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International Phonetic Alphabet

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'' "IPA" redirects here. For other uses, see IPA (disambiguation). The NATO phonetic alphabet, which is different, has also informally been called the "International Phonetic Alphabet". For a brief description of IPA symbols used for English, see IPA chart for English.
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised and in use by linguists. It is intended to provide a standardized, accurate and unique representation for every sound element in human language, that is distinguished as a phone or a phoneme.

For a treatment of the English language using the IPA, see International Phonetic Alphabet for English.

Contents

History

The development of the IPA dates back to 1886, when a group of French and British language teachers formed the International Phonetic Association. Two years later, the International Phonetic Association released the first official version of the IPA.

A diagram explaining the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Enlarge
A diagram explaining 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 principle of formation

The IPA is what MacMahon (1996) has termed a "selective" phonetic alphabet. This means that it does not have separate symbols for two sounds if there does not exist a language in which these two sounds are contrasted with one another. In other words, it aims to provide a separate symbol for every contrastive (or phonemic) sound occurring in human language.

For instance, flaps and taps are two different kinds of articulation, but since no language has (yet) been found to make a phonemic distinction between, say, an alveolar flap and an alveolar tap, the IPA does not provide them with dedicated symbols. Instead, it provides a single symbol (in this case, [ɾ]), that represents both sounds. 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.

Principles behind the symbols

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 letter <ﻉ> `ain. On the other hand, the original Latin-derived symbols for the clicks have been abandoned in favor of iconic Khoisanist symbols such as ǁ.

The sound-values of most consonants taken from the Latin alphabet correspond to those of French, and are also close to those of most other European languages: such consonants include [b], [d], [f], [g], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], (unvoiced) [s], [t], [v], [z]. English values are used for [h] and [w]. The vowels from the Latin alphabet ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) correspond to the vowels of Spanish and are similar to those of 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 various other languages. [j] has the Slavic and Germanic value of , that of English y in yoke; [y] has the Scandinavian and Old English value: Finnish y, German y or ü, French u, Dutch uu, or the Classical Greek Υ (Upsilon).

Letters that share a particular modification sometimes correspond to a similar type of sound. For example, all the retroflex consonants have the same symbol as the equivalent alveolar consonants, with the addition of a rightward facing hook at the bottom (e.g., [ʈ] for [t], [ɖ] for [d], etc.) Although there is some correspondence between modified letters and their unmodified versions, it is usually not possible to deduce the features of a sound (tongue position, manner of articulation, etc.) from the shape of its IPA symbol. For instance, there is no consistent relationship between lowercase letters and their small capital counterparts, nor are all labial consonants linked through a common 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.

Types of transcription

Main article: Phonetic transcription
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 one is in doubt, it is best to use brackets, for by setting off a transcription with slashes one makes a theoretical claim that every symbol within is phonemically contrastive for the language being transcribed.

Consonants (pulmonic)

Single articulation

[Closeup of the main pulmonic consonant section 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.

Place of articulation → Labial Coronal Dorsal Radical (none)
Manner of articulation ↓ Bi­la­bial La­bio‐
den­tal 		Den­tal Al­veo­lar Post‐
al­veo­lar 		Re­tro‐
flex 		Pa­la­tal Ve­lar Uvu­lar Pha­ryn‐
geal 		Epi‐
glot­tal 		Glot­tal
Nasal    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA  
Plosive {{IPA {{IPA * * {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA   {{IPA {{IPA  
Fricative {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA {{IPA
Approx­imant    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA      
Trill    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    *  
Tap or Flap    ѵ̟    ѵ†    {{IPA    {{IPA          *  
Lateral Fricative {{IPA {{IPA *    *    *       
Lateral Approx­imant    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA    {{IPA  
Lateral Flap      {{IPA    *    *    *    

Notes: 

[link]. In the meantime the similarly shaped izhitsa (ѵ) is used here.
  • 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.
  • The symbols [ʁ, ʕ, ʢ] represent 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

    [Closeup of the co-articulated consonant section of the IPA chart]
    {{IPA Voiceless labialized velar approximant
    {{IPA Voiced labialized velar approximant
    {{IPA Voiced labialized palatal approximant
    {{IPA Voiceless palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
    {{IPA Voiced palatalized postalveolar (alveolo-palatal) fricative
    {{IPA Voiceless "palatal-velar" fricative

    Notes:

    Consonants (non-pulmonic)

    [Closeup of the non-pulmonic consonant section of the IPA chart]

    Click releases Implosives Ejectives
    {{IPA Bilabial {{IPA Bilabial ʼ For example:
    {{IPA Laminal alveolar ("dental") {{IPA Alveolar {{IPA Bilabial
    {{IPA Apical (post-) alveolar ("retroflex") {{IPA Palatal {{IPA Alveolar
    {{IPA Laminal postalveolar ("palatal") {{IPA Velar {{IPA Velar
    {{IPA Lateral coronal ("lateral") {{IPA Uvular {{IPA Alveolar fricative

    Notes:

    Vowels

    [Closeup of the vowel chart of the IPA]
    [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:

    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, due to the great number of ligatures that would be required to represent all affricates this way. A third affricate transcription sometimes seen uses the superscript notation for a consonant release, for example tˢ for t​͡s, paralleling kˣ ~ k͡x. The symbols for the palatal plosives, , are often used as a convenience for [t​͡ʃ d͡ʒ] or similar affricates, even in official IPA publications, so they must be interpreted with care.

    [Image of the six common affricate ligatures and their official IPA equivalents]

    Tie bar Ligature Description
    t​͡s {{IPA voiceless alveolar affricate
    d​͡z {{IPA voiced alveolar affricate
    t​͡ʃ {{IPA voiceless postalveolar affricate
    d​͡ʒ {{IPA voiced postalveolar affricate
    t​͡ɕ {{IPA voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
    d​͡ʑ {{IPA voiced alveolo-palatal affricate
    {{IPA  – voiceless alveolar lateral affricate
    {{IPA  – voiceless labial-velar plosive
    {{IPA  – voiced labial-velar plosive
    {{IPA  – labial-velar nasal stop

    Note:

    Extended IPA

    The Extended IPA is an new group of symbols for the IPA whose original purpose was to accurately transcribe disordered speech. However, linguists have used it to designate a number of unique sounds within standard communication, such as hushing, gnashing teeth, and smacking lips.

    Suprasegmentals

    [Closeup of the suprasegmental section of the IPA chart]

    ˈ Primary stress
    ˌ Secondary stress
    ː Long (long vowel or geminate consonant)
    ˑ Half-long
    ˘ Extra-short
    . Syllable break
    ‿ Linking (absence of a break)

    Minor (foot) break
    ‖ Major (intonation) break
    ↗ Global rise
    ↘ Global fall

    IPA allows for the use of either tone diacritics or tone letters to indicate tones.

    e̋ or ˥ Extra high
    é or ˦ High
    ē or ˧ Mid
    è or ˨ Low
    ȅ or ˩ Extra low
    ě Rise
    ê Fall
    ↓e Downstep
    ↑e Upstep
    Note:

    Diacritics

    [Closeup of the diacritic section of the IPA chart]
    Diacritics are small markings which are placed around the IPA letter in order to show a certain alteration in the letter's pronounciation. Sub-diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender (informally called a tail), i.e. ŋ̊. The dotless i, <ı>, is used when the dot would interfere with the diacritic. Other IPA symbols may appear as diacritics to represent phonetic detail: tˢ (fricative release), bʱ (breathy voice), ˀa (glottal onset), ᵊ (epenthetic schwa), oʊ (diphthongization). More advanced diacritcs were developed in the Extended IPA for more specific pronounciation encoding.

    Syllabicity diacritics
    ɹ̩ n̩ Syllabic e̯ ʊ̯ Non-syllabic
    Consonant-release diacritics
    tʰ dʰ Aspirated d̚ No audible release
    dⁿ Nasal release 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
    tʷ dʷ Labialized tʲ dʲ Palatalized
    tˠ dˠ Velarized tˁ dˁ Pharyngealized
    {{IPA z̴ Velarized or pharyngealized
    e̘ o̘ Advanced tongue root e̙ o̙ Retracted tongue root
    ẽ z̃ Nasalized ɚ ɝ Rhoticity

    Notes:

    1. Some linguists restrict this breathy-voice diacritic to sonorants, and transcribe obstruents as bʱ.
    2. With aspirated voiced consonants, the aspiration is also voiced. Many linguists prefer one of the diacritics dedicated to breathy voice.
    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

    Obsolete symbols, nonstandard symbols, and capital variants

    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 for standard ʊ. Several symbols 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.

    There are also unsupported symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as ƛ.

    While the IPA does not itself have a set of capital letters (the ones that look like capitals are actually small capitals), many languages have adopted symbols from the IPA as part of their orthographies, and in such cases they have invented capital variants of these. This is especially common in Africa. An example is Kabye of northern Togo, which has Ɔ Ɛ Ŋ Ɣ Ʃ (capital ʃ). Other pseudo-IPA capitals supported by unicode are Ɓ/Ƃ Ƈ Ɗ/Ƌ Ə/Ǝ Ɠ Ħ Ɯ Ɲ Ɵ Ʈ Ʊ Ʋ Ʒ.

    How to transcribe sounds that have no symbols in the IPA charts

    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 lateral flaps and voiceless lateral fricatives, the epiglottal trill, and the labiodental plosives. Diacritics can supply much of the remainder, which would indeed be appropriate if the sounds were allophones. For example, the Spanish bilabial approximant is commonly written as a lowered fricative, [β̞]. 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 symbol and the advanced diacritic, [v̛̟]. Similarly, a labiodental trill would be written [ʙ̪] (bilabial trill and the dental sign). Palatal and uvular taps, if they exist, and the epiglottal tap could be written as extra-short plosives, [ɟ˘ ɢ˘ ʡ˘]. A retroflex trill can be written as a retracted [r̠], just as retroflex fricatives sometimes are. The remaining consonants, the uvular laterals 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. For example, the unrounded equivalent of [ʊ] can be transcribed as mid-centered [ɯ̽], and the rounded equivalent of [æ] as raised [ɶ̝]. True mid vowels are lowered [e̞ ø̞ ɘ̞ ɵ̞ ɤ̞ o̞], while centered [ɪ̈ ʊ̈] and [ä] are near-close and open central vowels, respectively. The vowels that aren't representable in this scheme are the compressed vowels, which would require a dedicated diacritic.

    Names of the symbols

    It is often desirable to distinguish an IPA symbol from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound in broad transcription. The symbol's names and phonetic descriptions are described in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. 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 used for unmodified symbols. 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, é 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 d̪ is called bridge.

    Comparison with other phonetic notation

    The IPA is not the only phonetic transcription system in use. The other common Latin-based system is the Americanist phonetic notation, devised for representing American languages, but used by some US linguists as an alternate to the IPA. There are also sets of symbols specific to Slavic, Indic, Finno-Ugric, and Caucasian linguistics, as well as other regional specialties. The differences between these alphabets and IPA are relatively small, although often the special characters of the IPA are abandoned in favour of diacritics or digraphs.

    Other alphabets, such as Hangul, may have their own phonetic extensions. There also exist featural phonetic transcription systems, such as Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech and its derivatives.

    There is an extended version of the IPA for disordered speech (extIPA), which has been included in this article, and another set of symbols used for voice quality (VoQS). There are also many personal or idiosyncratic extensions, such as Luciano Canepari's canIPA.

    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. Two notable systems are Kirshenbaum and SAMPA (or X-SAMPA). These systems are often used in electronic media, although their usage has been declining with the development of computer technology, specifically because of spreading support for Unicode.

    See also: Unicode and HTML

    Use in dictionaries

    Most British English dictionaries now use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciation of words. However some British, and most American volumes use a system that may be more intuitive for readers unfamiliar with the IPA. For example, the pronunciation-representation systems in most U.S. dictionaries use "y" for IPA [j] and "sh" for IPA [ʃ], reflecting the most-common representations of those sounds in written English.

    A major drawback of the systems used in American dictionaries is their failure to properly represent sounds not in the English language, such as [r] and [ɾ]. In addition, several American dictionary publishers have their own systems for representing pronunciation, so the meaning of a symbol can vary among dictionaries.

    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, due to the current incapability of rendering ř in the IPA correctly.

    See also

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
    [Special]

    References

    External links

    Free IPA font downloads

    Keyboards

    Sound files

    Charts

    Unicode

    Official Unicode PDF files:

    Personal extensions of the IPA

    Technical note

    Most IPA symbols are not included in Times New Roman, the default font for Latin scripts in Internet Explorer for Windows. To properly view IPA symbols in Internet Explorer for Windows, you must set your browser font to a typeface that includes the IPA extensions, such as Lucida Sans Unicode, which comes with Windows XP; Gentium, Charis (SIL), and Doulos (SIL), DejaVu Sans, TITUS Cyberbit which are freely available (see links above); or Arial Unicode MS, which comes with Microsoft Office. Alternatively, the style sheet could try using unicode-range specifications to note the gaps where Times does not have glyphs for IPA, Hawaiian ‘okina (glottal stop), etc. and thus hopefully force the browser to check further down the list of fonts.

    On this page, we have forced the browser to use such a font, so it should appear correctly, but this hasn't yet been done to all the other . This also applies to other pages using . Bear this in mind if you see error symbols such as "蚟" in articles.

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

     

    From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
    All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

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