Wiktionary:International Phonetic Alphabet

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International Phonetic Alphabet

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The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. It is intended as a notational standard for the phonemic and phonetic representation of all spoken languages.

This page gives a general overview of the symbols used in the IPA. As it is used for all languages, it would be impractical to explain to English speakers how to pronounce all of the sounds. Therefore, the symbols are grouped based on the features they have, or the parts of the mouth used to pronounce them. A dental consonant, for example, is pronounced using the teeth, while a bilabial consonant uses both lips.

Pages explaining the pronunciation of individual languages can be found in Category:Pronunciation by language. General guidance for the presentation of pronunciations on Wiktionary is at Wiktionary:Pronunciation.

Brackets

There are two types of brackets.

[ ... ] is for real pronunciations.

/ ... / is for allophones in a certain language.

For example, the pronunciations of "pin" and "spin" can be written as /ˈpɪn/ and /ˈspɪn/ since their "p"s are recognised as a same sound for English speakers. But their real sounds are different like [pʰɪn] and [spɪn].

So we use / ... / for simple when we talk about only one language. But we usually need [ ... ] to describe the real sounds.

Consonants (pulmonic)

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Linguolabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal/ Epiglottal	Glottal
Plosive	p b	p̪ b̪	t̼ d̼	t̪ d̪	t d		ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k ɡ	q ɢ	ʡ	ʔ
Nasal	m	ɱ	n̼	n̪	n		ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Trill	ʙ		r̼	r̪	r					ʀ	ʜ ʢ
Tap or Flap	ⱱ̟	ⱱ	ɾ̼	ɾ̪	ɾ		ɽ			ɢ̆
Lateral Tap or Flap					ɺ		𝼈	ʎ̯	ʟ̆
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ̼ ð̼	θ ð s̪ z̪	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ ʁ	ħ ʕ	h ɦ
Approximant	β̞	ʋ		ð̞	ɹ		ɻ	j	ɰ
Lateral Fricative				ɬ̪ ɮ̪	ɬ ɮ		ꞎ 𝼅	𝼆 ʎ̝/𝼆̬	𝼄 ʟ̝/𝼄̬
Lateral Approximant			l̼	l̪	l		ɭ	ʎ	ʟ

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

Consonants (non-pulmonic)

Clicks		Voiced implosives		Ejectives
ʘ	Bilabial click release	ɓ	Bilabial voiced implosive	ʼ	For example:
ǀ	Dental click release	ɗ	Alveolar voiced implosive	pʼ	Bilabial ejective stop
ǃ	(Post)alveolar click release	ᶑ	Retroflex voiced implosive	tʼ	Alveolar ejective stop
ǂ	Palatal click release	ʄ	Palatal voiced implosive	kʼ	Velar ejective stop
𝼊	Retroflex click release	ɠ	Velar voiced implosive	sʼ	Alveolar ejective fricative
ǁ	Lateral click release	ʛ	Uvular voiced implosive	t͡ʃʼ	Post-alveolar ejective affricate

Vowels

Front

N.-front

Central

N.-back

Back

Close

i•y

ɨ•ʉ

ɯ•u

ɪ•ʏ

ʊ

e•ø

ɘ•ɵ

ɤ•o

ə

ɛ•œ

ɜ•ɞ

ʌ•ɔ

æ

ɐ

a•ɶ

ɑ•ɒ

Near-close

Close-mid

Mid

Open-mid

Near-open

Open

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.

Co-articulated consonants

ʍ	Voiceless labial-velar fricative
w	Voiced labial-velar approximant
ɥ	Voiced labial-palatal approximant
ɕ ʑ	Alveolo-palatal fricatives
ɧ	Simultaneous ʃ and x

Affricates and double articulations can be represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar if necessary:
k͡p t͡s

Suprasegmentals

ˈ	Primary stress (indicated before the stressed element)
ˌ	Secondary stress (indicated before the stressed element)
ː	Long
ˑ	Half-long
˘	Extra-short
.	Syllable break
ǀ	Minor (foot) group
ǁ	Major (intonation) group
‿	Linking (absence of a break)

Tones and word accents

˥	꜒	Extra-high (top) tone
˦	꜓	Mid-high tone
˧	꜔	Mid tone
˨	꜕	Mid-low tone
˩	꜖	Extra-low (bottom) tone
ꜛ	ꜜ	Upstep and downstep

Tone letters may come before or after a word or syllable. In the IPA Handbook, they come before to indicate prosodic pitch in Portuguese, and after to indicate lexical tone in Cantonese.

They may also face left or right. The distinction is used for tone sandhi.

Upstep and downstep always come before the syllable.

Diacritics

Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. ŋ̊.

̥	Voiceless	̤	Breathy voiced	̪	Dental
̬	Voiced	̰	Creaky voiced	̺	Apical
ʰ	Aspirated	̼	Linguolabial	̻	Laminal
̹	More rounded	ʷ	Labialized	̃	Nasalized
̜	Less rounded	ʲ	Palatalized	ⁿ	Nasal release
̟	Advanced	ˠ	Velarized	ˡ	Lateral release
̠	Retracted	ˁ	Pharyngealized	̚	No audible release
̈	Centralized	̴	Velarized or pharyngealized
̽	Mid-centralized	̝	Raised (ɹ̝ = voiced alveolar fricative)
̩	Syllabic	̞	Lowered (β̞ = voiced bilabial approximant)
̯	Non-syllabic	̘	Advanced tongue root
˞	Rhoticity	̙	Retracted tongue root
͍	Labial spreading	͈	Strong articulation	͊	Denasal
͆	Dentolabial	͉	Weak articulation	͋	Nasal escape
̪͆	Interdental/Bidental	\	Reiterated articulation	͌	Velopharyngeal friction
͇	Alveolar	͎	Whistled articulation	↓	Ingressive airflow
̼	Linguolabial	͢	Sliding articulation	↑	Egressive airflow