Phonetic symbols in Unicode

Last updated

Unicode supports several phonetic scripts and notation systems through its existing scripts and the addition of extra blocks with phonetic characters. These phonetic characters are derived from an existing script, usually Latin, Greek or Cyrillic. Apart from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), extensions to the IPA and obsolete and nonstandard IPA symbols, these blocks also contain characters from the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet and the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet.

Contents

Phonetic scripts

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) makes use of letters from other writing systems as most phonetic scripts do. IPA notably uses Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters. Combining diacritics also add meaning to the phonetic text. Finally, these phonetic alphabets make use of modifier letters, that are specially constructed for phonetic meaning. A "modifier letter" is strictly intended not as an independent grapheme but as a modification of the preceding character [1] resulting in a distinct grapheme, notably in the context of the International Phonetic Alphabet. For example, ʰ should not occur on its own but modifies the preceding or following symbol. Thus, is a single IPA symbol, distinct from t. In practice, however, several of these "modifier letters" are also used as full graphemes, e.g. ʿ as transliterating Semitic ayin or Hawaiian ʻokina, or ˚ transliterating Abkhaz ә.

From IPA to Unicode

Consonants

The following tables indicates the Unicode code point sequences for phonemes as used in the International Phonetic Alphabet. A bold code point indicates that the Unicode chart provides an application note such as "voiced retroflex lateral" for U+026DɭLATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH RETROFLEX HOOK. An entry in bold italics indicates the character name itself refers to a phoneme such as U+0298ʘLATIN LETTER BILABIAL CLICK


  Basic Latin/Greek   Latin extended   IPA extension

Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Labialized palatal Postalveolar-velar
Plosive p
U+0070
b
U+0062

U+0070 U+032A

U+0062 U+032A

U+0074 U+032A

U+0064 U+032A
t
U+0074
d
U+0064
ʈ
U+0288
ɖ
U+0256
Implosive ɓ̥
U+0253U+0325
ɓ
U+0253
ɗ̪
U+0257U+032A
ɗ
U+0257

U+1D91
Ejective
U+0070 U+02BC
t̪ʼ
U+0074 U+032AU+02BC

U+0074 U+02BC
ʈʼ
U+0288U+02BC
Nasal
U+006D U+0325
m
U+006D
ɱ̊
U+0271 U+030A
ɱ
U+0271
n̪̊
U+006E U+032A U+030A

U+006E U+032A

U+006E U+0325
n
U+006E
ɳ̊
U+0273 U+030A
ɳ
U+0273
Trill ʙ
U+0299

U+0072 U+0325
r
U+0072
*
Tap or Flap ⱱ̟
U+2C71 U+031F

U+2C71
ɾ
U+027E
ɽ
U+027D
Lateral flap ɺ
U+027A
𝼈
U+1DF08
Fricative ɸ
U+0278
β
U+03B2
f
U+0066
v
U+0076
θ
U+03B8
ð
U+00F0
s
U+0073
z
U+007A
ʃ
U+0283
ʒ
U+0292
ʂ
U+0282
ʐ
U+0290
ɧ
U+0267
Lateral fricative ɬ
U+026C
ɮ
U+026E

U+A78E
Ejective fricative
U+0073 U+02BC
ʃʼ
U+0283U+02BC
Ejective lateral fricative ɬʼ
U+026CU+02BC
Percussive ʬ
U+02AC
ʭ
U+02AD
Approximant β̞̊
U+03B2 U+031E U+030A
β̞
U+03B2 U+031E
ʋ̥
U+028B U+0325
ʋ
U+028B
ð̞
U+00F0 U+031E
ɹ̥
U+0279 U+0325
ɹ
U+0279
ɻ̊
U+027B U+030A
ɻ
U+027B
ɥ̊
U+0265 U+030A
ɥ
U+0265
Lateral approximant
U+006C U+0325
l
U+006C
ɭ
U+026D
Click consonant ʘ
U+0298
ǀ
U+01C0
ǃ
U+01C3
ǃ / ǂ
U+01C3 / U+01C2
𝼊
U+1DF0A
Lateral click * ǁ
U+01C1
Alveolo-palatal Palatal Labial-velar Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Epiglottal Glottal
Plosive ȶ
U+0236
ȡ
U+0221
c
U+0063
ɟ
U+025F
k͡p
U+006B U+0361 U+0070
ɡ͡b
U+0261 U+0361 U+0062
k
U+006B
ɡ
U+0261
q
U+0071
ɢ
U+0262
ʡ
U+02A1
ʔ
U+0294
Implosive ʄ
U+0284
ɠ
U+0260
ʛ
U+029B
Ejective
U+0063 U+02BC

U+006B U+02BC

U+0071 U+02BC
Nasal ȵ
U+0235
ɲ
U+0272
ŋ͡m
U+014B U+0361 U+006D
ŋ
U+014B
ɴ
U+0274
Trill ʀ
U+0280
*
Tap or Flap *
Lateral flap * *
Fricative ɕ
U+0255
ʑ
U+0291
ç
U+00E7
ʝ
U+029D
x
U+0078
ɣ
U+0263
χ
U+03C7
ʁ
U+0281
ħ
U+0127
ʕ
U+0295
ʜ
U+029C
ʢ
U+02A2
h
U+0068
ɦ
U+0266
Approximant j
U+006A
ʍ
U+028D
w
U+0077
ɰ
U+0270
Lateral approximant ȴ
U+0234
ʎ
U+028E
ʟ
U+029F

Vowels

The following figures depict the phonetic vowels and their Unicode / UCS code points, arranged to represent the phonetic vowel trapezium. Vowels appearing in pairs in the figure to the right indicate rounded and unrounded variations respectively. Again, characters with Unicode names referring to phonemes are indicated by bold text. Those with explicit application notes are indicated by bold italic text. Those from borrowed unchanged from another script (Latin, Greek or Cyrillic) are indicated by italics. Before and after a bullet are the unrounded • rounded vowels.

Unicode code points for phonetic vowels
FrontCentralBack
Close i y
U+0069

U+0079
ɨ ʉ
U+0268

U+0289
ɯ u
U+026F

U+0075
Near-close ɪ ʏ
U+026A

U+028F
ɪ̈ ʊ̈
U+026A U+0308

U+028A U+0308
ʊ
 

U+028A
Close-mid e ø
U+0065

U+00F8
ɘ ɵ
U+0258

U+0275
ɤ o
U+0264

U+006F
Mid ø̞
U+0065 U+031E

U+00F8 U+031E
ə
 
U+0259
 
ɤ̞
U+0264 U+031E

U+006F U+031E
Open-mid ɛ œ
U+025B

U+0153
ɜ ɞ
U+025C

U+025E
ʌ ɔ
U+028C

U+0254
Near-open æ
U+00E6

 
ɐ
 
U+0250
 
Open a ɶ
U+0061

U+0276
ä
U+0061 U+0308

 
ɑ ɒ
U+0251

U+0252

Diacritics

Diacritics may be encoded as either modifier (e.g. ˳) or combining (e.g. ◌̥) characters.

VoicelessBreathy VoicedDentalSyllabic
˳◌̥
U+02F3 • U+0325
◌̤
U+0324
◌͏̪
U+032A
ˌ◌̩
U+02CC • U+0329
VoicedCreaky VoicedApicalNon-syllabic
ˬ◌̬
U+02EC • U+032C
˷◌̰
U+02F7 • U+0330
˽◌̺
U+02FD • U+033A
◌͏̯
U+032F
AspiratedLinguolabialLaminalMore Rounded
ʰ
U+02B0
◌͏̼
U+033C
◌͏̻
U+033B
˒◌̹
U+02D2 • U+0339
LabializedNasalizedPalatalizedLess Rounded
ʷ
U+02B7
◌̃
U+0303
ʲ
U+02B2
˓◌̜
U+02D3 • U+031C
AdvancedNasal releaseCentralizedVelarized
˖◌̟
U+02D6 • U+031F

U+207F
¨◌̈
U+00A8 [1] • U+0308
ˠ
U+02E0
RetractedLateral releaseMid-CentralizedPharyngealized
ˍ◌̠
U+02CD • U+0320
ˡ
U+02E1
˟◌̽
U+02DF • U+033D
ˤ
U+02E4
Advanced Tongue RootNo audible releaseRaisedVelarized or Pharyngealized
◌̘
U+AB6A • U+0318
˺◌̚
U+02FA • U+031A
˔◌̝
U+02D4 • U+031D
◌̴
U+0334
Retracted Tongue RootRhoticityLowered Lengthened
◌̙
U+AB6B • U+0319
˞
U+02DE
˕◌̞
U+02D5 • U+031E
ː
U+02D0
Notes
1. ^ The codepoint refers to diaeresis, which takes up space but is not a Spacing Modifier Letter.

Unicode blocks

Unicode blocks with many phonetic symbols

Six Unicode blocks contain many phonetic symbols:

IPA Extensions (U+0250–02AF)

IPA Extensions [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+025x ɐ ɑ ɒ ɓ ɔ ɕ ɖ ɗ ɘ ə ɚ ɛ ɜ ɝ ɞ ɟ
U+026x ɠ ɡ ɢ ɣ ɤ ɥ ɦ ɧ ɨ ɩ ɪ ɫ ɬ ɭ ɮ ɯ
U+027x ɰ ɱ ɲ ɳ ɴ ɵ ɶ ɷ ɸ ɹ ɺ ɻ ɼ ɽ ɾ ɿ
U+028x ʀ ʁ ʂ ʃ ʄ ʅ ʆ ʇ ʈ ʉ ʊ ʋ ʌ ʍ ʎ ʏ
U+029x ʐ ʑ ʒ ʓ ʔ ʕ ʖ ʗ ʘ ʙ ʚ ʛ ʜ ʝ ʞ ʟ
U+02Ax ʠ ʡ ʢ ʣ ʤ ʥ ʦ ʧ ʨ ʩ ʪ ʫ ʬ ʭ ʮ ʯ
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Spacing Modifier Letters (U+02B0–02FF)

The characters in the "Spacing Modifier Letters" block are intended as forming a unity with the preceding letter (which they "modify"). E.g. the character U+02B0ʰMODIFIER LETTER SMALL H isn't intended simply as a superscript h (h), but as the mark of aspiration placed after the letter being aspirated, as in "aspirated voiceless bilabial plosive". The block contains:

Spacing Modifier Letters [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+02Bx ʰ ʱ ʲ ʳ ʴ ʵ ʶ ʷ ʸ ʹ ʺ ʻ ʼ ʽ ʾ ʿ
U+02Cx ˀ ˁ ˂ ˃ ˄ ˅ ˆ ˇ ˈ ˉ ˊ ˋ ˌ ˍ ˎ ˏ
U+02Dx ː ˑ ˒ ˓ ˔ ˕ ˖ ˗ ˘ ˙ ˚ ˛ ˜ ˝ ˞ ˟
U+02Ex ˠ ˡ ˢ ˣ ˤ ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˩ ˪ ˫ ˬ ˭ ˮ ˯
U+02Fx ˰ ˱ ˲ ˳ ˴ ˵ ˶ ˷ ˸ ˹ ˺ ˻ ˼ ˽ ˾ ˿
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Phonetic Extensions (U+1D00–1D7F)

This block, together with Phonetic Extensions Supplement below, contains:

Phonetic Extensions [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1D0x
U+1D1x
U+1D2x
U+1D3x ᴿ
U+1D4x
U+1D5x
U+1D6x
U+1D7x ᵿ
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Phonetic Extensions Supplement (U+1D80–1DBF)

Phonetic Extensions Supplement [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+1D8x
U+1D9x
U+1DAx
U+1DBx ᶿ
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Modifier Tone Letters (U+A700–A71F)

Modifier Tone Letters [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+A70x
U+A71x
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1

Superscripts and Subscripts (U+2070–209F)

Superscripts and Subscripts [1] [2] [3]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+207x
U+208x
U+209x
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 15.1
2. ^ Grey areas indicate non-assigned code points
3. ^ Refer to the Latin-1 Supplement Unicode block for characters ¹ (U+00B9), ² (U+00B2) and ³ (U+00B3)

Font support for IPA

Input by selection from a screen

Applet for character selection Gucharmap screenshot.png
Applet for character selection

Many systems provide a way to select Unicode characters visually. ISO/IEC 14755 refers to this as a screen-selection entry method.

Microsoft Windows has provided a Unicode version of the Character Map program (find it by hitting ⊞ Win+R then type charmap then hit ↵ Enter) since version NT 4.0 – appearing in the consumer edition since XP. This is limited to characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). Characters are searchable by Unicode character name, and the table can be limited to a particular code block. More advanced third-party tools of the same type are also available (a notable freeware example is BabelMap).

macOS provides a "character palette" with much the same functionality, along with searching by related characters, glyph tables in a font, etc. It can be enabled in the input menu in the menu bar under System Preferences → International → Input Menu (or System Preferences → Language and Text → Input Sources) or can be viewed under Edit → Emoji & Symbols in many programs.

Equivalent tools – such as gucharmap (GNOME) or kcharselect (KDE) – exist on most Linux desktop environments.

See also

Related Research Articles

<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 standard written representation for the sounds of speech. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students and teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators, and translators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">N</span> 14th letter of the Latin alphabet

N, or n, is the fourteenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is en, plural ens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T</span> 20th letter of the Latin alphabet

T, or t, is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is tee, plural tees.

A caron is a diacritic mark commonly placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pharyngealization</span> Articulation of consonants or vowels

Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digraph (orthography)</span> Pair of characters used to write one phoneme

A digraph or digram is a pair of characters used in the orthography of a language to write either a single phoneme, or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond to the normal values of the two characters combined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezh</span> Letter of the Latin alphabet

EzhEZH, also called the "tailed z", is a letter, notable for its use in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent the voiced postalveolar fricative consonant. For example, the pronunciation of "si" in vision and precision, or the ⟨s⟩ in treasure. See also the letter ⟨Ž⟩ as used in many Slavic languages, the letter ⟨Ż⟩ as used in Kashubian, the Persian alphabet letter ⟨ژ⟩, the Cyrillic letter ⟨Ж⟩, the Devanagari letter (झ़) and the Esperanto letter ⟨Ĵ⟩.

When used as a diacritic mark, the term dot refers to the glyphs "combining dot above", and "combining dot below" which may be combined with some letters of the extended Latin alphabets in use in a variety of languages. Similar marks are used with other scripts.

In digital typography, combining characters are characters that are intended to modify other characters. The most common combining characters in the Latin script are the combining diacritical marks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilabial click</span> Consonantal sound

The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants that sound like a smack of the lips. They are found as phonemes only in the small Tuu language family, in the ǂ’Amkoe language of Botswana, and in the extinct Damin ritual jargon of Australia. However, bilabial clicks are found paralinguistically for a kiss in various languages, including integrated into a greeting in the Hadza language of Tanzania, and as allophones of labial–velar stops in some West African languages, as of /mw/ in some of the languages neighboring Shona, such as Ndau and Tonga.

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the active articulator and passive articulator. Standard Spanish ⟨rr⟩ as in perro, for example, is an alveolar trill.

Unicode has subscripted and superscripted versions of a number of characters including a full set of Arabic numerals. These characters allow any polynomial, chemical and certain other equations to be represented in plain text without using any form of markup like HTML or TeX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L</span> 12th letter of the Latin alphabet

L, or l, is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is el, plural els.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heng (letter)</span>

Heng is a letter of the Latin alphabet, originating as a typographic ligature of h and ŋ. It is used for a voiceless y-like sound, such as in Dania transcription of the Danish language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J</span> 10th letter of the Latin alphabet

J, or j, is the tenth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is jay, with a now-uncommon variant jy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C</span> 3rd letter of the Latin alphabet

C, or c, is the third letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is cee, plural cees.

In typesetting, the hook or tail is a diacritic mark attached to letters in many alphabets. In shape it looks like a hook and it can be attached below as a descender, on top as an ascender and sometimes to the side. The orientation of the hook can change its meaning: when it is below and curls to the left it can be interpreted as a palatal hook, and when it curls to the right is called hook tail or tail and can be interpreted as a retroflex hook. It should not be mistaken with the hook above, a diacritical mark used in Vietnamese, or the rhotic hook, used in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

<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 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 and was the basis for the characters of the TIPA set of phonetic fonts.

Latin Extended-F is a Unicode block containing modifier letters, nearly all IPA and extIPA, for phonetic transcription. The Latin Extended-F and -G blocks contain the first Latin characters defined outside of the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). They were added to the free Gentium Plus and Andika fonts with version 6.2 in February 2023. Some computers have 𐞃, 𐞎 and 𐞥 supported on the font Calibri.

References

  1. "Spacing modifier letters". Everything2.com. 2002-08-29. Retrieved 2016-01-23.