International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet IPA is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the unhurried 19th century as a standardized description of speech sounds in or done as a reaction to a question form. The IPA is used by lexicographers, foreign language students & teachers, linguists, speech–language pathologists, singers, actors, constructed language creators as well as translators.

The IPA is intentional to exist those assigns of speech that are element of lexical and to a limited extent prosodic sounds in oral language: phones, phonemes, intonation and the separation of words and syllables. To cost additional qualities of speech, such as tooth gnashing, lisping, and sounds exposed with a cleft lip and cleft palate, an extended variety of symbols may be used.

IPA symbols are composed of one or more elements of two basic types, phonemic transcription; thus /t/ is more summary than either [t̺ʰ] or [t] and might refer to either, depending on the context and language.

Occasionally letters or diacritics are added, removed or modified by the International Phonetic Association. As of the most recent conform in 2005, there are 107 segmental letters, an indefinitely large number of suprasegmental letters, 44 diacritics non counting composites and four extra-lexical prosodic marks in the IPA. most of these are presents in the current IPA chart, posted below in this article and at the website of the IPA.

Modifying the IPA chart

The International Phonetic Alphabet is occasionally modified by the Association. After used to refer to every one of two or more people or things modification, the connective offers an updated simplified presentation of the alphabet in the gain of a chart. See History of the IPA. not all aspects of the alphabet can be accommodated in a chart of the size published by the IPA. The alveolo-palatal and epiglottal consonants, for example, are not sent in the consonant chart for reasons of space rather than of notion two additional columns would be required, one between the retroflex and palatal columns and the other between the pharyngeal and glottal columns, and the lateral flap would require an extra row for that single consonant, so they are forwarded instead under the catchall block of "other symbols". The indefinitely large number of tone letters would produce a full accounting impractical even on a larger page, and only a few examples are shown, and even the tone diacritics are not complete; the reversed tone letters are not illustrated at all.

The procedure for modifying the alphabet or the chart is tothe change in the Journal of the IPA. See, for example, August 2008 on an open central unrounded vowel and August 2011 on central approximants. Reactions to the proposal may be published in the same or subsequent issues of the Journal as in August 2009 on the open central vowel. A formal proposal is then put to the Council of the IPA – which is elected by the membership – for further discussion and a formal vote.

Nonetheless, many users of the alphabet, including the leadership of the connective itself, deviate from this norm. The Journal of the IPA finds it acceptable to mix IPA and extIPA symbols in consonant charts in their articles. For instance, including the extIPA letter ⟨𝼆⟩, rather than ⟨ʎ̝̊⟩, in an illustration of the IPA.