not been encoded separately.

The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters. 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 (unlike, for example, in Visible Speech).

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 phonemes

There are two principal types of brackets used to set off IPA transcriptions:

  • are used for phonetic details of the pronunciation, possibly including details that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document.
  • /slashes/ are used to mark off phonemes, all of which are distinctive in the language, without any extraneous detail.

For example, while the /p/ sounds of pin and spin are pronounced slightly differently in English (and this difference would be meaningful in some languages), the difference is not meaningful in English. Thus phonemically the words are /pɪn/ and /spɪn/, with the same /p/ phoneme. However, to capture the difference between them (the allophones of /p/), they can be transcribed phonetically as and .

Other conventions are less commonly seen:

  • Double slashes //...//, pipes |...|, double pipes ||...||, or braces {...} may be used around a word to denote its underlying structure, more abstract even than that of phonemes. See morphophonology for examples.
  • Angle brackets are used to clarify that the letters represent the original orthography of the language, or sometimes an exact transliteration of a non-Latin script, not the IPA; or, within the IPA, that the letters themselves are indicated, not the sound values that they carry. For example, ⟨pin⟩ and ⟨spin⟩ would be seen for those words, which do not contain the ee sound of the IPA letter ⟨i⟩. Italics are perhaps more commonly used for this purpose when full words are being written (as pin, spin above), but may not be sufficiently clear for individual letters and digraphs. The true angle brackets ⟨...⟩ (U+27E8, U+27E9) are not supported by many non-mathematical fonts as of 2010. Therefore chevrons ‹...› (U+2039, U+203A) are sometimes used in substitution, as are the less-than and greater-than signs <...> (U+003C, U+003E).
  • {Braces} are used for prosodic notation. See Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for examples in that system.
  • (Parentheses) are used for indistinguishable utterances. They are also seen for silent articulation (mouthing), where the expected phonetic transcription is derived from lip-reading, and with periods to indicate silent pauses, for example (...).
  • Double parentheses indicate obscured or unintelligible sound, as in ((2 syll.)), two audible but unidentifiable syllables.

Handwritten forms

An example of a printed text with IPA letters filled in by hand. The two words at the beginning of line 1 are sɨk and sɔ̄k. The ɔ has a cursive form that looks somewhat like a 2 or a small-capital Q in some cursive hands.
Main article: Handwritten IPA

IPA letters have handwritten forms designed for use in manuscripts and when taking field notes; they are occasionally seen in publications when the printer did not have fonts that supported IPA, and the IPA was therefore filled in by hand.

Official chart

The official chart of the IPA as of 2005, displaying the alphabet in simplified form. The proper symbols for upstep and downstep are not available in this font, and have been substituted.

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.) The most recent official chart, from 2005, is presented at right.

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 a low central vowel and August 2011 on central approximants). Reactions to the proposal may be published in the same or subsequent issues of the Journal (as in August 2009 on the low central vowel). A formal proposal is then put to the Council of the IPA (which is elected by the membership ) for further discussion and a formal vote.

Only changes to the alphabet or chart that have been approved by the Council can be considered part of the official IPA. Nonetheless, many IPA users make personal changes in their own practice, either for convenience in working on a particular language (see, for example, "Illustrations of the IPA" for individual languages in the Handbook, which for example may use ⟨c⟩ for ), or because they object to some aspect of the official version. For example, the chart at the top of this article is reorganized in response to perceived shortcomings of the official version, and in places reflects the organization of the 1979 chart.

Usage

Further information: Phonetic transcription
Ébauche is a French term meaning outline or blank.

Although the IPA offers over one hundred and sixty symbols for transcribing speech, only a relatively small subset of these will be used to transcribe any one language. It is possible to transcribe speech with various levels of precision. A precise phonetic transcription, in which sounds are described in a great deal of detail, is known as a narrow transcription. A coarser transcription which ignores some of this detail is called a broad transcription. Both are relative terms, and both are generally enclosed in square brackets. 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 transcriptions, but they make no theoretical claim that all the distinctions transcribed are necessarily meaningful in the language.

Phonetic transcriptions of the word international in two English dialects. The square brackets indicate that the differences between these dialects are not necessarily sufficient to distinguish different words in English.

For example, the English word little may be transcribed broadly using the IPA as , and this broad (imprecise) transcription is an accurate (approximately correct) description of many pronunciations. A more narrow transcription may focus on individual or dialectical details: in General American, in Cockney, or in Southern US English.

It is customary to use simpler letters, without many diacritics, in phonemic transcriptions. The choice of IPA letters may reflect the theoretical claims of the author, or merely be a convenience for typesetting. For instance, in English, either the vowel of pick or the vowel of peak may be transcribed as /i/ (for the pairs /pik, piːk/ or /pɪk, pik/), and neither is identical to the vowel of the French word pique which is also generally transcribed /i/. That is, letters between slashes do not have absolute values, something true of broader phonetic approximations as well. A narrow transcription may, however, be used to distinguish them: , , .

Linguists

Although IPA is popular for transcription by linguists, American linguists often alternate use of the IPA with Americanist phonetic notation or use the IPA together with some nonstandard symbols, for reasons including reducing the error rate on reading handwritten transcriptions or avoiding perceived awkwardness of IPA in some situations. The exact practice may vary somewhat between languages and even individual researchers, so authors are generally encouraged to include a chart or other explanation of their choices.

Language study

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (November 2009)
File:English-2nd grade-Vereshchagina-Russian-textbook-page 39.png
A page from an English language textbook used in Russia. The IPA is used to teach the different pronunciations of the digraph ⟨th⟩ (/θ/, /ð/) and to show the pronunciation of newly introduced words polite, everything, always, forget.

Some language study programs use the IPA to teach pronunciation. For example, in Russia (and earlier in the Soviet Union) and mainland China, textbooks for children and adults for studying English and French consistently use the IPA. English teachers and textbooks in Taiwan tend to use the Kenyon and Knott system instead.

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. 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 and ⟨sh⟩ for IPA , reflecting common representations of those sounds in written English, using only letters of the English Roman alphabet and variations of them. (In IPA, represents the sound of the French ⟨u⟩ (as in tu), and 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 generally 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 script for transcription of foreign words. Monolingual Hebrew dictionaries use pronunciation respelling for words with unusual spelling; for example, Even-Shoshan Dictionary respells Template:Hebrew as Template:Hebrew because this word uses kamatz katan. Bilingual dictionaries that translate from foreign languages into Russian usually employ the IPA, but monolingual Russian dictionaries occasionally use pronunciation respelling for foreign words; for example, Ozhegov's dictionary adds нэ́ in brackets for the French word пенсне (pince-nez) to indicate that the е does not iotate the н.

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.

Standard orthographies and capital variants

Main article: Case variants of IPA letters

IPA letters have been incorporated into the alphabets of various languages, notably via the Africa Alphabet in sub-Saharan Africa: Hausa, Fula, Akan, Gbe languages, Manding languages, Lingala, etc. This has created the need for capital variants. For example, Kabiyé of northern Togo has Ɔ ɔ, Ɛ ɛ, Ɖ ɖ, Ŋ ŋ, Ɣ ɣ, Ʃ ʃ, Ʊ ʊ (or Ʋ ʋ):

MBƱ AJƐYA KIGBƐNDƱƱ ŊGBƐYƐ KEDIƔZAƔ SƆSƆƆ TƆM SE.

These, and others, are supported by Unicode, but appear in Latin ranges other than the IPA extensions.

In the IPA itself, 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, but this convention has not been included in recent editions.

Classical singing

IPA has widespread use among classical singers for preparation, especially among English-speaking singers who are expected to sing in a variety of foreign languages. Opera librettos are authoritatively transcribed in IPA, such as Nico Castel's volumes and Timothy Cheek's book Singing in Czech. Opera singers' ability to read IPA was recently used by the 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."

Letters

The International Phonetic Association organizes the letters of the IPA into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.

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', 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 are judged to be implausible.

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'.

Each character is assigned a number, to prevent confusion between similar letters (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.

Consonants

Main article: Consonant
International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics
IPA
Special topics
Encodings
Consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal
Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal
Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ
Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ
Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ
Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh
Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ 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 ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ
Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝
Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝
Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆

Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Non-pulmonic consonants
BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG
Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ
Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ
Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ
Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ
Lateral fricative ɬʼ
Click
(top: velar;
bottom: uvular) 		Tenuis kʘ
qʘ 		kǀ
qǀ 		kǃ
qǃ 		k𝼊
q𝼊 		kǂ
qǂ
Voiced ɡʘ
ɢʘ 		ɡǀ
ɢǀ 		ɡǃ
ɢǃ 		ɡ𝼊
ɢ𝼊 		ɡǂ
ɢǂ
Nasal ŋʘ
ɴʘ 		ŋǀ
ɴǀ 		ŋǃ
ɴǃ 		ŋ𝼊
ɴ𝼊 		ŋǂ
ɴǂ 		ʞ
 
Tenuis lateral kǁ
qǁ
Voiced lateral ɡǁ
ɢǁ
Nasal lateral ŋǁ
ɴǁ
Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥
Co-articulated consonants
Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar
Other
Vowels
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

Legend: unrounded • rounded

Notes
  • Asterisks (*) indicate unofficial IPA symbols for attested sounds. See the respective articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
  • In rows where some letters appear in pairs (the obstruents), the letter to the right represents a voiced consonant (except breathy-voiced ). However, cannot be voiced, and the voicing of is ambiguous. In the other rows (the sonorants), the single letter represents a voiced consonant.
  • Although there is a single letter for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, 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 represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
  • In many languages, such as English, and are not actually glottal, fricatives, or approximants. Rather, they are bare phonation.
  • It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives , , and .
  • The labiodental nasal is not known to exist as a phoneme in any language.

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.

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.

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 in "went" is a coarticulated consonant, because it is pronounced by rounding the lips and raising the back of the tongue. Other languages, such as French and Swedish, have different coarticulated consonants.

Note

Affricates and double articulated consonants

Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two letters joined by a tie bar, either above or below the letters. The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage, 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.

View this table as an image.
Tie bar Ligature Description
t͡s ʦ voiceless alveolar affricate
d͡z ʣ voiced alveolar affricate
t͡ʃ ʧ voiceless postalveolar affricate
d͡ʒ ʤ voiced postalveolar affricate
t͡ɕ ʨ voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
d͡ʑ ʥ voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
t͡ɬ  – voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
k͡p  – voiceless labial-velar plosive
ɡ͡b  – voiced labial-velar plosive
ŋ͡m  – labial-velar nasal stop
Note
  • On browsers that use 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.

Non-pulmonic consonants

Non-pulmonic consonants are sounds whose airflow is not dependent on the lungs. These include clicks (found in the Khoisan languages of Africa), implosives (found in languages such as Swahili) and ejectives (found in many Amerindian and Caucasian languages).

View this table as an image
Clicks 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
  • Clicks are double articulated and have traditionally been described as having a forward 'release' and a rear 'accompaniment', with the click letters representing the release. Therefore all clicks would require two letters for proper notation: ⟨k͡ǂ, ɡ͡ǂ, ŋ͡ǂ, q͡ǂ, ɢ͡ǂ, ɴ͡ǂ⟩ etc., or ⟨ǂ͡k, ǂ͡ɡ, ǂ͡ŋ, ǂ͡q, ǂ͡ɢ, ǂ͡ɴ⟩. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a may usually be assumed. However, recent research disputes the concept of 'accompaniment'. In these approaches, the click letter represents both articulations, with the different letters representing different click 'types', there is no velar-uvular distinction, and the accompanying letter represents the manner, phonation, or airstream contour of the click: ⟨ǂ, ᶢǂ, ᵑǂ⟩ 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..
  • Although not confirmed as contrastive in any language, and therefore not explicitly recognized by the IPA, a letter for the retroflex implosive, ⟨ᶑ⟩, 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 diacritic often stands in for a superscript glottal stop in glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as , , , . These may also be transcribed as creaky , , , .

Vowels

Main article: Vowel
IPA: Vowels
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

Legend: unrounded • rounded

Tongue positions of cardinal front vowels with highest point indicated. The position of the highest point is used to determine vowel height and backness
An X-ray film shows the sounds

The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center. Below is a chart depicting the vowels of the IPA. The IPA maps the vowels according to the position of the tongue.

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 the top. For example, (the first vowel in father) is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. However, (the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth.

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 , the vowel in "met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as , 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 ⟨aɪ̯⟩. However, sometimes a tie bar is used, especially if it is difficult to tell if the vowel is characterized by an on-glide or an off-glide: ⟨a͡ɪ⟩ or ⟨o͜e⟩.

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. However, 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

Diacritics are small markings which are placed around the IPA letter in order to show a certain alteration or more specific description in the letter's pronunciation. Sub-diacritics (markings normally placed below a letter) may be placed above a letter having a descender (informally called a tail), e.g. ŋ̊, ȷ̈.

The dotless i, ⟨ı⟩, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA letters may appear as diacritic variants to represent phonetic detail: tˢ (fricative release), bʱ (breathy voice), ˀa (glottal onset), ᵊ (epenthetic schwa), oᶷ (diphthongization). Additional diacritics were introduced in the Extensions to the IPA, which were designed principally for speech pathology.

View the diacritic table as an image
Syllabicity diacritics
◌̩ ɹ̩ n̩ Syllabic ◌̯ e̯ ʊ̯ Non-syllabic
Consonant-release diacritics
◌ʰ tʰ Aspirated ◌̚ d̚ No audible release
◌ʱ dʱ
◌ⁿ dⁿ Nasal release ◌ˡ dˡ Lateral release
Phonation diacritics
◌̥ n̥ d̥ Voiceless ◌̬ s̬ t̬ Voiced
◌̤ b̤ a̤ Breathy voiced ◌̰ 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
◌ʷ tʷ dʷ Labialized or labio-velarized ◌ʲ tʲ dʲ Palatalized
◌ˠ tˠ dˠ Velarized ◌ˤ tˤ aˤ Pharyngealized
◌ᶣ tᶣ dᶣ Labio-palatalized ◌̴ ɫ z̴ Velarized or pharyngealized
◌̘ e̘ o̘ Advanced tongue root ◌̙ e̙ o̙ Retracted tongue root
◌̃ ẽ z̃ Nasalized ◌˞ ɚ ɝ Rhotacized
Notes
a With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice.
b Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as bʱ.

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 voiceless
breathy voice, also called murmured
slack voice
Sweet spot modal voice
stiff voice
creaky voice
Closed glottis glottal closure

Suprasegmentals

These symbols describe the features of a language above the level of individual consonants and vowels, such as prosody, tone, length, and stress, which often operate on syllables, words, or phrases: that is, elements such as the intensity, pitch, and gemination of the sounds of a language, as well as the rhythm and intonation of speech. Although most of these symbols indicate distinctions that are phonemic at the word level, symbols also exist for intonation on a level greater than that of the word.

View this table as an image
Length, stress, and rhythm
ˈa Primary stress (symbol goes
before stressed syllable) 		ˌa Secondary stress (symbol goes
before stressed syllable)
aː kː Long (long vowel or
geminate consonant) 		aˑ Half-long
ə̆ Extra-short
a.a Syllable break s‿a Linking (absence of a break)
Intonation
| Minor (foot) break ‖ Major (intonation) break
↗ Global rise ↘ Global fall
Tone diacritics and tone letters
ŋ̋ e̋ e˥ Extra high / top ꜛke Upstep
ŋ́ é e˦ High ŋ̌ ě Generic rise
ŋ̄ ē e˧ Mid
ŋ̀ è e˨ Low ŋ̂ ê Generic fall
ŋ̏ ȅ e˩ Extra low / bottom ꜜke Downstep

Finer distinctions of tone may be indicated by combining the tone diacritics and letters shown here, though not many fonts support this. The primary examples are high (mid) rising ɔ᷄, ɔ˧˥; low rising ɔ᷅, ɔ˩˧; high falling ɔ᷇, ɔ˥˧; low (mid) falling ɔ᷆, ɔ˧˩; peaking ɔ᷈, ɔ˧˥˧ (etc.); and dipping ɔ᷉, ɔ˧˩˧ (etc.). The correspondence between the diacritics and tone letters is only approximate; for example, diacritics only indicate generic peaking or dipping tones, while the tone letters can convey fine phonetic detail, with over a hundred peaking and hundred dipping tone contours that correspond to these two diacritics, or even approximately to the six rising and falling diacritics. Various combinations are used in the IPA Handbook despite not being found on the simplified official IPA chart. However, although it is theoretically possible to combine the three diacritics in any permutation, in practice only the six combinations given here are actually used.

A work-around for diacritics sometimes seen when a language has more than one rising or falling tone, and the author does not wish to completely abandon the IPA, is to restrict generic rising ɔ̌ and falling ɔ̂ for the higher-pitched of the rising and falling tones, ɔ˥˧ and ɔ˧˥, and to use the non-standard subscript diacritics ɔ̗ and ɔ̖ for the lower-pitched rising and falling tones, ɔ˩˧ and ɔ˧˩. When a language has four or six level tones, the two mid tones are sometimes transcribed as high-mid ɔ̍ (non-standard) and low-mid ɔ̄.

As with other IPA diacritics, such as length, aspiration, and rhoticity, the stress mark may be doubled to indicate an extra degree of stress.

Obsolete and nonstandard symbols

Main articles: Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet and Click letters

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⟩ which has been standardized to ⟨ʊ⟩. Several letters 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; they are now written ⟨ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥⟩ or ⟨pʼ↓ tʼ↓ cʼ↓ kʼ↓ qʼ↓⟩. A rejected competing proposal for transcribing clicks, ⟨ʇ, ʗ, ʖ⟩, is still sometimes seen, as the official 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 standard IPA click letters disallow IPA brackets).

There are also unsupported or ad hoc letters from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as the "barred lambda" ⟨ƛ⟩ for .

IPA extensions

Main article: Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet

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 IPA Kiel Convention in 1989, a group of linguists drew up the initial extensions, which were based on the previous work of the PRDS (Phonetic Representation of Disordered Speech) Group in the early 1980s. 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. While the original purpose was to transcribe disordered speech, linguists have used the extensions to designate a number of unique sounds within standard communication, such as hushing, gnashing teeth, and smacking lips. The extensions have also been used to record certain peculiarities in an individual's voice, such as nasalized voicing.

The Extensions to the IPA do not include symbols used for voice quality (VoQS), such as whispering.

Segments without letters

The remaining 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, the voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. (See the grey letters in the PDF chart.) Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. 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, and respectively. Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, . 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, .

Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written (bilabial trill and the dental sign), and labiodental stops 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. , though in some cases the diacritic would need to be written below the letter. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted , just as 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. For example, the unrounded equivalent of can be transcribed as mid-centered , and the rounded equivalent of as raised . True mid vowels are lowered , while centered and 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 ⟨ʏʷ⟩ and ⟨uᵝ⟩ (or ⟨ɪʷ⟩ and ⟨ɯᵝ⟩).

Symbol names

Main article: Naming conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet

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. 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. 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, and sometimes based 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.

Pullum and 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. Their collection is extensive enough that the Unicode Consortium used it in the development of Unicode.

ASCII and keyboard transliterations

Several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Notable systems include Kirshenbaum, Arpabet, 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.

See also

Notes

  1. "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself (from the phrase 'International Phonetic Alphabet') that resistance seems pedantic. Context usually serves to disambiguate the two usages." (Laver 1994:561)
  2. 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 to sound different from the French or Spanish , which is a laminal (pronounced with the blade of the tongue) and unaspirated . ⟨t̺ʰ⟩ and ⟨t̻⟩ are thus two different IPA symbols for two different, though similar, sounds.
  3. 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, ) for both. Strictly speaking, this makes the IPA a partially phonemic alphabet, not a purely phonetic one.
  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, is called "Lower-case P" and 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 and W. Bright (eds.) (ed.). The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 821–846. ISBN 0-19-507993-0. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)
  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". Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  5. "current IPA chart" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  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. ^ Pullum and Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, pp. 152, 209
  10. Nicolaidis, Katerina (2005). "Approval of New IPA Sound: The Labiodental Flap". International Phonetic Association. Retrieved 2006-09-17. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  11. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 186
  12. “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)
  13. Laver, Principles of Phonetics,pp. 174–175
  14. "The new letters should be suggestive of the sounds they represent, by their resemblance to the old ones." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 196)
  15. "Cambridge Journals Online - Journal of the International Phonetic Association Vol. 41 Iss. 02". Journals.cambridge.org. 2012-10-23. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  16. "Cambridge Journals Online - Journal of the International Phonetic Association Vol. 39 Iss. 02". Journals.cambridge.org. 2012-10-23. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  17. "IPA: About us". Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  18. "IPA: Statutes". Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  19. "IPA: News". Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  20. "IPA: News". Langsci.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  21. IPA Handbook (1999)
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference IPA_1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Sally Thomason (January 2, 2008). "Why I Don't Love the International Phonetic Alphabet". Language Log.
  24. For example, the English school textbooks by I. N. Vereshagina, K. A. Bondarenko and T. A. Pritykina.
  25. For example, "Le Français à la portée de tous" by K. K. Parchevsky and E. B. Roisenblit (1995) and "English Through Eye and Ear" by L.V. Bankevich (1975).
  26. "Phonetics". Cambridge Dictionaries Online. 2002. Retrieved 2007-03-11.
  27. "Merriam-Webster Online Pronunciation Symbols". Retrieved 2007-06-04.
    Agnes, Michael (1999). Webster's New World College Dictionary. New York, NY: Macmillan USA. xxiii. ISBN 0-02-863119-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |nopp= ignored (|no-pp= suggested) (help)
    Pronunciation respelling for English has detailed comparisons.
  28. Template:Cs icon 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.
  29. Principles of the International Phonetic Association, 1949:17.
  30. "Nico Castel's Complete Libretti Series". Castel Opera Arts. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
  31. Cheek, Timothy (2001). Singing in Czech. The Scarecrow Press. p. 392. ISBN 0-8108-4003-0 ISBN 978-0-8108-4003-4. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  32. Zimmer, Benjamin (2008-05-14). "Operatic IPA and the Visual Thesaurus". Language Log. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2009-09-29.
  33. "Segments can usefully be divided into two major categories, consonants and vowels." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 3)
  34. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 6.
  35. Reproduced here
  36. "for presentational convenience because of rarity and the small number of types of sounds which are found there." (IPA Handbook, p 18)
  37. A chart of IPA numbers can be found on the IPA website.IPA number chart
  38. Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §2.1.
  39. Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §9.3.
  40. Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6. p 18
  41. Fromkin, Victoria (1998) . An Introduction to Language (6th ed.). Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers. ISBN 0-03-018682-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  42. Ladefoged, Peter (1996). The sounds of the world's languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 329–330. ISBN 0-631-19815-6. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  43. "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) [Phonetic analysis of Afrikaans, English, Xhosa and Zulu using South African speech databases". Ajol.info. Retrieved 2012-11-20.
  44. Amanda L. Miller et al., "Differences in airstream and posterior place of articulation among Nǀuu lingual stops". Submitted to the Journal of the International Phonetic Association. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  45. International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 10.
  46. ^ International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp. 14–15.
  47. ^ International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 13.
  48. ^ 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, which come after.
  49. 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:
    "ˈˈɑ̃ːˈtre | məˈsjø, | ˈˈvwala maˈdam." Entrez monsieur, voilà madame.
    (Passy, 1958, Conversation fraçaises en transcription phonétique. 2nd ed.)
  50. "John Wells's phonetic blog". Phonetic-blog.blogspot.com. 2009-09-09. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
  51. "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, pp. 186.)
  52. PRDS Group (1983). The Phonetic Representation of Disordered Speech. London: The King's Fund.
  53. "Extensions to the IPA: An ExtIPA Chart" in International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp. 186–187.
  54. "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)
  55. Olson, Kenneth S.; & Hajek, John. (1999). The phonetic status of the labial flap. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2), pp. 101–114.
  56. "The diacrtics...can be used to modify the lip or tongue position implied by a vowel symbol." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 16)
  57. "...the International Phonetic Association has never officially approved a set of names..." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 31)

Further reading

External links

Education

Transcription

IPA font downloads

  • 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. Based on Bitstream Charter, this font suffers from extremely bad hinting when rendered by FreeType on Linux.
  • DejaVu fonts (at Sourceforge.net) have full Unicode IPA support.
  • Doulos SIL, a Times/Times New Roman style font. It contains the same characters as Charis SIL, but only in a single face, roman.
  • 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. For bold typefaces but only the most basic IPA letters, Gentium Basic may be used.
  • TIPA, a font and system for entering IPA phonetic transcriptions in LaTeX documents.

Keyboard input

Sound files

  • IPA Chart with linked AIFF sound files for Peter Ladefoged's Course in Phonetics.
    • Supplementary material for A Course in Phonetics (5th Edition). Includes IPA Chart with linked AIFF sound files, sample transcriptions with embedded Quicktime videos, and exercises.
    • Vowels and Consonants. Supplementary material for Course in Phonetics (2nd Edition), including IPA Chart and sample word lists, both with linked AIFF sound files.
  • Complete IPA charts with sound samples for consonants and vowels, including English diphthongs (requires Adobe Flash).
  • IPA chart with MP3 sound files for all IPA letters on the chart (limited version is available to anyone)

Unicode charts

International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics
IPA
Special topics
Encodings
Consonants
Pulmonic consonants
Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal
Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal
Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ
Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ
Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ
Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh
Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ
Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ 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 ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ
Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝
Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝
Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠
Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆

Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Non-pulmonic consonants
BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG
Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ
Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ
Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ
Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ
Lateral fricative ɬʼ
Click
(top: velar;
bottom: uvular) 		Tenuis kʘ
qʘ 		kǀ
qǀ 		kǃ
qǃ 		k𝼊
q𝼊 		kǂ
qǂ
Voiced ɡʘ
ɢʘ 		ɡǀ
ɢǀ 		ɡǃ
ɢǃ 		ɡ𝼊
ɢ𝼊 		ɡǂ
ɢǂ
Nasal ŋʘ
ɴʘ 		ŋǀ
ɴǀ 		ŋǃ
ɴǃ 		ŋ𝼊
ɴ𝼊 		ŋǂ
ɴǂ 		ʞ
 
Tenuis lateral kǁ
qǁ
Voiced lateral ɡǁ
ɢǁ
Nasal lateral ŋǁ
ɴǁ
Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ
Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥
Co-articulated consonants
Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar
Other
Vowels
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

Legend: unrounded • rounded

Phonologies of the world's languages
A–E
F–L
M–S
T–Z
Types of writing systems
Overview
Lists
Types
Abjads
Abugidas
Brahmic
Northern
Southern
Others
Alphabets
Linear
Non-linear
Ideograms
Logograms
Chinese family of scripts
Chinese characters
Chinese-influenced
Cuneiform
Other logosyllabic
Logoconsonantal
Numerals
Other
Semi-syllabaries
Full
Redundant
Sign languages
Syllabaries
Braille ⠃⠗⠁⠊⠇⠇⠑
Braille cell
Braille scripts
French-ordered
Nordic family
Russian lineage family
i.e. Cyrillic-mediated scripts
Egyptian lineage family
i.e. Arabic-mediated scripts
Indian lineage family
i.e. Bharati Braille
Other scripts
Reordered
Frequency-based
Independent
Eight-dot
Symbols in braille
Braille technology
People
Organisations
Other tactile alphabets
Related topics

Technical note

Most IPA symbols are not included in the most widely used form of Times New Roman (though they are included in the version provided with Windows Vista), the default font for Latin scripts in Internet Explorer for Windows. To properly view IPA symbols in that browser, you must set it to use a font which includes the IPA extensions characters. Such fonts include Lucida Sans Unicode, which comes with Windows XP; Gentium, Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, DejaVu Sans, or TITUS Cyberbit, which are freely available; or Arial Unicode MS, which comes with Microsoft Office.

On this page, we have forced Internet Explorer to use such a font by default, so it should appear correctly, but this has not 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 "຦" in articles.

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

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