Sinological phonetic notation

Chinese linguists use a number of additional phonetic symbols that are not part of the standard International Phonetic Alphabet. ^{[1] [2]} These symbols are commonly encountered in introductory textbooks of Chinese phonetics and in introductory descriptive works of any Chinese "dialects". ^[1] Many Western linguists who work in the field of Chinese linguistics also use these symbols, ^[1] for instance, Loggins (2022) writes "[to] introduce the general reader to what they may encounter should they consult one of such publications, I am using the IPA-castaways [ʅ] and [ɿ]". ^[3]

Letters

Vowels

The following vowel letters are used by those who want to specify more equally-spaced symbols in the IPA vowel space. ^[4] They derive from the Americanist proposal by Bloch & Trager. In addition, ⟨ɩ⟩ and ⟨ɷ⟩ may differ slightly from their old IPA usage. ^[4]

Letter	IPA value
	Transcription	Articulation
		Place		Rounding
ɩ	[ ɪ̟ ], [i̞],or[e̝]	near-close	front	−
ɷ	[ ʊ̠ ], [u̞],or[o̝]		back	+
ᴇ	[ e̞ ] or [ɛ̝]	mid	front	−
o̧ [5]	[ o̞ ] or [ɔ̝]		back	+
ω	[ ɔ̞ ] or [ɒ̝]	near-open
ᴀ	[ ɐ̞ ]	open	central	∅

Apical vowels

The following letters derive from Karlgren, from the 'long i' and 'long y' of the Swedish Dialect Alphabet, with a terminal added to resemble a turned iota ⟨℩⟩. While they are frequently called "apical vowels" (derivative from their name in Chinese tradition), they are typically analyzed as syllabic rhotic approximants or (lenited) syllabic fricatives in manner, and may be apical, laminal, or apicolaminal (simultaneously apical and laminal) in place, depending on the language. ^{[6] [7] [8]} Some authors have also described them to exhibit vowel coloring. ^[9] Note that the labialized examples below are somewhat simplified transcriptions for demonstrative purposes.

Letter	IPA value
	Consonantal			Vowel coloring
	Transcription	Articulation
ɿ	[  ɹ̪̍  ],[ɹ̟̍],or[z̞̍]	apical, apicolaminal, or laminal	dental, denti-alveolar, or alveolar	[ ɯ ] / [ᵚ]
ʮ	[ɹ̩ʷ]or[z̩ʷ]			[ u ] / [ᵘ]
ʅ	[  ɹ̠̍],[ɻ̍  ],or[ʐ̞̍  ]	apical or subapical	postalveolar or retroflex	[ ɨ ] / [ᶤ]
ʯ	[ɻ̍ʷ]or[ʐ̍ʷ]			[ ʉ ] / [ᶶ]

Alveolo-palatal consonants

The following consonant letters are featural derivatives of ⟨ɕ⟩ and ⟨ʑ⟩, though which in the Sinological literature often stand for palato-alveolar [ʃ] and [ʒ] rather than alveolo-palatal [ɕ] and [ʑ] of the IPA. Aside from the aforementioned consonants, the others listed below are always intended to be alveolo-palatal.

Letter	IPA value
	Transcription	Articulation
		Manner	Voicing
ȡ	[ ɟ̟ ] or [d̠ʲ]	plosive	+
ȶ	[ c̟ ] or [t̠ʲ]		−
ȴ	[ ʎ̟ ] or [l̠ʲ]	lateral	+
ȵ	[ ɲ̟ ] or [n̠ʲ]	nasal
ʑ	[ ʑ ] or [ ʒ ]	sibilant fricative
ɕ	[ ɕ ] or [ ʃ ]		−

Superscripts

Unicode supports modifier (superscript) variants of the IPA symbols and composite ⟨o̧⟩. For the remainder of the symbols in angled brackets above, support for modifier variants was approved in 2025 for inclusion in Unicode 18. ^[10]

Tone diacritics

Sinologists tend to use superscript Chao tone numerals rather than the Chao tone letters of the IPA, even though the numerals conflict with their values in other parts of the world. The correspondence is 1 for extra-low pitch and 5 for extra-high; single digits are frequently doubled to prevent confusion with tone numbers, though sometimes a single digit is used with a short vowel and a double digit with a long vowel.

Numeral		IPA value
Short	Long	Letter	Pitch
¹	¹¹	[˩]	Low
²	²²	[˨]	Low-mid
³	³³	[˧]	Mid
⁴	⁴⁴	[˦]	High-mid
⁵	⁵⁵	[˥]	High

Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China

The Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China is a set of nationally recognized phonetic symbols based on the IPA. It consists of the following sets of symbols, ^[11]

• the full set of IPA consonant, vowel and tone letters, as well as a substantial fraction of historical and ext-IPA;
• the Sinological letters listed above;
• the affricate ligatures ʦʣ,ʧʤ,𝼜𝼙,ʨʥ,ꭧꭦ, plus analogous ligatures for pɸbβ,pfbv,tθdð,cçɟʝ,kxɡɣ/gɣ,qχɢʁ, of which tθ dð are scheduled for Unicode 18;
• Americanist notation noted in the IPA handbook such as č and ƛ; Greek letters commonly substituted for IPA such as γ and η; ψ of UPA, and þ
• the IPA variants schwa with the hook of an r, gelded question mark, and baby gamma;
• an ʅ-ʯ ligature, which is scheduled for Unicode 18, and what looks like an ι-ɕ ligature;
• tone letters include both generic ◌˥◌˦◌˧◌˨◌˩ and tone-sandhi ◌꜒◌꜓◌꜔◌꜕◌꜖, and the various combinations they form; the neutral-tone letters ◌꜈◌꜉◌꜊◌꜋◌꜌ and sandhi ◌꜍◌꜎◌꜏◌꜐◌꜑, and the traditional tone marks of yin ꜀píng, ꜂shǎng, qù꜄, ruʔ꜆ and yang ꜁píng, ꜃shǎng, qù꜅, ruʔ꜇;
• the full set of IPA combining and spacing diacritics, including old IPA / Sinological ⟨ʻ⟩ for aspiration, as well as some historical and ext-IPA diacritics;
• the Sinological dot ⟨ꞏ⟩ ;
• the arrows ↑↓↗↘⤴⤵↕ and the inverse of ↕ [two arrows facing each other vertically];
• ≺ for inhalation and the null symbol ⟨∅⟩.

The affricate ligatures, ι-ɕ ligature, and facing vertical arrows are not planned for Unicode.

References

1. Handel, Zev (2017). "Non-IPA Symbols in IPA Transcriptions in China". In Sybesma, Rint (ed.). Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. Brill.
2. Chang, Kalvin; Cui, Chenxuan; Kim, Youngmin; Mortensen, David (October 2022). WikiHan: A New Comparative Dataset for Chinese Languages. Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. Gyeongju Hwabaek International Convention Center: International Committee on Computational Linguistics. p. 3565.
3. Loggins, Nathan (2022). Ethnic History and Language Typology in Western China: The Cases of Xining, Daohua and Bai (PDF) (Thesis). University of Washington. pp. xv, xvi.
4. L2/24-147: Modifier Sinological extensions to the IPA
5. Note that Bloch & Trager use a small capital omega ⟨ꭥ⟩ instead of an o with cedilla ⟨o̧⟩ for the mid back rounded vowel.
6. Lee, Wai-Sum; Zee, Eric (June 2003). "Standard Chinese (Beijing)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 33 (1): 109–112. doi: 10.1017/S0025100303001208 .
7. Lee-Kim, Sang-Im (December 2014). "Revisiting Mandarin 'apical vowels': An articulatory and acoustic study". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 44 (3): 261–282. doi:10.1017/S0025100314000267. JSTOR   26352122. S2CID   16432272.
8. Edmondson, Jerold A.; Esling, John H.; Ziwo, Lama (拉玛兹偓) (April 2017). "Nuosu Yi (Illustrations of the IPA)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 47 (1): 87–97. doi: 10.1017/S0025100315000444 . S2CID   232345858.
9. Wells, John (2007-03-15). "Chinese apical vowels". John Wells's phonetic blog. Archived from the original on 2021-10-24.
10. Unicode Pipeline, 2025
11. The Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China [中国通用音标符号集. Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, Language and Writing Standards no. GF 3007-2006.