International Phonetic Alphabet

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International Phonetic Alphabet
Type Partially featural alphabet
Spoken languages Used for phonetic and phonemic transcription of any language
Time period since 1888
Parent systems Romic alphabet
 → Phonotypic alphabet
  → International Phonetic Alphabet

Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
International
Phonetic Alphabet

History
Nonstandard symbols
Extensions to the IPA
Naming conventions
IPA for English

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)[note 1] is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic Association as a standardized representation of the sounds of spoken language.[1] The IPA is used by linguists, speech pathologists and therapists, foreign language teachers and students, singers, actors, lexicographers, and translators.[2][3]

The IPA is designed to represent only those qualities of speech that are distinctive in spoken language: phonemes, intonation, and the separation of words and syllables.[1] To represent additional qualities of speech such as tooth-gnashing, lisping, and sounds made with a cleft palate, an extended set of symbols called the Extensions to the IPA is used.[2]

Occasionally symbols are added, removed, or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of 2008, there are 107 distinct letters, 52 diacritics, and 4 prosody marks in the IPA proper.

History

In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what would come to be known (from 1897 onwards) as the International Phonetic Association (in French, l’Association phonétique internationale).[4] The original alphabet was based on a spelling reform for English known as the Romic alphabet, but in order to make it usable for other languages, the values of the symbols were allowed to vary from language to language.[5] For example, the sound [ʃ] (sh in shoe) was originally represented with the letter <c> in English, but with the letter <x> in French.[4] However, in 1888, the alphabet was revised so as to be uniform across languages, thus providing the base for all future revisions.[4][6]

Since its creation, the IPA has undergone a number of revisions. After major revisions and expansions in 1900 and 1932, the IPA remained unchanged until the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989. A minor revision took place in 1993, with the addition of four mid-central vowels[2] and the removal of symbols for voiceless implosives.[7] The alphabet was last revised in May 2005, with the addition of a symbol for the labiodental flap.[8] Apart from the addition and removal of symbols, changes to the IPA have consisted largely in renaming symbols and categories, and modifying typefaces.[2]

Extensions of the alphabet are relatively recent; "Extensions to the IPA" was created in 1990 and officially adopted by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association in 1994.[9]

Description

The general principle of the IPA is to provide one symbol for each distinctive sound (or speech segment).[10] This means that it does not use letter combinations to represent single sounds,[note 2] or single letters to represent multiple sounds (the way <x> represents [ks] or [gz] in English). There are no letters that have context-dependent sound values (as <c> does in English and other European languages), and finally, the IPA does not usually have separate letters for two sounds if no known language makes a distinction between them (a property known as "selectiveness"[2]).[note 3]

Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 represent consonants and vowels, 31 are diacritics that are used to further specify these sounds, and 19 are used to indicate such qualities as length, tone, stress, and intonation.[note 4]

Letterforms

The symbols chosen for the IPA are meant to harmonize with the Latin alphabet.[note 5] 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.[note 6] In fact, there are a few symbols, such as that of the voiced pharyngeal fricative, <ʕ>, which, though modified to blend with the Latin alphabet, were inspired by glyphs in other writing systems (in this case, the Arabic letter <ﻉ>‎, `ain).[7]

Despite its preference for letters that harmonize with the Latin alphabet, the International Phonetic Association has occasionally admitted symbols that do not have this property. For example, before 1989, the IPA symbols for click consonants were <ʘ>, <ʇ>, <ʗ>, and <ʖ>, all of which were derived either from existing symbols, or from Latin and Greek letters. However, except for <ʘ>, none of these symbols was widely used among Khoisanists or Bantuists, and as a result, they were replaced by the less Latin-like but more widespread symbols <ʘ>, <ǀ>, <ǃ>, <ǂ>, and <ǁ> at the IPA Kiel Convention in 1989.[11]

Symbols and sounds

The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, using as few non-Latin forms as possible.[4] The Association created the IPA so that the sound values of most consonants taken from the Latin alphabet would correspond to “international usage”.[4] Hence, the letters <b>, <d>, <f>, (hard) <ɡ>, (non-silent) <h>, (unaspirated) <k>, <l>, <m>, <n>, (unaspirated) <p>, (voiceless) <s>, (unaspirated) <t>, <v>, <w>, and <z> have the values used in English; and the vowels from the Latin alphabet (<a>, <e>, <i>, <o>, <u>) correspond to the sound values of Latin: [i] is like the vowel in machine, [u] is as in rule, etc. Other letters may differ from English, but are used with these values in other European languages, such as <j>, <r>, and <y>.

This inventory was extended by using capital or cursive forms, diacritics, and rotation. There are also several derived or taken from the Greek alphabet, though the sound values may differ. For example, <ʋ> is a vowel in Greek, but an only indirectly related consonant in the IPA. Two of these (<θ> and <χ>) are used unmodified in form; for others (including <β>, <ɣ>, <ɛ>, <ɸ>, and <ʋ>) subtly different glyph shapes have been devised, which may be encoded in Unicode separately from their "parent" letters.

The sound values of modified Latin letters can often be derived from those of the original letters.[12] 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 generally 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, for example, 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.