International Phonetic Alphabet

Un article de Vev.

Modèle:Otheruses5 Modèle:Redirect6 Modèle:Distinguish Modèle:Infobox WS Modèle:IPAseries The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)Modèle:Ref label is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.<ref name="IPA 1999">International Phonetic Association (IPA), Handbook.</ref> The IPA is used by linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, foreign language teachers and students, singers, actors, lexicographers, and translators.<ref name="world">Modèle:Cite book</ref><ref>Modèle:Cite book</ref>

The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are distinctive in spoken language: phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.<ref name="IPA 1999" /> 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 Extended IPA is used.<ref name="world" />

As of 2007, there are 107 distinct letters and 56 diacritics and suprasegmentals in the IPA proper. Occasionally symbols are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association.

Sommaire 1 History 2 Description 2.1 Letterforms 2.2 Symbols and sounds 3 Usage 3.1 Use in dictionaries 3.2 Educational initiative 3.3 Use in orthographies and capital variants 4 Letters 4.1 Consonants (pulmonic) 4.1.1 Coarticulation 4.1.2 Affricates and double articulation 4.2 Consonants (non-pulmonic) 4.3 Vowels 5 Diacritics 6 Suprasegmentals 7 Obsolete symbols and nonstandard symbols 7.1 IPA extensions 8 Sounds that have no symbols in the IPA 8.1 Consonants without letters 8.2 Vowels without letters 9 Symbol names 10 ASCII transliterations, IPA influence on other phonetic alphabets 11 See also 12 Notes 13 Citations 14 References 15 External links 15.1 General 15.2 Free IPA font downloads 15.3 Keyboard input 15.4 Sound files 15.5 Unicode charts 16 Technical note

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).<ref name="IPA194-196">International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp 194–196</ref> The 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.<ref>"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)</ref> For example, the sound Modèle:IPA (sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter <c> in English, but with the letter <x> in French.<ref name="IPA194-196"/> However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, thus providing the base for all future revisions.<ref name="IPA194-196"/><ref>Modèle:Cite journal</ref>

Since its creation, the organization of vowels and consonants in the IPA has remained largely the same. However, the alphabet itself has undergone a few revisions. The IPA Kiel Convention in 1989 made many changes to the earlier 1932 version. A minor revision took place in 1993, with the addition of the mid-central vowel<ref name="world" /> and the removal of symbols for voiceless implosives,<ref name=Pullum>Pullum and Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, pp 152 & 209</ref> and the alphabet was last revised in May 2005, when a symbol for the labiodental flap was added.<ref> Nicolaidis , Katerina

       (September 2005)
       
   
 
.    Approval of New IPA Sound: The Labiodental Flap 
. International Phonetic Association 
   

. Retrieved on 2006-09-17. </ref> Apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories, and modifying typefaces.<ref name="world" />

Extensions of the alphabet are relatively recent; the Extended IPA was created in 1990 and officially adopted by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association in 1994.<ref>International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 186</ref> Also, the VoQS (Voice Quality Symbols) were proposed in 1995 to provide a system for more detailed transcription of voice production.<ref>Ball et al., The VoQS system </ref>

Description

Modèle:For

The general principle of the IPA is to provide one symbol for each distinctive sound (or speech segment).<ref>“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)</ref> This means that the IPA does not use letter combinations unless the sound being represented can be regarded as a sequence of two or more sounds.Modèle:Ref label The IPA also does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them (a property known as "selectiveness"<ref name="world"/>),Modèle:Ref label and it does not use letters that represent multiple sounds, the way <x> represents the consonant cluster Modèle:IPA in English. Additionally, in the IPA no letters have sound values that are context-dependent, such as <c> in English (and most other European languages).

The symbols of the IPA are 107 letters for consonants and vowels, 31 diacritics which further specify those sounds, and 19 suprasegmentals, which indicate such qualities as length, tone, stress, and intonation.Modèle:Ref label

Letterforms

The symbols chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet.Modèle:Ref label For this reason, most symbols are either Latin or Greek letters, or modifications thereof. However, there are symbols that are neither: for example, the symbol denoting the glottal stop Modèle:IPA has the form of a "gelded" question mark, and was originally an apostrophe.Modèle:Ref label Indeed, some symbols, such as that of the voiced pharyngeal fricative Modèle:IPA, though modified to look more Latin, were inspired by glyphs in other writing systems (in this case, the Arabic letter Modèle:Rtl-lang, `ain).<ref name=Pullum/>

Despite its preference for letters that harmonize with the Latin alphabet, the International Phonetic Association has occasionally admitted symbols that do not have this property. For example, prior to 1989, the IPA symbols for click consonants were Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA, all of which are clearly derived from Latin and Greek letters, as well as punctuation marks. However, except for Modèle:IPA, none of these symbols was reflective of contemporary practice among Khoisanists (the main users of symbols for click consonants). As a result, they were replaced by the less Latin-like but more widespread symbols Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA at the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989.<ref>Laver, Principles of Phonetics,pp 174–175</ref>

Symbols and sounds

The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.<ref name=IPA194-196/> The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonants taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to “international usage”.<ref name=IPA194-196/> Hence, the letters Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, (hard) Modèle:IPA, (hard) Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, (voiceless) Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA have the values used in English; and the vowels from the Latin alphabet (Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA) correspond to the sound values of Latin: Modèle:IPA is like the vowel in machine, Modèle:IPA is as in rule, etc. Other letters may differ from English, but are used with these values in other European languages, such as Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA.

This inventory was extended by using capital or cursive forms, diacritics, and rotation. There are also several derived from the Greek alphabet (Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA), though the sound values may differ. Modèle:IPA, for example, is a vowel in Greek, but an only indirectly related consonant in the IPA.

The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters.<ref>"The new letters should be suggestive of the sounds they represent, by their resemblance to the old ones." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 196)</ref> 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 the shape of the symbol (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.

Usage

Modèle:Further

Although the IPA offers over a hundred symbols for transcribing speech, it is not necessary to use all relevant symbols at the same time; it is possible to transcribe speech with various levels of accuracy. The most accurate kind of phonetic transcription, in which sounds are described in as much detail as the system allows, without any regard for the linguistic significance of the distinctions thus made, is known as narrow transcription. Anything else is termed broad transcription, though "broad" is obviously a relative term. Both kinds of transcriptions are generally enclosed in brackets,<ref name="IPA_1999"/> but broad transcriptions are sometimes enclosed in slashes instead of brackets.

Broad transcription only distinguishes sounds which are considered different by speakers of a language. Sounds that may be pronounced differently between styles and dialects or depending on neighbouring sounds can be considered the "same" sound in the sense that they are allophones of the same phoneme. When a word is written as phonemes, it is usually enclosed in slashes. For example, the American pronunciation of the English word "little" may be transcribed broadly using the IPA as Modèle:IPA. This broad transcription merely identifies the separate phonetically relevant components of the word, and does not indicate the variety of corresponding sounds. On the other hand, the narrow transcription (placed between square brackets) specifies the way each sound is pronounced. A more narrow transcription of "little" would be different depending on the way it is said: Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, or Modèle:IPA are just a few possibilities.

Neither broad nor narrow transcription using the IPA provides an absolute description; rather, they provide relative descriptions of phonetic sounds. This is especially true with respect to the IPA vowels: there exists no hard and fast mapping between IPA symbols and formant frequency ranges, and in fact one set of formant frequencies may correspond to two different IPA symbols, depending on the phonology of the language in question.

Use in dictionaries

Many British English 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.<ref> Phonetics

. Cambridge Dictionaries Online 
 
   (2002)
     
   
 

. Retrieved on 2007-03-11. </ref> However, most American (and some British) volumes use their own conventions supposed to be more intuitive for readers unfamiliar with the IPA. For example, the pronunciation-representation systems in many American dictionaries (such as Merriam-Webster) use "y" for IPA Modèle:IPA and "sh" for IPA Modèle:IPA, reflecting common representations of those sounds in written English.<ref> Merriam-Webster Online Pronunciation Symbols

. Retrieved on 2007-06-04.
Modèle:Cite book
Pronunciation respelling for English has detailed comparisons.</ref> (In IPA, Modèle:IPA represents the sound of the French u (as in tu), and Modèle:IPA represents the pair of sounds in grass hut.)

One of the benefits of using an alternative to the IPA is the ability to use a single symbol for a sound pronounced differently in different dialects. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary uses ŏ for the vowel in cot (kŏt) but ô for the one in caught (kôt).<ref> Pronunciation Key

. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
. Bartleby.com 
 
   (2000)
     
   
 

. Retrieved on 2006-09-19. </ref> American regional dialects without the caught-cot merger generally pronounce cŏt like IPA Modèle:IPA (with an open central unrounded vowel) and côt like IPA Modèle:IPA (with an open back rounded vowel), whereas those with the merger pronounce the vowels ŏ and ô the same way (for example, like IPA Modèle:IPA in the Boston dialect). Using one symbol for the vowel in cot (instead of having different symbols for different pronunciations of the o) enables the dictionary to provide meaningful pronunciations for speakers of most dialects of English.

The IPA is also not universal among dictionaries in other countries and languages. Mass-market Czech multilingual dictionaries, for instance, tend to use the IPA only for sounds not found in the Czech language.<ref>Modèle:Cs icon Modèle:Cite book</ref>

Educational initiative

There is some interest in using native speakers to produce sound and video files of sufficient breadth to completely demonstrate all the speech sounds covered by the IPA. Such a project would encompass a large subset of the world's languages. This would aid linguistic and anthropologic research, as well as help teach language learning. Specifically, the development of a reference standard using the IPA (mirroring the idea of the Rosetta Stone) could be used in order to preserve intact examples of the sounds of human language. For education, the IPA can help standardize resources which prepare students and very young children (ages 6-36 months) for universal language acquisition through familiarization and subsequent imitation of the breadth of human speech sounds.<ref>"

   Information Development News
   
 " , Information Development
  , December 2004
  , pp. 233-238
    . Modèle:Doi
 . </ref>  Research by Flege, Mackay and Piske (2002) and Sebastián-Gallés, Echeverría and Bosch (2005) have shown that early exposure to extra phonetic sounds and uses improves later comprehension and pronunciation (accent).

Use in orthographies and capital variants

Modèle:See also

IPA symbols have been incorporated into the standard orthographies of various languages, notably in Subsaharan Africa but in other regions as well. These include for example: Hausa; Fula; Akan; Gbe languages; and Manding languages.

An example of capital letter forms for IPA symbols is Kabiyé of northern Togo, which has Modèle:Unicode (capital Modèle:IPA). Other IPA-paired capitals include Modèle:Unicode.

The abovementioned and other capital forms are supported by Unicode, but appear in Latin ranges other than the IPA extensions.

Letters

The International Phonetic Alphabet divides its letter symbols into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.<ref>"Segments can usefully be divided into two major categories, consonants and vowels." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 3)</ref><ref>International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 6.</ref> Each character is assigned a number, to prevent confusion between similar letters (such as Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA), for example in printing manuscripts. Different categories of sounds are assigned different ranges of numbers.

Consonants (pulmonic)

Main article: Consonant

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.<ref>Modèle:Cite book</ref>

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.

View this table as an image.
Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal				Radical				Glottal
	Bilabial	Labio‐ dental	Dental	Alveolar	Post‐ alveolar	Retro‐ flex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular		Pharyn‐ geal		Epi‐ glottal
Manner of articulation ↓
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɳ	ɲ	ŋ</span>	ɴ
Plosive	p b	p̪ b̪	t d			ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k ɡ	q ɢ				ʡ		ʔ
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ	ʁ	ħ	ʕ	ʜ	ʢ	h ɦ
Approximant	β̞	ʋ	ɹ			ɻ	j	ɰ
Trill	ʙ		r			*			ʀ				*
Tap or Flap	ѵ̟†	ѵ†	ɾ			ɽ							*
Lateral Fricative			ɬ ɮ			*	*	*
Lateral Approx­imant			l			ɭ	ʎ	ʟ
Lateral Flap			ɺ			*	*	*

Notes

• Asterisks (*) mark reported sounds that do not (yet) have official IPA symbols. See the respective articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
• Daggers (†) mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: Image:Labiodental flap (Gentium).svg.<ref name = "dkuug">Proposal Summary Form for adding new characters to ISO 15924. Accessed 11 April 2007.</ref> In the meantime the similarly shaped izhitsa (Modèle:IPA) is used here.
• In rows where some symbols appear in pairs (the obstruents), the symbol to the right represents a voiced consonant (except breathy-voiced Modèle:IPA). However, Modèle:IPA cannot be voiced, and the voicing of Modèle:IPA is ambiguous.<ref>Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §2.1.</ref> In the other rows (the sonorants), the single symbol represents a voiced consonant.
• Although there is a single symbol for the coronal places of articulation for all consonants but fricatives, when dealing with a particular language, the symbols are treated as specifically alveolar, post-alveolar, etc., as appropriate for that language.
• Shaded areas indicate articulations judged to be impossible.
• The symbols Modèle:IPA represent either voiced fricatives or approximants.
• In many languages, such as English, Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA are not actually glottal, fricatives, or approximants. Rather, they are bare phonation.<ref>Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996, Sounds of the World's Languages, §9.3.</ref>
• It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives Modèle:IPA, Modèle:IPA, and Modèle:IPA.

Coarticulation

Coarticulated 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, 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.

View this table as an image
ʍ	Voiceless labialized velar approximant
w	Voiced labialized velar approximant
ɥ	Voiced labialized palatal approximant
ɕ	Voiceless palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
ʑ	Voiced palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
ɧ	Voiceless "palatal-velar" fricative

Note

• Modèle:IPA is described as a "simultaneous Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA".<ref>Modèle:Cite book</ref> However, this analysis is disputed. (See voiceless palatal-velar fricative for discussion.)

Affricates and double articulation

Affricates and doubly articulated stops are represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar, either above or below the symbols. The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage,<ref name="IPA_1999"/> 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 Modèle:IPA for Modèle:IPA, paralleling Modèle:IPA ~ Modèle:IPA. The symbols for the palatal plosives, Modèle:IPA are often used as a convenience for Modèle:IPA 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
t​͡s	ʦ	voiceless alveolar affricate
d​͡z	ʣ	voiced alveolar affricate
t​͡ʃ	ʧ	voiceless postalveolar affricate
d​͡ʒ	ʤ	voiced postalveolar affricate
t​͡ɕ	ʨ	voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
d​͡ʑ	ʥ	voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
t​͡ɬ	–	voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
k͡p	–	voiceless labial-velar plosive
ɡ͡b	–	voiced labial-velar plosive
ŋ͡m	–	labial-velar nasal stop

Note

• If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: Modèle:IPA.

Consonants (non-pulmonic)

Non-pulmonic consonants are sounds which are made without the lungs. These include clicks (found in the Khoisan languages of Africa) and implosives (found in languages such as Swahili).

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: Modèle:IPA etc., or Modèle:IPA. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a Modèle:IPA may usually be assumed. However, recent research disputes the concept of 'accompaniment'.<ref>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.</ref> In such approaches, the click letter represents both articulations, there is no velar-uvular distinction, and the accompanying letter represents the manner of the click: Modèle:IPA etc.
• Symbols for the voiceless implosives Modèle:IPA are no longer supported by the IPA, though they remain in Unicode. Instead, the IPA uses the voiced equivalent with a voiceless diacritic: Modèle:IPA, etc.
• Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not explicitly recognized by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, Modèle:Unicode, is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite Modèle:IPA.
• The ejective symbol often stands in for a superscript glottal stop in glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as Modèle:IPA. These may also be transcribed as creaky Modèle:IPA.

Vowels

Main article: Vowel

The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center.<ref>International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 10.</ref> 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, Modèle:IPA (said as the "a" in "palm") is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. However, Modèle:IPA (said as 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 Modèle:IPA, the vowel in "met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as Modèle:IPA, 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.

• View the vowel chart as an image

Modèle:CSS IPA vowel chart

Notes

• Modèle:IPA officially represents a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and Modèle:IPA is frequently used for an open central vowel.
• Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA were written as Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA respectively in older versions of the IPA.

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.<ref name=IPA15>International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 14-15.</ref> Sub-diacritics (markings normally placed below a letter or symbol) may be placed above a symbol having a descender (informally called a tail), e.g. Modèle:IPA.<ref name=IPA15/>

The dotless i, <Modèle:Unicode>, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: Modèle:IPA (fricative release), Modèle:IPA (breathy voice), Modèle:IPA (glottal onset), Modèle:Unicode (epenthetic schwa), o^Modèle:IPA (diphthongization). More advanced diacritics were developed in the Extended IPA for more specific pronunciation encoding.

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

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

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

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.<ref name="Handbook13">International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 13.</ref> 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.<ref name="Handbook13" />

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
ŋ̋ e̋	e˥	Extra high	ŋ̂ ê	Fall
ŋ́ é	e˦	High	ŋ̌ ě	Rise
ŋ̄ ē	e˧	Mid
ŋ̀ è	e˨	Low	↓ke	Downstep
ŋ̏ ȅ	e˩	Extra low	↑ke	Upstep

Finer distinctions of tone may be indicated by combining the tone diacritics and letters shown here, though not many fonts support this. Examples can be seen on the PDF version of the IPA chart at the beginning of this article. A work-around 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 Modèle:IPA and falling Modèle:IPA for the higher-pitched of the rising and falling tones, and to use the non-standard subscript diacritics Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA for the lower-pitched rising and falling tones.

Obsolete symbols and nonstandard symbols

Modèle:Main article 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 Modèle:IPA which has been standardised to Modèle:IPA. Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that such things should be indicated with diacritics: Modèle:IPA for Modèle:IPA is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series Modèle:IPA has been dropped; they are now written Modèle:IPA respectively.

There are also unsupported or ad hoc symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as Modèle:IPA for Modèle:IPA (the "tl" in "Nahuatl").

IPA extensions

Modèle:Main article The Extended IPA, also often abbreviated as extIPA, is a group of 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 set of symbols for the Extended IPA.<ref>"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.)</ref> The Extended IPA was first published in 1990, and modified over the next few years before its official publication in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association in 1994 allowed it to be officially adopted by the ICPLA.<ref>"Extensions to the IPA: An ExtIPA Chart" in International Phonetic Association, Handbook, pp 186-187.</ref> While its original purpose was to transcribe disordered speech, linguists have used it to designate a number of unique sounds within standard communication, such as hushing, gnashing teeth, and smacking lips. The Extended IPA has also been used to record certain peculiarities in an individual's voice, such as nasalized voicing.<ref name="world" />

Aside from the extIPA, another set of symbols is used for voice quality (VoQS), such as whispering.

Sounds that have no symbols in the IPA

The remaining blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc symbols have appeared in the literature, for example for the retroflex lateral flap and the voiceless lateral fricative series, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. (See the grey symbols in the PDF chart.) Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones.<ref>"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)</ref>

Consonants without letters

Consonant sounds are created by adding diacritics to letters with similar sound values. The Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, Modèle:IPA. Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, Modèle:IPA. A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap symbol and the advanced diacritic, Modèle:IPA.<ref>Olson, Kenneth S.; & Hajek, John. (1999). The phonetic status of the labial flap. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 29 (2), 101-114.</ref>

Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written Modèle:IPA (bilabial trill and the dental sign), and labiodental stops Modèle:IPA rather than with the ad hoc symbols sometimes found in the literature. Other taps can be written as extra-short plosives or laterals, e.g. Modèle:IPA, though in some cases the diacritic would need to be written below the letter. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted Modèle:IPA, just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals (Modèle:IPA 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 without letters

The vowels are similarly manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering.<ref>"The diacrtics...can be used to modify the lip or tongue position implied by a vowel symbol." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 16)</ref> For example, the unrounded equivalent of Modèle:IPA can be transcribed as mid-centered Modèle:IPA, and the rounded equivalent of Modèle:IPA as raised Modèle:IPA. True mid vowels are lowered Modèle:IPA, while centered Modèle:IPA and Modèle:IPA are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The only known vowels that cannot be represented in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic, such as Modèle:IPA.

Symbol names

Modèle:Main article An IPA symbol is often distinguished from the sound it is intended to represent since there is not a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound in broad transcription. While the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association states that no official names exist for symbols, it admits the presence of one or two common names for each character that are commonly used.<ref>"...the International Phonetic Association has never officially approved a set of names..." (International Phonetic Association, Handbook, p. 31)</ref> 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 Modèle:IPA "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".

The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are usually used for unmodified symbols.Modèle:Ref label Letters which are not directly derived from these alphabets, such as Modèle:IPA, 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 symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the symbols from the Greek section.

For diacritics, there are two methods of naming. For traditional diacritics, the IPA uses the name of the symbol from a certain language, for example, Modèle:IPA is acute, based on the name of the symbol in English and French. In non-traditional diacritics, the IPA often names a symbol according to an object it resembles, as Modèle:IPA is called bridge.

ASCII transliterations, IPA influence on other phonetic alphabets

Modèle:See also

Since the IPA uses symbols that are outside the ASCII character set, several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Notable systems include Kirshenbaum, 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

• Phonetic transcription
• Articulatory phonetics
• List of phonetics topics
• TIPA provides IPA support for LaTeX.
• SAMPA, X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum are other methods of mapping IPA designations into ASCII.
• Unicode Phonetic Symbols
• Semyon Novgorodov - the inventor of IPA-based Yakut alphabet.
• IAST
• IPA chart for English

Notes

Citations

References

• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite journal
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite book
• Modèle:Cite book

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External links

General

• A little encyclopedia of phonetics, Peter Roach, Professor of Phonetics, University of Reading, UK. (pdf)
• The International Phonetic Association web site
• The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 2005) Symbols for all languages are shown on this one-page chart.
• IPA copy & paste charts, keyboards, etc by IPA.Webstuff.org
• Learning the IPA for English, (Standard American English)
• Information on IPA by Omniglot
• IPA Chart in Unicode and XHTML/CSS
• Using IPA fonts with Mac OS X: The Comprehensive Guide, an article explaining how to install and use freeware fonts and keyboard layouts to type in the International Phonetic Alphabet on OS X.

Free IPA font downloads

• Gentium, a professionally designed international font (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) in roman and italic typefaces that includes the IPA, but not yet tone letters or the new labiodental flap.
• Charis SIL, a very complete international font (Latin, Greek, Cyrillic) in roman, italic, and bold typefaces that includes tone letters and pre-composed tone diacritics on IPA vowels, the new labiodental flap, and many non-standard phonetic symbols. Based on Bitstream Charter, this font suffers from extremely bad hinting when rendered by Freetype on Linux.
• Doulos SIL, a Times/Times New Roman style font. It contains the same characters as Charis SIL, but only in a single face, roman.
• SIL93 the legacy SIL IPA93 fonts (Manuscript and Sophia) recoded in Unicode.
• TIPA, a font and system for entering IPA phonetic transcriptions in LaTeX documents.

Keyboard input

• Online keyboard
• Online keyboard with MP3 sound files for IPA symbols
• Downloadable IPA-SIL keyboard layout for Mac OS X for Unicode IPA input
• Downloadable IPA keyboard layout for Microsoft Windows for Unicode IPA input
• IPACharMap is an on-screen keyboard for point and click character entry, which can then be copied and pasted into a unicode-aware word processor. Based on IPA Palette.
• IPA Palette is the Mac OS X version of IPACharMap.
• Microsoft Template - Creates a Toolbar for Microsoft Word. (Please be aware this uses Macros)

Sound files

• Peter Ladefoged's Course in Phonetics (with sound files)
• IPA chart with AIFF sound files for IPA symbols
• An introduction to the sounds of languages
• IPA chart with MP3 sound files for all IPA symbols on the chart (limited version is available to anyone)
• Flash version of IPA charts, with sound samples
• Another set of IPA sound samples
• Complete IPA chart with sound samples, including English dipthongs

Unicode charts

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

Modèle:Writing systemsModèle:Link FA

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