International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)^[1] is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists. It is intended to provide a standardized, accurate and unique way of representing the sounds of any spoken language,^[2] and is used, often on a day-to-day basis, by linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, foreign language teachers, lexicographers, and translators.^[3] In its unextended form (as of 2005) it has approximately 107 base symbols and 55 modifiers.^[4]

The symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet are divided into three categories: Letters (which indicate “basic” sounds), diacritics (which further specify those sounds), and suprasegmentals (which indicate such qualities as speed, tone, and stress). These categories are then divided into smaller sections: letters are divided into vowels and consonants,^[5] and diacritics and suprasegmentals are divided according to whether they indicate articulation, phonation, tone, intonation, or stress.^[2] From time to time, symbols are added, removed, and modified by the International Phonetic Association.

Although the IPA is meant to represent only those qualities of speech that are relevant to language itself (such as tongue position, manner of articulation, and the separation and accentuation of words and syllables),^[2] an extended set of symbols called Extended IPA has been created by phonologists to record qualities of speech that have no direct effect on meaning (such as tooth-gnashing, lisping, and sounds made by people with a cleft).^[3]

History

Main article: History of the IPA

The development of the IPA began in 1886, when a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what would come to be known as the International Phonetic Association. The association's original intention was to create a different set of phonetic symbols for each language, where one symbol may have a different definition from language to language.^[6] For example, the sound /ʃ/ (sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter <c> in English but with the letter <x> in French.^[7] However, for some reason it eventually decided to keep the alphabet the same for all languages.^[8] The first official version of the IPA was released in 1888, two years after the formation of the International Phonetic Association,^[9] based upon the Romic alphabet of Henry Sweet,^[10][11] which in turn was formed from the Phonotypic Alphabet of Isaac Pitman and Alexander John Ellis.^[12]

Since its creation, the organization of vowels and consonants has largely remained the same. However, the alphabet itself has undergone a few revisions. The IPA Kiel Convention in 1989 made many changes to the earlier 1932 version. A minor revision took place in 1993, with the addition of the mid-central vowel^[3] and the removal of symbols for voiceless implosives,^[13] and the alphabet was last revised in May 2005, when a symbol for the labiodental flap was added.^[14]

Apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories, and modifying typefaces.^[3]

Extensions of the alphabet are relatively recent; the Extended IPA was first created in 1991 and revised to 1997. Also, the VoQS (Voice Quality Symbols) were proposed in 1995 to provide a system for more detailed transcription of voice production.^[15]

Description

The general principle of the IPA is to provide one symbol for each sound (or speech segment). This means that the IPA does not use letter combinations unless the sound being represented can be regarded as a sequence of two or more sounds.^[16] The IPA also does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them (a property known as “selectiveness”^[3]),^[17][18] and it does not use letters that represent multiple sounds, the way <x> represents the double consonant [ks] in English. Additionally, the IPA does not use letters whose sound value is context-dependent, such as c in English (and most other European languages).

Letterforms

The symbols chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet.^[19] For this reason, most symbols are either Latin or Greek letters, or modifications thereof. However, there are symbols that are neither: for example, the symbol denoting the glottal stop [ʔ] has the form of a “gelded” question mark, and was originally an apostrophe.^[20] Indeed, some symbols, such as that of the pharyngeal fricative [ʕ], though modified to look more Latin, were inspired by glyphs in other writing systems (in this case, the Arabic letter <ﻉ>‎, `ain).^[13]

Despite its preference for letters that harmonize with the Latin alphabet, the International Phonetic Association has occasionally admitted symbols that seem to have nothing to do with Roman letters. For example, prior to 1989, the IPA symbols for click consonants were [​ʘ​], [​ʇ​], [​ʗ​], and [​ʖ​], all of which are clearly derived from Latin and Greek letters, as well as punctuation marks. However, except for [ʘ], none of these symbols was reflective of contemporary practice among Khoisanists (who use symbols for click consonants the most frequently). As a result, they were replaced by the more iconic symbols [​ʘ​], [​ǀ​], [​ǃ​], [​ǂ​], and [​ǁ​] at the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989.^[21]

Symbols and sounds

The majority of the symbols in the IPA have been deliberately based on the letter forms of the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.^[22] The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonants taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to their pronunciation in the majority of European languages (including English).^[23] These consonants are [b], [d], [f], (hard) [ɡ], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p], (voiceless) [s], [t], [v], and [z]. The other consonants from the Latin alphabet, [c], [h], [j], [q], [r], [w], [x], and [y], correspond to the sounds these letters represent in various other languages:

IPA	as pronounced in
[c]	Kinyarwanda, IAST transliteration of Sanskrit, Irish (in some contexts)
[h]	English, most Germanic languages
[j]	most Germanic and Slavic languages
[q]	Quechua, Aymara; Inuktitut; Arabic transliteration
[r]	Slavic, most Romance
[w]	English
[x]	Russian <х> in the Cyrillic alphabet
[y]	German, Old English and the Scandinavian languages; Ancient Greek <Υ> (upsilon);

The vowels from the Latin alphabet ([a], [e], [i], [o], [u]) correspond to the vowels of Spanish. [i] is like the vowel in piece, [u] is as in rule, etc.

Symbols derived from the Greek alphabet include [β], [ɣ], [ɛ], [θ], [ɸ], and [χ]. Of these, the only ones that closely correspond to the Greek letters they are derived from are [ɣ] and [θ]. Although [β], [ɛ], [ɸ], and [χ] denote beta-like, epsilon-like, phi-like, and chi-like sounds, they do not correspond to them exactly. The letter [ʋ], though visually similar to the Greek vowel letter <υ>, upsilon, is actually a consonant.

The sound-values of modifications of Latin letters can usually be derived from those of the original letters.^[24] For example, letters with a rightward-facing hook at the bottom represent retroflex consonants; and small capital letters usually represent uvular consonants. Apart from the fact that certain kinds of modification to the shape of a letter correspond to certain kinds of modification to the sound represented, there is no way to deduce the sound represented by a symbol from the shape of the symbol (unlike in Visible Speech).

Beyond the letters themselves, there are a variety of secondary symbols which aid in transcription. 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 that are often employed.

Usage

Further information: Phonetic transcription

Although at first the IPA may seem too precise to offer any choice in how to transcribe speech, it is in fact possible to do so with various levels of accuracy. The most accurate kind of phonetic transcription, in which sounds are described in as much detail as the system allows, without any regard for the linguistic significance of the distinctions thus made, is known as narrow transcription. Anything else is termed broad transcription, though “broad” is obviously a relative term. Both kinds of transcriptions are generally enclosed in brackets,^[2] but broad transcriptions are also sometimes enclosed in slashes.

Use in dictionaries

Many British English dictionaries, such as the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, now use the International Phonetic Alphabet to represent the pronunciation of words.^[25] However, most American (and some British) volumes use conventions designed to be more intuitive for readers yet unfamiliar with the IPA. For example, the pronunciation-representation systems in many American dictionaries (such as Merriam-Webster^[26]) use “y” for IPA [j] and “sh” for IPA [ʃ], reflecting common representations of those sounds in written English. (In IPA, [y] represents the sound of the German ü, and [sh] represents the pair of sounds in grass hut.)

One of the benefits of using an alternative to the IPA is the ability to use a single symbol for a sound pronounced differently in different dialects. For example, the American Heritage Dictionary uses ŏ for the vowel in cot (kŏt) but ô for the one in caught (kôt).^[27] American regional dialects without the caught-cot merger generally pronounce cŏt like IPA [kʰɑt] (with an open central unrounded vowel) and côt like IPA [kʰɔt] (with an open back rounded vowel), whereas those with the merger pronounce the vowels ŏ and ô the same way (for example, like IPA [ɒ] in the Boston dialect). Using one symbol for the vowel in cot (instead of having different symbols for different pronunciations of the o) enables the dictionary to provide meaningful pronunciations for speakers of most dialects of English.

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.^[28]

Educational initiative

There is some interest in using native speakers to produce sound and video files of sufficient breadth to completely demonstrate all the speech sounds covered by the IPA. Such a project would encompass a large subset of the world's languages. This would aid linguistic and anthropologic research, as well as help teach language learning. Specifically, the development of a reference standard using the IPA (mirroring the idea of the Rosetta Stone) could be used in order to preserve intact examples of the sounds of human language. For education, the IPA can help standardize resources which prepare students and very young children (ages 6-36 months) for universal language acquisition through familiarization and subsequent imitation of the breadth of human speech sounds.^[29]

Letters

The International Phonetic Alphabet divides its symbols into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.^[30]

Consonants (pulmonic)

Main article: Consonant

A pulmonic consonant is a consonant made by obstructing the glottis or oral cavity and either simultaneously or subsequently letting out air from the lungs. Pulmonic consonants make up the majority of consonants in the IPA, as well as in human language. All consonants in the English language fall into this category.^[31]

The pulmonic consonant table, which includes most consonants, is arranged in rows that designate manner of articulation, meaning how the consonant is produced, and columns that designate place of articulation, meaning where in the vocal tract the consonant is produced. The main chart includes only consonants with a single place of articulation.

Notes:

• Asterisks (*) mark reported sounds that do not (yet) have official IPA symbols. See the articles for ad hoc symbols found in the literature.
• Daggers (†) mark IPA symbols that do not yet have official Unicode support. Since May 2005, this is the case of the labiodental flap, symbolized by a right-hook v: Image:Labiodental flap (Gentium).png [1]. 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 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].

Coarticulation

Coarticulated consonants are sounds in which two individual consonants are pronounced at the same time. In English, the [w] in “went” is a coarticulated consonant, as the lips are rounded while the back of the tongue is raised simultaneously. Other languages, such as French and Swedish, have different coarticulated consonants.

Notes:

• [ɧ] is described as a “simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]”.^[32] However, this analysis is disputed. See voiceless palatal-velar fricative for discussion.

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, <c ɟ>, 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.

Note:

• If your browser uses Arial Unicode MS to display IPA characters, the following incorrectly formed sequences may look better due to a bug in that font: ts͡, tʃ͡, tɕ͡, dz͡, dʒ͡, dʑ͡, tɬ͡, kp͡, ɡb͡, ŋm͡.

Consonants (non-pulmonic)

Non-pulmonic consonants are sounds which are made without the lungs. These include clicks (found in the Khoisan languages of Africa) and implosives (found in languages such as Swahili).

Notes:

• All clicks are doubly articulated and require two symbols: a velar or uvular stop, plus a symbol for the anterior release: [k͡ǂ, ɡ͡ǂ, ŋ͡ǂ, q͡ǂ, ɢ͡ǂ, ɴ͡ǂ] etc., or [ǂ͡k, ǂ͡ɡ, ǂ͡ŋ, ǂ͡q, ǂ͡ɢ, ǂ͡ɴ]. When the dorsal articulation is omitted, a [k] may usually be assumed.
• Symbols for the voiceless implosives [ƥ, ƭ, ƈ, ƙ, ʠ] are no longer supported by the IPA, though they remain in Unicode. Instead, the IPA uses the voiced equivalent with a voiceless diacritic: [ɓ̥, ʛ̥], etc.
• Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not "explicitly recognized" by the IPA, a retroflex implosive, [ᶑ], is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite [ɗ̢].
• The ejective symbol is often seen for glottalized but pulmonic sonorants, such as [mʼ], [lʼ], [wʼ], [aʼ], but these are more properly transcribed as creaky ([m̰], [l̰], [w̰], [a̰]).

Vowels

Main article: Vowel

The IPA defines a vowel as a sound which occurs at a syllable center.^[33] Below is a chart depicting the vowels of the IPA. The IPA maps the vowels according to the position of the tongue.

The vertical axis of the chart is mapped by vowel height. Vowels pronounced with the tongue lowered are at the bottom, and vowels pronounced with the tongue raised are at the top. For example, [ɑ] (said as the "a" in "palm") is at the bottom because the tongue is lowered in this position. However, [i] (said as the vowel in "meet") is at the top because the sound is said with the tongue raised to the roof of the mouth.

In a similar fashion, the horizontal axis of the chart is determined by vowel backness. Vowels with the tongue moved towards the front of the mouth (such as [ɛ], the vowel in "met") are to the left in the chart, while those in which it is moved to the back (such as [ʌ], the vowel in "but") are placed to the right in the chart.

In places where vowels are paired, the right represents a rounded vowel while the left is its unrounded counterpart.

• View the vowel chart as an image

Notes:

• [a] is officially a front vowel, but there is little distinction between front and central open vowels, and [a] is frequently used for an open central vowel.
• [ʊ] and [ɪ] are written as <ɷ> and <ɩ> respectively in older versions of the IPA.

Diacritics

Diacritics are small markings which are placed around the IPA letter in order to show a certain alteration or more specific description in the letter's pronunciation.^[34] Sub-diacritics (markings normally placed below a letter or symbol) may be placed above a symbol with a descender (informally called a tail), e.g. ŋ̊.^[35]

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), o^ʊ (diphthongization). More advanced diacritcs were developed in the Extended IPA for more specific pronunciation encoding.