Phonetic Symbol Guide

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The Phonetic Symbol Guide is a book by Geoffrey Pullum and William Ladusaw that explains the histories and uses of the symbols of various phonetic transcription conventions. It was published in 1986, with a second edition in 1996, by the University of Chicago Press. Symbols include letters and diacritics of the International Phonetic Alphabet and Americanist phonetic notation, though not of the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet. The Guide was consulted by the International Phonetic Association when they established names and numerical codes for the International Phonetic Alphabet [1] and was the basis for the characters of the TIPA set of phonetic fonts.

Contents

List of symbols

The TIPA character set covers many of the symbols in the Phonetic Symbol Guide, including some that are not supported by Unicode TIPA code points.png
The TIPA character set covers many of the symbols in the Phonetic Symbol Guide, including some that are not supported by Unicode

The symbols included in the 2nd edition of the Guide are as follows. A number were adopted into Unicode 14 and 15 and have been available in SIL fonts since February 2023. Those not found in Unicode are marked with an asterisk.

a ȧ ä ɐ ɑ α ɒ ɒ̇ ɒ̈ æ æ̇ æ̈ A 4 *[small cap ] Æ *[small cap ] ʌ *[small cap Δ ]
b ƀ ь ъ ɓ ʙ β
c ć ȼ č ç ƈ ɕ ʗ 𝼏 C
d đ 𝼥 ɗ ɖ ȸ ʣ ʤ ð δ D
e ë ę ə ɚ ɘ ᴇ̈ E ɛ ɛ̇ ʚ ɜ ɝ ɞ
f ƒ
ɡ ǥ ɠ g ɢ ʛ G ɣ γ *[palatal-hook γ] *[retroflex-hook γ] ɤ *(and its allograph IPA Unicode 0x0264 baby gamma.svg )
h ƕ ħ ɦ *[right-tail ɦ] ɧ ɥ ʮ ʯ ʜ H
i ï ı ɨ ɪ ɪ̈ I ι ɿ ʅ
j *[hook-top j] ɉ ʝ ǰ ɟ ʄ
k ƙ ʞ 𝼐
l ɫ ƚ ɬ ɭ ɮ *(and its allograph IPA Unicode 0x026E alt.svg ) ʟ L *[reversed ʟ] λ ƛ
m ɱ *[h-m ligature] ɯ ɰ M
n ń *[left-arm n] π ƞ ñ ɲ ŋ η ɳ ɴ N
o ȯ ö ǫ ƍ σ O ʘ ɵ θ ø 0 (and its variant ) ɸ œ ɶ 8
ɔ ɔ̇ ɔ̈ *[turned ] ω ω̇ ω̈ *[turned ω] ɷ ꭥ̇ ꭥ̈ ꭥ̶
p ƥ *[straight allograph of ƍ ] P ρ ƿ þ
q ʠ ȹ
r ɾ ɼ ɽ ɹ ɻ ɺ ʀ R ʁ
s S š ʂ ʃ 𝼋 ƪ ʆ 𝼌
t ŧ 𝼪 ƫ ʈ ƭ ʇ 𝼍 ʦ ʧ
u ü ʉ *[half-barred u] ʊ ᴜ̇ *[small cap ] U
v ʋ
w ◌̫ ʍ
x X χ
y ÿ ʎ ʏ
z ȥ ž ʑ ʐ ƻ ʒ ǯ ƺ ʓ ƹ
ʔ ? 7 ʡ ʖ ƾ 𝼎 ʕ 9 ʢ
ǃ ǀ / ǂ ǁ # & *
Chao tone letters: ˩ ˨ ˧ ˦ ˥ etc.
IPA tone diacritics: ◌́ ◌̄ ◌̀ ◌̌ ◌̂ ◌᷉ etc.
◌̄ ˉ ˗ ◌̠ ˍ + ◌̟ ◌̽ ˭
◌̪ ◌̺ ◌̻ ◌̝ ˔ ◌̞ ˕ ◌꭪ ◌꭫
ˈ ˌ ◌̩ ◌̚
˂ ˃ ◌͕; ⃖ or ← (superscript )
◌̇ . ˑ ◌̣ ◌̈ ◌̤ ː
ʼ ʽ ʻ ,
◌̊ ◌̥ ◌̜ ˒ ◌̹
◌̃ ◌̴ ◌̰ ◌̼
◌́ ˊ ◌̀ ˋ ◌̂ ◌̭ ◌̌ ◌̬
◌̨ ◌̧ ◌̡ ◌˞ ◌̢
◌̆ ◌̑ ◌̯ ◌͡◌ ◌͜◌

Non-trivial Unicode support

Not all Unicode support is direct. Some typewriter substitutions made by overstriking a Latin letter with a virgule require composite encoding:

Similarly ꭥ̶, an unused proposal to replace Americanist ꭥ̇.

The 'baby gamma' variant of the vowel letter ɤ is available as a character variant in fonts such as Gentium and Andika.

Several other symbols are graphic variants of Unicode characters:

A couple are more distinct graphically, but without a corresponding semantic distinction:

Common symbols not in Unicode

Left-hook gamma Gamma with left hook.svg
Left-hook gamma
Right-hook gamma Gamma with right hook.svg
Right-hook gamma

A couple of the symbols are found in Slavic sources:

Rare symbols

Prokosch's right-tail hooktop h H with hook and tail.svg
Prokosch's right-tail hooktop h
The h-m ligature for [m] Hm ligature.svg
The h-m ligature for [m̥]
The small-cap A-O ligature for [OE] Small cap AO ligature.svg
The small-cap A-O ligature for [ɶ]
The proposed letter for [n] Dental N with left arm.svg
The proposed letter for [n̪]

The following are not supported by Unicode as of version 16. [2]

Some of the symbols are idiosyncratic proposals by well-known scholars that never caught on:

A couple symbols were mentioned in the 1949 Principles of the International Phonetic Association as recent suggestions for further improvement and were never adopted:

The majority of the non-Unicode symbols were proposed by George Trager to improve the Bloch & Trager system of vowel transcription and other conventions of Americanist notation, but were never adopted:

References

  1. Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, 1999, p. 31, 161.
  2. Updated from Phonetic Symbol Guide at ScriptSource ( was added to Unicode 11 as U+A7B9); additions in U14 and U15 are listed above.