International Phonetic Alphabet chart

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The following is the chart of the International Phonetic Alphabet, a standardized system of phonetic symbols devised and maintained by the International Phonetic Association. It is not a complete list of all possible speech sounds in the world's languages, only those about which stand-alone articles exist in this encyclopedia.

Contents

Official chart

The official IPA chart, revised to 2020 IPA chart 2020.svg
The official IPA chart, revised to 2020

Vowels

Consonants

Pulmonic consonants

Non-pulmonic consonants

Co-articulated consonants

Other consonants

Tones

Tone registers
◌̋˥꜒Extra-high (top)
◌́˦꜓High
◌̄˧꜔Mid
◌̀˨꜕Low
◌̏˩꜖Extra-low (bottom)
ꜜ◌ Downstep
ꜛ◌ Upstep
Tone contours
◌̌˩˥꜖꜒Rising (low to high)
◌̂˥˩꜒꜖Falling (high to low)
◌᷄˧˥꜔꜒High rising
˨˦꜕꜓Mid rising
◌᷅˩˧꜖꜔Low rising
◌᷇˥˧꜒꜔High falling
˦˨꜓꜕Mid falling
◌᷆˧˩꜔꜖Low falling
◌᷈˧˥˨,˨˦˨,˩˧˩꜔꜒꜕,꜕꜓꜕,꜖꜔꜖Rising–falling (Peaking)
◌᷉˥˧˥,˦˨˦,˧˩˧꜒꜔꜒,꜓꜕꜓,꜔꜖꜔Falling–rising (Dipping)

Auxiliary symbols

Diacritics
◌̥◌̊ Voiceless ◌̤ Breathy voiced ◌̪◌͆ Dental
◌̬ Voiced ◌̰ Creaky voiced ◌̺ Apical
◌ʰ Aspirated ◌̼ Linguolabial ◌̻ Laminal
◌̹◌͗◌˒ More rounded ◌ʷ Labialized ◌̃ Nasalized
◌̜◌͑◌˓ Less rounded ◌ʲ Palatalized ◌ⁿ Nasal release
◌̟◌˖ Advanced ◌ˠ Velarized ◌ˡ Lateral release
◌̠◌˗ Retracted ◌ˤ Pharyngealized ◌̚ No audible release
◌̈ Centralized ◌̴ Velarized or pharyngealized ◌ᵊ Mid central vowel release
◌̽ Mid-centralized ◌̝◌˔ Raised ◌ᶿ Voiceless dental fricative release
◌̩◌̍ Syllabic ◌̞◌˕ Lowered ◌ˣ Voiceless velar fricative release
◌̯◌̑ Non-syllabic ◌̘◌꭪ Advanced tongue root ◌ʼ Ejective
◌˞ Rhoticity ◌̙◌꭫ Retracted tongue root ◌͡◌
◌͜◌		 Affricate or double articulation
Suprasegmentals
ˈPrimary stress
ˌ Secondary stress
ː Long
ˑ Half-long
◌̆ Extra-short
| Minor (foot) group
‖ Major (intonation) group
. Syllable break
‿ Linking (absence of a break)
↗︎Global rise
↘︎Global fall
Transcription
[ ]Phonetic transcription
/ / Phonemic transcription
{ } Prosodic notation
( )Indistinguishable utterance
⸨ ⸩Sound obscured

See also

Related Research Articles

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like and semivowels like and, as well as lateral approximants like.

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue;, pronounced throughout the vocal tract;, [v], and, pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and, which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German ; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh. This turbulent airflow is called frication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Phonetic Alphabet</span> System of phonetic notation

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation of speech sounds in written form. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.

Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, both of which are present in English. A third labial articulation is dentolabials, articulated with the upper lip against the lower teeth, normally only found in pathological speech. Generally precluded are linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue contacts the posterior side of the upper lip, making them coronals, though sometimes, they behave as labial consonants.

A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Examples are, which are pronounced like a, with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voiced velar plosive, obstruents being common among the sounds that undergo labialization.

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.

Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant.

In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. Examples of archetypal nasal sounds include and.

This chart shows the most common applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent English language pronunciations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the International Phonetic Alphabet</span> History of the IPA phonetic representation system

The International Phonetic Alphabet was created soon after the International Phonetic Association was established in the late 19th century. It was intended as an international system of phonetic transcription for oral languages, originally for pedagogical purposes. The Association was established in Paris in 1886 by French and British language teachers led by Paul Passy. The prototype of the alphabet appeared in Phonetic Teachers' Association (1888b). The Association based their alphabet upon the Romic alphabet of Henry Sweet, which in turn was based on the Phonotypic Alphabet of Isaac Pitman and the Palæotype of Alexander John Ellis.

Doubly articulated consonants are consonants with two simultaneous primary places of articulation of the same manner. They are a subset of co-articulated consonants. They are to be distinguished from co-articulated consonants with secondary articulation; that is, a second articulation not of the same manner. An example of a doubly articulated consonant is the voiceless labial–velar plosive, which is a and a pronounced simultaneously. On the other hand, the voiceless labialized velar plosive has only a single stop articulation, velar, with a simultaneous approximant-like rounding of the lips. In some dialects of Arabic, the voiceless velar fricative has a simultaneous uvular trill, but this is not considered double articulation either.

The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nestor Setälä, a Finnish linguist.

In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant. The secondary articulation of such co-articulated consonants is the approximant-like articulation. It "colors" the primary articulation rather than obscuring it. Maledo (2011) defines secondary articulation as the superimposition of lesser stricture upon a primary articulation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet</span> Disordered speech additions to the phonetic alphabet

The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA, are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the International Phonetic Alphabet for the phonetic transcription of disordered speech. Some of the symbols are used for transcribing features of normal speech in IPA transcription, and are accepted as such by the International Phonetic Association.

In articulatory phonetics, fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop. Although not as typical of sound change as lenition, fortition may occur in prominent positions, such as at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable; as an effect of reducing markedness; or due to morphological leveling.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dania transcription</span> Phonetic transcription

Dania is the traditional linguistic transcription system used in Denmark to describe the Danish language. It was invented by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen and published in 1890 in the Dania, Tidsskrift for folkemål og folkeminder magazine from which the system was named.

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) consists of more than 100 letters and diacritics. Before Unicode became widely available, several ASCII-based encoding systems of the IPA were proposed. The alphabet went through a large revision at the Kiel Convention of 1989, and the vowel symbols again in 1993. Systems devised before these revisions inevitably lack support of the additions they introduced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive</span> Rare consonant

The voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive or stop is a rare consonant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced upper-pharyngeal plosive</span> Consonantal sound

The voiced upper-pharyngeal plosive or stop is a rare consonant.

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