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International Phonetic Alphabet
Phonetics and Phonology (Φωνητική - Φωνολογία) (Γλ2-230)
Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
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International Phonetic
Alphabet
####### Type Alphabet, partially
####### featural
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####### phonemic
####### transcription of any
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####### Time
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####### since 1888
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####### Palaeotype alphabet
####### Romic alphabet
####### Phonotypic
####### alphabet
####### International
####### Phonetic
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####### Direction Left-to-right
####### ISO 15924 Latn, 215
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####### Latin
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 in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.[1] The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech- language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators and translators.[2][3]
The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are part of oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation and the separation of words and syllables.[1] To represent additional qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft lip and cleft palate, an extended set of symbols, the extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet, may be used.[2]
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, [t], or with a letter plus diacritics, [t̺ʰ], depending on how precise one wishes to be.[note 1] Often, slashes are used to signal broad or phonemic transcription; thus, /t/ is less specific than, and could refer to, either [t̺ʰ] or [t], 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,[4] there are 107 letters, 52 diacritics and four prosodic marks in the IPA. These are shown in the current IPA chart, also posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA.[5]
History Description Letter forms Capital letters Typography and iconicity Types of transcription Cursive forms Letter g Modifying the IPA chart Usage Linguists Language study Dictionaries English
Contents
Other languages Standard orthographies and case variants Classical singing Letters IPA number Consonants Pulmonic consonants Non-pulmonic consonants Affricates Co-articulated consonants Vowels Diphthongs Diacritics and prosodic notation Suprasegmentals Comparative degree Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Extensions Segments without letters Consonants Vowels Symbol names Typefaces ASCII and keyboard transliterations Computer input using on-screen keyboard See also Notes References Further reading External links
In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what would come to be known from 1897 onwards as the International Phonetic Association (in French, l'Association phonétique internationale).[6] Their original alphabet was based on a spelling reform for English known as the Romic alphabet, but in order to make it usable for other languages, the values of the symbols were allowed to vary from language to language.[7] For example, the sound [ʃ] (the sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter ⟨c⟩ in English, but with the digraph ⟨ch⟩ in French.[6] However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, thus providing the base for all future revisions.[6][8] The idea of making the IPA was first suggested by Otto Jespersen in a letter to Paul Passy. It was developed by Alexander John Ellis, Henry Sweet, Daniel Jones, and Passy.[9]
Since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After revisions and expansions from the 1890s to the 1940s, the IPA remained primarily unchanged until the Kiel Convention in 1989. A minor revision took place in 1993 with the addition of four letters for mid central vowels[2] and the removal of letters for voiceless implosives.[10] The alphabet was last revised in May 2005 with the addition of a letter for a labiodental flap.[11] Apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely of renaming symbols and categories and in modifying typefaces.[2]
History
Some of the new letters were ordinary Latin letters turned 180 degrees, such as ɐ ɔ ə ɟ ɥ ɯ ɹ ʇ ʌ ʍ ʎ (turned a c e f h m r t v w y). This was easily done in the era of mechanical typesetting, and had the advantage of not requiring the casting of special type for IPA symbols.
Full capital letters are not used as IPA symbols. They are, however, often used for archiphonemes and for natural classes of phonemes (that is, as wildcards). Such usage is not part of the IPA or even standardized, and may be ambiguous between authors, but it is commonly used in conjunction with the IPA. (The extIPA chart, for example, uses wildcards in its illustrations.) Capital letters are also basic to the Voice Quality Symbols sometimes used in conjunction with the IPA.
As wildcards, ⟨C⟩ for {consonant} and ⟨V⟩ for {vowel} are ubiquitous. Other common capital-letter symbols are ⟨T⟩ for {tone/accent} (tonicity), ⟨N⟩ for {nasal}, ⟨P⟩ for {plosive}, ⟨F⟩ for {fricative}, ⟨S⟩ for {sibilant}, ⟨G⟩ for {glide/approximant}, ⟨L⟩ for {liquid}, ⟨R⟩ for {rhotic} or {resonant} (sonorant), ⟨⟩ for {click}, ⟨A, E, O, Ʉ⟩ for {open, front, back, close vowel} and ⟨B, D, J (or Ɉ), K, Q, Φ, H⟩ for {labial}, {alveolar}, {post-alveolar/palatal}, {velar}, {uvular}, {pharyngeal} and {glottal}, respectively, and ⟨X⟩ for anything. For example, the possible syllable shapes of Mandarin can be abstracted as ranging from /V/ (an atonic vowel) to /CGVNᵀ/ (a consonant-glide-vowel-nasal syllable with tone). The letters can be modified with IPA diacritics, for example ⟨Cʼ⟩ for {ejective}, ⟨Ƈ⟩ for {implosive}, ⟨N͡C⟩ or ⟨ᴺC⟩ for {prenasalized consonant}, ⟨Ṽ⟩ for {nasal vowel}, ⟨S̬⟩ for {voiced sibilant}, ⟨N̥⟩ for {voiceless nasal}, ⟨P͡F⟩ or ⟨PF⟩ for {affricate}, ⟨Cʲ⟩ for {palatalized consonant} and ⟨D̪⟩ for {dental consonant}. In speech pathology, capital letters represent indeterminate sounds, and may be superscripted to indicate they are weakly articulated: e. [ᴰ] is a weak indeterminate alveolar, [ᴷ] a weak indeterminate velar.[15]
Typical examples of archiphonemic use of capital letters are ⟨I⟩ for the Turkish harmonic vowel set {i y ɯ u}[16] ⟨D⟩ for the conflated flapped middle consonant of American English writer and rider, and ⟨N⟩ for the homorganic syllable-coda nasal of languages such as Spanish (essentially equivalent to the wild-card usage of the letter).
⟨V⟩, ⟨F⟩ and ⟨C⟩ have different meanings as Voice Quality Symbols, where they stand for "voice" (generally meaning secondary articulation rather than phonetic voicing), "falsetto" and "creak". They may take diacritics that indicate what kind of voice quality an utterance has, and may be used to extract a suprasegmental feature that occurs on all susceptible segments in a stretch of IPA. For instance, the transcription of Scottish Gaelic [kʷʰuˣʷt̪ʷs̟ʷ] 'cat' and [kʷʰʉˣʷt͜ʃʷ] 'cats' (Islay dialect) can be made more economical by extracting the suprasegmental labialization of the words: Vʷ[kʰuˣt̪s̟] and Vʷ[kʰʉˣt͜ʃ].[17]
The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.[6] The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonant letters taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to "international usage".[6] Hence, the letters ⟨b⟩, ⟨d⟩, ⟨f⟩, (hard) ⟨ɡ⟩, (non-silent) ⟨h⟩, (unaspirated) ⟨k⟩, ⟨l⟩, ⟨m⟩, ⟨n⟩, (unaspirated) ⟨p⟩, (voiceless) ⟨s⟩, (unaspirated) ⟨t⟩, ⟨v⟩, ⟨w⟩, and ⟨z⟩ have the values used in English; and the vowel letters from the Latin alphabet (⟨a⟩, ⟨e⟩, ⟨i⟩, ⟨o⟩, ⟨u⟩) correspond to the (long) sound values of Latin: [i] is like the vowel in machine, [u] is as in rule, etc. Other letters may differ from English, but are used with these values in other European languages, such as ⟨j⟩, ⟨r⟩, and ⟨y⟩.
This inventory was extended by using small-capital and cursive forms, diacritics and rotation. There are also several symbols derived or taken from the Greek alphabet, though the sound values may differ. For example, ⟨ʋ⟩ is a vowel in Greek, but an only indirectly related consonant in the IPA. For most of these, subtly different glyph shapes have been devised for the IPA, namely ⟨ɑ⟩, ⟨⟩, ⟨ɣ⟩, ⟨ɛ⟩, ⟨ɸ⟩, ⟨⟩, and ⟨ʋ⟩, which are encoded in Unicode separately from their parent Greek letters, though one of them
- ⟨θ⟩ – is not, while Greek ⟨β⟩ and ⟨χ⟩ are generally used for ⟨⟩ and ⟨⟩.[18]
The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters.[19] 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
Capital letters
Typography and iconicity
to the sound represented, there is no way to deduce the sound represented by a symbol from its shape (as for example in Visible Speech) nor even any systematic relation between signs and the sounds they represent (as in Hangul).
Beyond the letters themselves, there are a variety of secondary symbols which aid in transcription. Diacritic marks can be combined with IPA letters to transcribe modified phonetic values or secondary articulations. There are also special symbols for suprasegmental features such as stress and tone that are often employed.
There are two principal types of brackets used to set off IPA transcriptions:
[square brackets] are used with phonetic notations, possibly including details of the pronunciation that may not be used for distinguishing words in the language being transcribed, but which the author nonetheless wishes to document. /slashes/ are used for phonemic notations, which note only features that 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 [pʰɪn] and [spɪn].
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. Double square brackets ⟦...⟧ are used for extra-precise transcription. They indicate that a letter has its cardinal IPA value. For example, ⟦a⟧ is an open front vowel, rather than the perhaps slightly different value (such as open central) that "[a]" may be used to transcribe in a particular language. Thus two vowels transcribed for easy legibility as ⟨[e]⟩ and ⟨[ɛ]⟩ may be clarified as actually being ⟦e̝⟧ and ⟦e⟧; ⟨[ð]⟩ may be more precisely ⟦ð̠̞ˠ⟧.[20] 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 [i] 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.[21] {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.)) or ⸨2 syll.⸩, two audible but unidentifiable syllables.
IPA letters have cursive forms designed for use in manuscripts and when taking field notes.
In the early stages of the alphabet, the typographic variants of g, opentail ⟨ɡ⟩ ( ) and looptail ⟨g⟩ ( ), represented different values, but are now regarded as equivalents. Opentail ⟨ɡ⟩ has always represented a voiced velar plosive, while ⟨ ⟩ was distinguished from ⟨ɡ⟩ and represented a voiced velar fricative from 1895 to 1900.[22][23] Subsequently, ⟨ǥ⟩ represented the fricative, until 1931 when it was replaced again by ⟨ɣ⟩.[24]
Types of transcription
Cursive forms
Letter g
Although the IPA offers over 160 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.[1] Broad phonetic transcriptions may restrict themselves to easily heard details, or only to details that are relevant to the discussion at hand, and may differ little if at all from phonemic transcriptions, but they make no theoretical claim that all the distinctions transcribed are necessarily meaningful in the language.
For example, the English word little may be transcribed broadly using the IPA as / ˈlɪtəl/, and this broad (imprecise) transcription is a more or less accurate description of many pronunciations. A narrower transcription may focus on individual or dialectical details: [ˈɫɪɾɫ] in General American, [ˈlɪʔo] in Cockney, or [ˈɫɪːɫ] 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: [pʰɪk], [pʰiːk], [pikʲ].
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.[38]
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[39] and adults[40] for studying English and French consistently use the IPA. English teachers and textbooks in Taiwan tend to use the Kenyon and Knott system, a slight typographical variant of the IPA first used in the 1944 Pronouncing Dictionary of American 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.[41] However, most American (and some British) volumes use one of a variety of pronunciation respelling systems, intended to be more comfortable for readers of English. For example, the respelling systems in many American dictionaries (such as Merriam-Webster) use ⟨y⟩ for IPA [j] and ⟨sh⟩ for IPA [ʃ], reflecting common representations of those sounds in written English,[42] using only letters of the English Roman alphabet and variations of them. (In IPA, [y] represents the sound of the French ⟨u⟩ (as in tu), and [sh] represents the pair of sounds in grasshopper.)
Phonetic transcriptions of the word international in two English dialects
Linguists
Language study
Dictionaries
English
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 alphabet for transcription of foreign words. Monolingual Hebrew dictionaries use pronunciation respelling for words with unusual spelling; for example,
the Even-Shoshan Dictionary respells תָּ כְ נִ ית as תּכְ נִ ית 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, Sergey Ozhegov's dictionary adds нэ́ in brackets for the French word пенсне (pince-nez) to indicate that the final е does not iotate the preceding н.
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.[43]
IPA letters have been incorporated into the alphabets of various languages, notably via the Africa Alphabet in many sub-Saharan languages such as Hausa, Fula, Akan, Gbe languages, Manding languages, Lingala, etc. This has created the need for capital variants. For example, Kabiyè of northern Togo has Ɖ ɖ, Ŋ ŋ, Ɣ ɣ, Ɔ ɔ, Ɛ ɛ, Ʋ ʋ. These, and others, are supported by Unicode, but appear in Latin ranges other than the IPA extensions.
In the IPA itself, however, only lower-case letters are used. The 1949 edition of the IPA handbook indicated that an asterisk ⟨*⟩ may be prefixed to indicate that a word is a proper name,[44] but this convention was not included in the 1999 Handbook.
IPA has widespread use among classical singers during preparation as they are frequently required to sing in a variety of foreign languages, in addition to being taught by vocal coach in order to perfect the diction of their students and to globally improve tone quality and tuning.[45] Opera librettos are authoritatively transcribed in IPA, such as Nico Castel's volumes[46] and Timothy Cheek's book Singing in Czech.[47] Opera singers' ability to read IPA was used by the site Visual Thesaurus, which employed several opera singers "to make recordings for the 150,000 words and phrases in VT's lexical database ... for their vocal stamina, attention to the details of enunciation, and most of all, knowledge of IPA".[48]
The International Phonetic Association organizes the letters of the IPA into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.[49][50]
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.
Other languages
Standard orthographies and case variants
Classical singing
Letters
IPA help · full chart · template
Notes
In rows where some letters appear in pairs (the obstruents), the letter to the right represents a voiced consonant (except breathy-voiced [ɦ]). However, [ʔ] cannot be voiced, and the voicing of [ʡ] is ambiguous.[54] 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 [ʁ, ʕ, ʢ] represent either voiced fricatives or approximants. In many languages, such as English, [h] and [ɦ] are not actually glottal, fricatives, or approximants. Rather, they are bare phonation.[55] It is primarily the shape of the tongue rather than its position that distinguishes the fricatives [ʃ ʒ], [ɕ ʑ], and [ʂ ʐ]. Some listed phones are not known to exist as phonemes in any language.
Non-pulmonic consonants 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 Sindhi, Saraiki, Swahili and Vietnamese), and ejectives (found in many Amerindian and Caucasian languages).
BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG
Ejective
Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ
Click
Tenuis ʘ ǀ ǃ ǂ Voiced ʘ̬ ǀ̬ ǃ̬ ǂ̬ Nasal ʘ̃ ǀ̃ ǃ̃ ǂ̃ Tenuis lateral ǁ Voiced lateral ǁ̬ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ̊ᶑ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥
Notes
Clicks have traditionally been described as double articulation of a forward 'release' and a rear 'accompaniment', with the click letters representing only the release. Therefore, all clicks 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 [k] may usually be assumed. However, recent research disputes the concept of 'accompaniment' and the idea that clicks are doubly articulated, with the rear occlusion instead simply being part of the airstream mechanisms.[56] 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 officially recognized by the IPA, a letter for the retroflex implosive, ⟨ᶑ⟩, has been assigned an IPA number. The ejective diacritic often stands in for a superscript glottal stop in glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as [mˀ], [lˀ], [wˀ], [aˀ]. These may also be transcribed as creaky [m̰], [l̰], [w̰], [a̰].
Non-pulmonic consonants
Affricates
IPA help · full chart · template
IPA help · full chart · template
Affricates and co-articulated stops are represented by two letters joined by a tie bar, either above or below the letters.[57] The six most common affricates are optionally represented by ligatures, though this is no longer official IPA usage,[1] because a great number of ligatures would be required to represent all affricates this way. Alternatively, a superscript notation for a consonant release is sometimes used to transcribe affricates, for example tˢ for t͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. The letters for the palatal plosives c and ɟ are often used as a convenience for t͡ʃ and d͡ʒ or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care.
Pulmonic Sibilant ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant pɸbβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝t̠ɹ̠̊˔d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kxɡɣ qχ ʡʢ ʔh Lateral tɬ dɮ ʈɭ˔̊ cʎ̝̊ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ Ejective Central tsʼ t̠ʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ qχʼ Lateral tɬʼ cʎ̝̊ʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ
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, dɮ͡.
Co-articulated consonants are sounds that involve two simultaneous places of articulation (are pronounced using two parts of the vocal tract). In English, the [w] in "went" is a coarticulated consonant, being pronounced by rounding the lips and raising the back of the tongue. Similar sounds are [ʍ] and [ɥ].
Nasal
n͡m Labial–alveolar
ŋ͡m Labial–velar
Stop
t͡p d͡b Labial–alveolar
k͡p ɡ͡b Labial–velar
q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal
Fricative
ɧ Sj-sound (variable)
Approximant
ɥ̊ ɥ Labial–palatal
ʍ w Labial–velar
Lateral approximant
ɫ Velarized alveolar
Nasal approximant
ȷ̃ Palatal
w̃ Labial–velar
h Glottal
Notes
[ɧ] is described as a "simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]".[58] However, this analysis is disputed. (See voiceless palatal-velar fricative for discussion.) Multiple tie bars can be used: ⟨a͡b͡c⟩ or ⟨a͜b͜c⟩. For instance, if a prenasalized stop is transcribed ⟨m͡b⟩, and a doubly articulated stop ⟨ɡ͡b⟩, then a prenasalized doubly articulated stop would be ⟨ŋ͡m͡ɡ͡b⟩ 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: kp͡, ɡb͡, ŋm͡.
Co-articulated consonants
Vowels
By being made superscript, any IPA letter may function as a diacritic, conferring elements of its articulation to the base letter. (See secondary articulation for a list of superscript IPA letters supported by Unicode.) Those superscript letters listed below are specifically provided for by the IPA; others include ⟨tˢ⟩ ([t] with fricative release), ⟨ᵗs⟩ ([s] with affricate onset), ⟨ⁿd⟩ (prenasalized [d]), ⟨bʱ⟩ ([b] with breathy voice), ⟨mˀ⟩ (glottalized [m]), ⟨sᶴ⟩ ([s] with a flavor of [ʃ]), ⟨oᶷ⟩ ([o] with diphthongization), ⟨ɯᵝ⟩ (compressed [ɯ]). Superscript diacritics placed after a letter are ambiguous between simultaneous modification of the sound and phonetic detail at the end of the sound. For example, labialized ⟨kʷ⟩ may mean either simultaneous [k] and [w] or else [k] with a labialized release. Superscript diacritics placed before a letter, on the other hand, normally indicate a modification of the onset of the sound (⟨mˀ⟩ glottalized [m], ⟨ˀm⟩ [m] with a glottal onset).
Syllabicity diacritics
◌̩ ɹ̩ n̩
Syllabic
◌̯ ɪ̯ ʊ̯
Non-syllabic
◌̍ ɻ̍ ŋ̍ ◌̑ y̑
Consonant-release diacritics
◌ʰ tʰ Aspirated
[a]
◌̚ p̚ No audible release
◌ⁿ dⁿ Nasal release ◌ˡ dˡ Lateral release
◌ᶿ tᶿ
Voiceless dental fricative
release ◌ˣ tˣ
Voiceless velar fricative release
◌ᵊ dᵊ Mid central vowel release
Phonation diacritics
◌̥ n̥ d̥
Voiceless ◌̬ s̬ t̬ Voiced
◌̊ ɻ̊ ŋ̊
◌̤ b̤ a̤ Breathy voiced
[a]
◌̰ b̰ a̰ Creaky voiced
Articulation diacritics
◌̪ t̪ d̪
Dental ◌̼ t̼ d̼ Linguolabial
◌͆ ɮ͆
◌̺ t̺ d̺ Apical ◌̻ t̻ d̻ Laminal
◌̟ u̟ t̟
Advanced
◌̠ i̠ t̠
Retracted
◌˖ ɡ˖ ◌˗ y˗ ŋ˗
◌̈ ë ä Centralized ◌̽ e̽ ɯ̽ Mid-centralized
Open glottis [t] voiceless
[d̤] breathy voice, also called murmured
[d̥] slack voice
Sweet spot [d] modal voice
[d̬] stiff voice
[d̰] creaky voice
Closed glottis [ʔ͡t] glottal closure
Additional diacritics are provided by the Extensions to the IPA for speech pathology.
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.[61] 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.[61] Various ligatures of tone letters are used in the IPA Handbook despite not being found on the simplified official IPA chart.
Length, stress, and rhythm
ˈa Primary before stressed element)stress (symbol goes ˌa Secondary stress (symbol goes before stressed element)
aː kː Long (geminate consonant)long vowel or
aˑ Half-long
ə̆ Extra-short
a Syllable break s‿a Linking (absence of a break)
Intonation
| Minor (foot) break ‖ Major (intonation) break
↗ [62] Global rise ↘ [62] Global fall
Tone diacritics and tone letters
ŋ̋ e̋ e˥ Extra high / top ꜛke Upstep
ŋ́ é e˦ High ŋ̌ ě Rising (generic)
ŋ̄ ē e˧ Mid
ŋ̀ è e˨ Low ŋ̂ ê Falling (generic)
ŋ̏ ȅ e˩ Extra low / bottom ꜜke Downstep
Finer distinctions of tone may be indicated by combining the tone diacritics and tone letters shown above, though not all IPA fonts support this. The four additional rising and falling tones supported by diacritics are high/mid rising ɔ᷄, ɔ, low rising ɔ᷅, ɔ, high falling ɔ᷇, ɔ, and low/mid falling ɔ᷆, ɔ. That is, tone diacritics only support contour tones across three levels (high, mid, low), despite supporting five levels for register tones. For other contour tones, tone letters must be used: ɔ, ɔ, etc. For more
Suprasegmentals
complex (peaking and dipping) tones, though it is theoretically possible to combine the three tone diacritics in any permutation, in practice only generic peaking ɔ᷈ and dipping ɔ᷉ combinations are used. For finer detail, tone letters are again required (ɔ, ɔ, ɔ, ɔ, etc.) The correspondence between tone diacritics and tone letters is therefore only approximate.
A work-around for diacritics sometimes seen when a language has more than one rising or falling tone, and the author wishes to avoid the poorly legible diacritics ɔ᷄, ɔ᷅, ɔ᷇, ɔ᷆ but does not wish to completely abandon the IPA, is to restrict generic rising ɔ̌ and falling ɔ̂ to the higher-pitched of the rising and falling tones, say ɔ and ɔ, and to use the old (retired) IPA subscript diacritics ɔ̗ and ɔ̖ for the lower-pitched rising and falling tones, say 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.
A stress mark typically appears before the stressed syllable, and thus marks the syllable break as well as stress. Where the syllable onset is a geminate consonant, e. in Italian, the consonant is commonly split by the stress mark, which means that the length sign is not used for gemination. (Thus ⟨avˈvɔlse⟩ not *⟨aˈvvɔlse⟩, *⟨aˈvːɔlse⟩, or *⟨avˈːɔlse⟩.) However, occasionally the stress mark is placed immediately before the stressed vowel, after any syllable onset (⟨avvˈɔlse⟩ or ⟨avːˈɔlse⟩).[63] In such transcriptions, the stress mark does not function as a mark of the syllable boundary.
Tone letters generally appear after each syllable, for a language with syllable tone (⟨a˧vɔ⟩), or after the phonological word, for a language with word tone (⟨avɔ⟩). However, in older versions of the IPA, ad hoc tone marks were placed before the syllable, the same position as used to mark stress, and this convention is still sometimes seen (⟨˧avɔ⟩, ⟨avɔ⟩).
There are three boundary markers, ⟨.⟩ for a syllable break, ⟨|⟩ for a minor prosodic break and ⟨‖⟩ for a major prosodic break. The tags 'minor' and 'major' are intentionally ambiguous. Depending on need, 'minor' may vary from a foot break to a continuing– prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a comma), and while 'major' is often any intonation break, it may be restricted to a final– prosodic-unit boundary (equivalent to a period). Although not part of the IPA, the following boundary symbols are often used in conjunction with the IPA: ⟨μ⟩ for a mora or mora boundary, ⟨σ⟩ for a syllable or syllable boundary, ⟨#⟩ for a word boundary, ⟨$⟩ for a phrase or intermediate boundary and ⟨%⟩ for a prosodic boundary. For example, C# is a word-final consonant, %V a post- pausa vowel, and T% an IU-final tone (edge tone).
IPA diacritics may be doubled to indicate an extra degree of the feature indicated. This is a productive process, but apart from extra-high and extra-low tones ⟨ə̋, ə̏⟩ being marked by doubled high- and low-tone diacritics, and the major prosodic break ⟨‖⟩ being marked as a double minor break ⟨|⟩, it is not specifically regulated by the IPA. (Note that transcription marks are similar: double slashes indicate extra (morpho)-phonemic, double square brackets especially precise, and double parentheses especially unintelligible.)
For example, the stress mark may be doubled to indicate an extra degree of stress, such as prosodic stress in English.[64] 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. [65] Similarly, a doubled secondary stress mark ⟨ˌˌ⟩ is commonly used for tertiary stress.
Length is commonly extended by repeating the length mark, as in English shhh! [ʃːːː], or for "overlong" segments in Estonian:
vere /vere/ 'blood [gen.]', veere /veːre/ 'edge [gen.]', veere /veːːre/ 'roll [imp. 2nd sg.]' lina /linɑ/ 'sheet', linna /linːɑ/ 'town [gen. sg.]', linna /linːːɑ/ 'town [ine. sg.]'
(Normally additional degrees of length are handled by the extra-short or half-long diacritics, but in the Estonian examples, the first two cases are analyzed as simply short and long.)
Occasionally other diacritics are doubled:
Comparative degree
The blank cells on the IPA chart can be filled without too much difficulty if the need arises. Some ad hoc letters have appeared in the literature for the retroflex lateral flap (having the expected form of ⟨ɺ⟩ plus a retroflex tail), the voiceless lateral fricatives (now provided for by the extIPA), the epiglottal trill (arguably covered by the epiglottal "fricatives" ⟨ʜ ʢ⟩), the labiodental plosives (⟨ȹ ȸ⟩ in some old Bantuist texts) and the near-close central vowels (⟨ᵻ ᵿ⟩ in some publications). Diacritics can duplicate some of those (such as ⟨p̪ b̪⟩ for the labiodental plosives) and supply much of the remainder.[76] 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).
Representations of consonant sounds outside of the core set are created by adding diacritics to letters with similar sound values. The Spanish bilabial and dental approximants are commonly written as lowered fricatives, [β̞] and [ð̞] respectively.[77] Similarly, voiced lateral fricatives would be written as raised lateral approximants, [ɭ˔ ʎ̝ ʟ̝]. A few languages such as Banda have a bilabial flap as the preferred allophone of what is elsewhere a labiodental flap. It has been suggested that this be written with the labiodental flap letter and the advanced diacritic, [ⱱ̟].[78]
Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written [ʙ̪] (bilabial trill and the dental sign), and labiodental stops [p̪ b̪] rather than with the ad hoc letters sometimes found in the literature. Other taps can be written as extra-short plosives or laterals, e. [ɟ̆ ɢ̆ ʟ̆], though in some cases the diacritic would need to be written below the letter. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted [r̠], just as non-subapical retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals (ʟ̠ etc.) and the palatal trill, while not strictly impossible, are very difficult to pronounce and are unlikely to occur even as allophones in the world's languages.
The vowels are similarly manageable by using diacritics for raising, lowering, fronting, backing, centering, and mid-centering.[79] For example, the unrounded equivalent of [ʊ] can be transcribed as mid-centered [ɯ̽], and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised [ɶ̝] or lowered [œ̞] (though for those who conceive of vowel space as a triangle, simple [ɶ] already is the rounded equivalent of [æ]). True mid vowels are lowered [e̞ ø̞ ɘ̞ ɵ̞ ɤ̞ o̞] or raised [ɛ̝ œ̝ ɜ̝ ɞ̝ ʌ̝ ɔ̝], while centered [ɪ̈ ʊ̈] and [ä] (or, less commonly, [ɑ̈]) are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The only known vowels that cannot be represented in this scheme are vowels with unexpected roundedness, which would require a dedicated diacritic, such as protruded ⟨ʏʷ⟩ and compressed ⟨uᵝ⟩ (or ⟨ɪʷ⟩ and ⟨ɯᵝ⟩).
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.[80] 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".
Chart of the Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet (extIPA), as of 2015
Consonants
Vowels
Symbol names
The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are usually used for unmodified letters.[note 5] Letters which are not directly derived from these alphabets, such as [ʕ], may have a variety of names, sometimes based on the appearance of the symbol or on the sound that it represents. In Unicode, some of the letters of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA; the others use the letters from the Greek section.
For diacritics, there are two methods of naming. For traditional diacritics, the IPA notes the name in a well known language; for example, é is acute, based on the name of the diacritic in English and French. Non-traditional diacritics are often named after objects they resemble, so d̪ is called bridge.
Geoffrey Pullum and William Ladusaw list a variety of names in use for IPA symbols, both current and retired, in addition to names of many other non-IPA phonetic symbols in their Phonetic Symbol Guide.[10]
IPA typeface support is increasing, and is now included in several typefaces such as the Times New Roman versions that come with various recent computer operating systems. Diacritics are not always properly rendered, however.
IPA typefaces that are freely available online include:
Several from the SIL (such as Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, and Gentium) Dehuti DejaVu Sans TITUS Cyberbit Lato (with its derivate Carlito) Linux Libertine (with its derivates Linux Biolinum, Libertinus Serif, Libertinus Sans)
Some commercial IPA-compatible typefaces include:
Brill, available from Brill Publishers Various fonts shipped with Microsoft products such as Segoe UI, Calibri, Cambria, Lucida Sans Unicode, Arial Unicode MS and the most recent versions of Times New Roman and Arial
These all include several ranges of characters in addition to the IPA. Modern Web browsers generally do not need any configuration to display these symbols, provided that a typeface capable of doing so is available to the operating system.
Several systems have been developed that map the IPA symbols to ASCII characters. Notable systems include SAMPA and X- SAMPA. The usage of mapping systems in on-line text has to some extent been adopted in the context input methods, allowing convenient keying of IPA characters that would be otherwise unavailable on standard keyboard layouts.
Online IPA keyboard utilities[81] are available, and they cover the complete range of IPA symbols and diacritics. In April 2019, Google's Gboard for Android and iOS added an IPA keyboard to its platform.[82][83]
Americanist phonetic notation Arabic International Phonetic Alphabet Articulatory phonetics Cursive forms of the International Phonetic Alphabet Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet
Typefaces
ASCII and keyboard transliterations
Computer input using on-screen keyboard
See also
International Phonetic Alphabet
Course: Phonetics and Phonology (Φωνητική - Φωνολογία) (Γλ2-230)
University: Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης
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