International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet.

"IPA" redirects here. For other uses, see IPA (disambiguation). This article is about the alphabet officially used in linguistics. The NATO phonetic alphabet has also informally been called the 'International Phonetic Alphabet', though these two are unrelated.

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

For a simplified chart of the main IPA symbols used for English see IPA chart for English.

History

Main article: History of the International Phonetic Alphabet

Description

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

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

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

The sound-values of the consonants from the Latin alphabet correspond, in most cases, to English usage: [b], [d], [f], [g], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], [s], [t], [v], [w], [z].

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

The other symbols from the Latin alphabet ([c], [j], [q], [r], [x], and [y]) correspond to sounds these letters represent in other languages. [j] has the sound value of English y in yoke (as German, Scandinavian, and Dutch j); whereas [y] has the Scandinavian and Old English value of that letter (Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, Dutch uu).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chart

• The IPA chart in PDF
• At-a-glance reconstruction of the IPA chart, for users who wish to see the entire chart at once on a 1024x768 screen

Consonants (pulmonic)

Single articulation

Image of the main pulmonic consonants portion of the IPA chart

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

Notes:

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

Coarticulation

Image of the miscellaneous symbols portion of the IPA chart

Notes:

• [ɧ] is described as a "simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]". However, this analysis is disputed. See the article for discussion.
• To be complete, this chart should also include the semi-palatalized postalveolar (palato-alveolar) fricatives [ʃ] and [ʒ].
• The miscellaneous portion of the chart, as published by the IPA, includes additional symbols that would have been included in the main consonant chart were it not for difficulties in typesetting on a printed page. In this article, which does not suffer from such problems, they have been included in the main chart above.

Consonants (non-pulmonic)

Image of the non-pulmonic consonants portion of the IPA chart

Notes:

• All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar or uvular stop, plus a symbol for the release: [k͡ǂ, g͡ǂ, ŋ͡ǂ, q͡ǂ, ɢ͡ǂ, ɴ͡ǂ], etc. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a [k] may usually be assumed.
• Symbols for the voiceless implosives [ƥ, ƭ, ƈ, ƙ, ʠ] are no longer supported by the IPA. Instead, the voiced equivalent is used with a voiceless diacritic: [ɓ̥, ʛ̥], etc.
• Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, [ᶑ], is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard.
• The ejective symbol is also used for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as [mʼ], [lʼ], [wʼ], [aʼ].

Vowels

Image of the vowels portion of the IPA chart

Edit - 2×	Front	N.-front	Central	N.-back	Back
Close	i • y ɨ • ʉ ɯ • u ɪ • ʏ ʊ e • ø ɘ • ɵ ɤ • o ə ɛ • œ ɜ • ɞ ʌ • ɔ æ ɐ a • ɶ ɑ • ɒ
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open

Notes:

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

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, or optionally by a ligature for the six commonest affricates, though this is no longer official IPA usage, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third method sometimes seen is to use the superscript notation for a fricative release, such as tˢ for t͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. In former editions of the IPA, the palatal plosives c ɟ were often used as a convenience for [t͡ʃ d͡ʒ], and this is still sometimes seen.