Wiktionary:International Phonetic Alphabet

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.

Consonants (pulmonic)

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal		Glottal
Plosive	p    b	p̪    b̪	t̪    d̪	t    d		ʈ    ɖ	c    ɟ	k    ɡ	q    ɢ			ʔ
Nasal	m	ɱ	n̪	n		ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Trill	ʙ		r̪	r		ɽ͡r̥			ʀ
Tap or Flap	ⱱ̟	ⱱ	ɾ̪	ɾ		ɽ			ɢ̆
Lateral Tap or Flap				ɺ			ʎ̯	ʟ̆
Fricative	ɸ    β	f    v	θ    ð	s    z	ʃ    ʒ	ʂ    ʐ	ç    ʝ	x    ɣ	χ    ʁ	ħ    ʕ		h    ɦ
Lateral Fricative				ɬ    ɮ
Approximant	β̞	ʋ		ɹ		ɻ	j	ɰ
Lateral Approximant			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	ɓ	Bilabial voiced implosive	ʼ	For example:
ǀ	Dental click	ɗ	Dental/alveolar voiced implosive	pʼ	Bilabial ejective
ǃ	(Post)alveolar click	ʄ	Palatal voiced implosive	tʼ	Dental/alveolar ejective
ǂ	Palatoalveolar click	ɠ	Velar voiced implosive	kʼ	Velar ejective
ǁ	Alveolar lateral click	ʛ	Uvular voiced implosive	sʼ	Alveolar fricative ejective

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.

Other symbols

ʍ	Voiceless labial-velar fricative
w	Voiced labial-velar approximant
ɥ	Voiced labial-palatal approximant
ʜ	Voiceless epiglottal fricative
ʢ	Voiced epiglottal fricative
ʡ	Epiglottal plosive
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) "key"tone
˦	High tone
˧	Mid tone
˨	Low tone
˩	Extra-low (bottom) tone

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

See also

• Wikipedia: International Phonetic Alphabet
• Wikipedia: pronunciation respelling for English
• Wikipedia: rhotic and non-rhotic dialects
• Wikipedia: long vowels