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The
International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...
was created soon after the
International Phonetic Association The International Phonetic Association (IPA; French: ', ''API'') is an organization that promotes the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. The IPA's major contribution to phonetics is the Interna ...
was established in the late 19th century. It was intended as an international system of phonetic transcription for
oral language A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
s, originally for pedagogical purposes. The Association was established in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in 1886 by French and British language teachers led by
Paul Passy Paul Édouard Passy (; 13 January 1859, Versailles21 March 1940, Bourg-la-Reine) was a French linguist, founder of the International Phonetic Association in 1886. He took part in the elaboration of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Early life ...
. The prototype of the alphabet appeared in . The Association based their alphabet upon the
Romic alphabet The Romic Alphabet, sometimes known as the Romic Reform, is a phonetic alphabet proposed by Henry Sweet. It descends from Ellis's Palaeotype alphabet and English Phonotypic Alphabet, and is the direct ancestor of the International Phonetic Alph ...
of
Henry Sweet Henry Sweet (15 September 1845 – 30 April 1912) was an English philologist, phonetician and grammarian.''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', as hosted oencyclopedia.com/ref> As a philologist, he specialized in the Germanic lang ...
, which in turn was based on the
Phonotypic Alphabet The English Phonotypic Alphabet is a phonetic alphabet developed by Sir Isaac Pitman and Alexander John Ellis originally as an English language spelling reform. Although never gaining wide acceptance, elements of it were incorporated into the ...
of
Isaac Pitman Sir Isaac Pitman (4 January 1813 – 22 January 1897) was a teacher of the :English language who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in ''Stenographic Soundhand'' in 183 ...
and the Palæotype of Alexander John Ellis. The alphabet has undergone a number of revisions during its history, the most significant being the one put forth at the Kiel Convention in 1989. Changes to the alphabet are proposed and discussed in the Association's organ, ''
Journal of the International Phonetic Association The ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'' (''JIPA'', ) is a peer-reviewed academic journal that appears three times a year. It is published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Phonetic Association. It was e ...
'', previously known as ''Le Maître Phonétique'' and before that as ''The Phonetic Teacher'', and then put to a vote by the Association's Council. The
extensions to the IPA The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA , are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the Internati ...
for disordered speech were created in 1990, with its first major revision approved in 2016.


Early alphabets

The International Phonetic Association was founded in Paris in 1886 under the name ''Dhi Fonètik Tîtcerz' Asóciécon'' (The Phonetic Teachers' Association), a development of ''L'Association phonétique des professeurs d'Anglais'' ("The English Teachers' Phonetic Association"), to promote an international phonetic alphabet, designed primarily for English, French, and German, for use in schools to facilitate acquiring foreign pronunciation. Originally the letters had different phonetic values from language to language. For example, English was transcribed with and French with . As of May and November 1887, the alphabets were as follows:


1888 alphabet

In the August–September 1888 issue of its journal, the Phonetic Teachers' Association published a standardized alphabet intended for transcription of multiple languages, reflecting its members' consensus that only one set of alphabet ought to be used for all languages, along with a set of six principles:
# There should be a separate sign for each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language, can change the meaning of a word. # When any sound is found in several languages, the same sign should be used in all. This applies also to very similar shades of sound. # The alphabet should consist as much as possible of the ordinary letters of the roman alphabet; as few new letters as possible being used. # In assigning values to the roman letters, international usage should decide. # The new letters should be suggestive of the sounds they represent, by their resemblance to the old ones. # Diacritic marks should be avoided, being trying for the eyes and troublesome to write.
The principles would govern all future development of the alphabet, with the exception of #5 and in some cases #2, until they were revised drastically in 1989. #6 has also been loosened, as diacritics have been admitted for limited purposes. The devised alphabet was as follows. The letters marked with an asterisk were "provisional shapes", which were meant to be replaced "when circumstances will allow".


1900 chart

During the 1890s, the alphabet was expanded to cover sounds of Arabic and other non-European languages which did not easily fit the Latin alphabet. Throughout the first half of the 1900s, the Association published a series of booklets outlining the specifications of the alphabet in several languages, the first being a French edition published in 1900. In the book, the chart appeared as follows: Initially, the charts were arranged with laryngeal sounds on the left and labial ones on the right, following the convention of Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech. Vowels and consonants were placed in a single chart, reflecting how sounds ranged in openness from stops (top) to open vowels (bottom). The
voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
was represented by (distinct from , which represents a plosive) since 1895 until it was replaced by in 1900. too would be replaced by in 1931. Not all letters, especially those in the fricatives row which included both
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s in the modern sense and
approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
s, were self-explanatory and could only be discerned in the notes following the chart, which redefined letters using the orthographies of languages wherein the sounds they represent occur. For example:
sthe Arabic ain odern is a simple bilabial fricative odern ... is the English hard ''th'', Spanish ''z'', Romaic
reek Reek may refer to: Places * Reek, Netherlands, a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant * Croagh Patrick, a mountain in the west of Ireland nicknamed "The Reek" People * Nikolai Reek (1890-1942), Estonian military commander * Salme Reek ...
θ, Icelandic þ; the English soft ''th'', Icelandic ð, Romaic δ. is the non-rolled ''r'' of Southern British, and can also be used for the simple ''r'' of Spanish and Portuguese odern ... is found in German in ''ach''; , in ''wagen'', as often pronounced in the north of Germany odern is the Arabic ''kh'' as in ''khalifa'' odern the Danish ''r''; the Parisian ''r'' is intermediate between and . — odern and are the ''ha'' and ''he'' in Arabic. — and are sounds in Circassian pproximately modern
Nasalized vowels were marked with a
tilde The tilde () or , is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish, which in turn came from the Latin '' titulus'', meaning "title" or "superscription". Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
: , , etc. It was noted that may be used for "any vowel of obscure and intermediate quality found in weak syllables". A long sound was distinguished by trailing . Stress may be marked by before the stressed syllable, as necessary, and the Swedish and Norwegian 'compound tone' (double tone) with before the syllable. A voiced sound was marked by and a voiceless one by .
Retroflex consonant A retroflex ( /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal ( /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the har ...
s were marked by , as in . Arabic emphatic consonants were marked by : . Consonants accompanied by a glottal stop (
ejective In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some ...
s) were marked by : . Tense and lax vowels were distinguished by acute and grave accents: ''naught'' , ''not'' . Non-syllabic vowels were marked by a
breve A breve (, less often , neuter form of the Latin "short, brief") is the diacritic mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. As used in Ancient Greek, it is also called , . It resembles the caron (the wedge or in Czech, in Slo ...
, as in , and syllabic consonants by an acute below, as in . Following letters, stood for advanced tongue, for retracted tongue, for more open, for more close, for more rounded, and for more spread. It was also noted that a superscript letter may be used to indicate a tinge of that sound in the sound represented by the preceding letter, as in . It was emphasized, however, that such details need not usually be repeated in transcription. The equivalent part of the 1904 English edition said:
must remain a general principle to ''leave out everything self-evident, and everything that can be explained once for all''. This allows us to dispense almost completely with the modifiers, and with a good many other signs, except in scientific works and in introductory explanations. We write English ''fill'' and French ''fil'' the same way ; yet the English vowel is 'wide' and the French 'narrow', and the English is formed much further back than the French. If we wanted to mark these differences, we should write English , French . But we need not do so: we know, once for all, that English short is always , and French always ; that English is always and French always .


1904 chart

In the 1904 ''Aim and Principles of the International Phonetic Association'', the first of its kind in English, the chart appeared as: In comparison to the 1900 chart, the
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
appeared as a modifier letter rather than a full letter , replaced , and replaced . were removed from the chart and instead only mentioned as having "been suggested for a Circassian dental hiss ibilantand its voiced correspondent". is suggested for the Bantu labialized sibilant, and as a diacritic to mark
click consonant Click consonants, or clicks, are speech sounds that occur as consonants in many languages of Southern Africa and in three languages of East Africa. Examples familiar to English-speakers are the '' tut-tut'' (British spelling) or '' tsk! tsk!'' ...
s. It is noted that some prefer iconic to , and that and are unsatisfactory letters. Laryngeal consonants had also been moved around, reflecting little understanding about the mechanisms of laryngeal articulations at the time. and were defined as the Arabic and . In the notes, the half-length mark is now mentioned, and it is noted that whispered sounds may be marked with a diacritical comma, as in . A syllabic consonant is now marked by a vertical bar, as in , rather than . It is noted, in this edition only, that "shifted vowels" may be indicated: for in-mixed or in-front, and for out-back., citing .


1912 chart

Following 1904, sets of specifications in French appeared in 1905 and 1908, with little to no changes. In 1912, the second English booklet appeared. For the first time, labial sounds were shown on the left and laryngeal ones on the right: was added for the Czech fricative trill, replaced and replaced , following their approval in 1909. Though not included in the chart, was mentioned as an optional letter for the
labiodental nasal The voiced labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter ''m'' with a leftward hook protruding from the lower right of the ...
. was still designated as the "provisional" letter for the alveolar tap/flap. were defined as the Bantu sounds with "tongue position of θ, ð, combined with strong lip-rounding". () were still included though not in the chart. was removed entirely. For the first time, affricates, or sibilated' consonant groups, i. e. groups in which the two elements are so closely connected that the whole might be treated as a single sound", were noted as able to be represented with a
tie bar A tie clip (also tie slide, tie bar, or tie clasp) is a clothing accessory that is used to clip a tie to the underlying shirt front, preventing it from swinging and ensuring that the tie hangs straight, resulting in a neat, uniform appearance. ...
, as in . Palatalized consonants could be marked by a dot above the letter, as in , "suggesting the connexion with the sounds i and j". were no longer mentioned.


1921 chart

The 1921 ''Écriture phonétique internationale'' introduced new letters, some of which were never to be seen in any other booklet: replaced and replaced , both of which would not officially be approved until 1928. replaced and was added for a devoiced , but neither has appeared in any other IPA chart and the latter is not supported by Unicode. Also added were dedicated letters for the central vowels, , which appeared again in and in the chart in ''Le Maître Phonétique'' from 1926 to 1927, though without the Council's approval. Of these, only were approved in the 1928 revision, with a different value for , until were revived and regained the 1921 value in 1993. The old convention of was retained for where central vowels were not phonemically distinct. were still for obscure or indeterminate vowels, as opposed to the others, which would indicate clear pronunciations. The book also mentioned letters "already commonly used in special works", some of which had long been part of the IPA but others which "have not yet been definitively adopted": * for a single-tap ''r'' * for the Czech fricative trill * for a voiced * for the Arabic and , "whose formation we do not yet agree on" * (dental) and (alveolar or palatal) for labialized sibilants found in South African languages *As "suggested": ** for Circassian dental fricatives ** for fricative of Bantu languages ** for a sound between and found in African languages and in Japanese *Small ''j'' for palatalized consonants: *Overlaying tilde for velarized and Arabic emphatic consonants: * for "dentalized palatals" *, , etc. (considered by Unicode to be graphic variants of ) for retroflex consonants, previously represented by etc. *, , , , , , etc. for affricates * for the near-close equivalents of * for the near-open vowels in English ''not, man'' * for clicks, with for the common
palatal click The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound ...
(this would be called "velar" in later editions of the IPA, following Jones' terminology) It also introduced several new suprasegmental specifications: * for "half-accent" * for "reinforced accent" *Tones could be indicated either before the syllable or on the nuclear vowel: high rising, high level, high falling, low rising, low level, low falling, rise-fall, fall-rise *Medium tones, as necessary: mid rising, mid level, mid falling It recommended the use of a circumflex for the Swedish grave accent, as in ("the spirit"). It was mentioned that some authors prefer in place of . Aspiration was marked as and stronger aspiration as . The click letters were conceived by Daniel Jones. In 1960, A. C. Gimson wrote to a colleague:
Paul Passy recognized the need for letters for the various clicks in the July–August 1914 number of ''Le Maître Phonétique'' and asked for suggestions. This number, however, was the last for some years because of the war. During this interval, Professor Daniel Jones himself invented the four letters, in consultation with Paul Passy and they were all four printed in the pamphlet ''L'Écriture Phonétique Internationale'' published in 1921. The letters were thus introduced in a somewhat unusual way, without the explicit consent of the whole Council of the Association. They were, however, generally accepted from then on, and, as you say, were used by Professor Doke in 1923. I have consulted Professor Jones in this matter, and he accepts responsibility for their invention, during the period of the First World War.
would be approved by the Council in 1928. would be included in all subsequent booklets, but not in the single-page charts. They would be replaced with the Lepsius/Bleek letters in the 1989 Kiel revision. The 1921 book was the first in the series to mention the word ''phoneme'' (''phonème'').


1925 Copenhagen Conference and 1927 revision

In April 1925, 12 linguists led by
Otto Jespersen Jens Otto Harry Jespersen (; 16 July 1860 – 30 April 1943) was a Danish linguist who specialized in the grammar of the English language. Steven Mithen described him as "one of the greatest language scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth ce ...
, including IPA Secretary Daniel Jones, attended a conference in Copenhagen and proposed specifications for a standardized system of phonetic notation. The proposals were largely dismissed by the members of the IPA Council. Nonetheless, the following additions recommended by the Conference were approved in 1927: * could now indicate full length when there is no need to distinguish half and full length *Straight for stress instead of the previous slanted , and for secondary stress * (recalling a ''w'') for labialized and (recalling a tooth) for dental *, with the arm moved under the letter, for retroflex consonants * for bilabial fricatives, replacing ( was repurposed for the
labiodental approximant The voiced labiodental approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is something between an English / w/ and / v/, pronounced with the teeth and lips held in the position used to articulate the letter V. The sym ...
) * for more close and for more open


1928 revisions

In 1928, the following letters were adopted: * for lateral fricatives *, , etc. for
velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four dia ...
or
pharyngealization Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...
(by extension from ) *, , , etc. for palatalized consonants *, , etc. for
implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Ro ...
s The following letters, which had appeared in earlier editions, were repeated or formalized: * * * * * * * * * * also included for a
labiodental nasal The voiced labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter ''m'' with a leftward hook protruding from the lower right of the ...
, for a dental or alveolar tap, for a palatal ('velar') click, and the tonal notation system seen in . For the Swedish and Norwegian compound tones he recommended "any arbitrarily chosen mark", with the illustration ("the spirit"). He used in place of . Apart from and , these new specifications would be inherited in the subsequent charts and booklets. The diacritics for whispered, , and for tense and lax, , were no longer mentioned.


1932 chart

An updated chart appeared as a supplement to '' Le Maître Phonétique'' in 1932. The vowels were now arranged in a right-angled trapezium as opposed to an
isosceles trapezium In Euclidean geometry, an isosceles trapezoid (isosceles trapezium in British English) is a convex quadrilateral with a line of symmetry bisecting one pair of opposite sides. It is a special case of a trapezoid. Alternatively, it can be define ...
, reflecting Daniel Jones's development of the
Cardinal Vowel Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. They are classified depending on the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth, how far forward or back is the highest po ...
theory. A practically identical chart—with the exception of —in German had appeared in . The substitution of for was approved in 1931. The accompanying notes read:

.—Palatalized consonants: , etc. Velarized or pharyngealized consonants: , etc. Ejective consonants (plosives with simultaneous glottal stop): , etc. Implosive voiced consonants: , etc. fricative trill. (labialized , or ). (labialized ). (clicks, Zulu ''c, q, x''). (a sound between and ). (voiceless ). (lowered varieties of ). (a variety of ). (a vowel between and ).

Affricates are normally represented by groups of two consonants (, etc.), but, when necessary, ligatures are used (, etc.), or the marks or ( or , etc.). may occasionally be used in place of . Aspirated plosives: , etc.

.— (full length). (half length). (stress, placed at the beginning of the stressed syllable). (secondary stress). (high level pitch); (low level); (high rising); (low rising); (high falling); (low falling); (rise-fall); (fall-rise). See ''Écriture Phonétique Internationale'', p. 9.

.— nasality. breath ( = breathed ). voice ( = ). slight aspiration following , etc. specially close vowel ( = a very close ). specially open vowel ( = a rather open ). labialization ( = labialized ). dental articulation ( = dental ). palatalization ( = ). tongue slightly raised. tongue slightly lowered. lips more rounded. lips more spread. Central vowels (= ), (= ), (= ), (= ), . (e.g. ) syllabic consonant. consonantal vowel. variety of resembling , etc.


1938 chart

A new chart appeared in 1938, with a few modifications. was replaced by , which was approved earlier in the year with the compromise also acknowledged as an alternative. The use of tie bars was allowed for synchronous articulation in addition to affricates, as in for simultaneous and , which was approved in 1937. In the notes, the reference to , in regard to tonal notation was removed.


1947 chart

A new chart appeared in 1947, reflecting minor developments up to the point. They were: * for the glottal stop, replacing *, the compromise form approved as an alternative in 1938, replacing * for palatalized * replacing , approved in 1945 * for the Japanese syllabic nasal * for a combination of and * replacing , approved in 1943 while condoning the use of the latter except in the Association's official publications * as alternatives for *
R-coloured vowel In phonetics, an r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulate ...
s: , , , etc., , , , etc., or , , , etc. *R-coloured : , , , or * and (or with serifs, as in ) for advanced and retracted, respectively, officially replacing The word "plosives" in the description of ejectives and the qualifier "slightly" in the definitions of were removed.


1949 ''Principles''

The 1949 ''Principles of the International Phonetic Association'' was the last installment in the series until it was superseded by the ''Handbook of the IPA'' in 1999. It introduced some new specifications: *Inserting a hyphen between a plosive and a homorganic fricative to denote they are separately pronounced, as in , , *, , etc. or , , etc. for "vowels pronounced with 'breathy voice' (h-coloured vowels)" *, , etc. "to show that a nasal consonant is very short and that the intimate combination with the following plosive counts as a single sound", in parallel to use for non-syllabic vowels *An "arbitrarily chosen mark" such as or for a Swedish or Norwegian compound tone, as in ("the spirit") None of these specifications were inherited in the subsequent charts. was defined as an indicator of "medium stress". was defined as a velar click, whereas previously it had been identified as the
Khoekhoe Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
click not found in Xhosa (that is, a
palatal click The palatal or palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found, as components of words, only in southern Africa. The tongue is nearly flat, and is pulled back rather than down as in the postalveolar clicks, making a sharper sound ...
). In 1948, and were approved as typographic alternatives, while it was also acknowledged that may be used for a velar plosive and for an advanced one in narrow transcription of a language where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian. The 1949 ''Principles'' recommended this alternation of the letters but did not mention their typographic equivalency in other languages. Nevertheless, the recommendation was hardly adopted, not even by , who used and .


1951 chart

The 1951 chart added as yet another alternative to an r-coloured , following its approval in 1950. Conceived by John S. Kenyon, the letter was in itself a combination of and the hook for retroflex consonants approved by the IPA in 1927. Since its introduction in 1935, the letter was widely adopted by American linguists and the IPA had been asked to recognize it as part of the alphabet.


1979 chart

In 1979, a revised chart appeared, incorporating the developments in the alphabet which were made earlier in the decade: for a
retroflex approximant The voiced retroflex approximant is a type of consonant used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\`. The IPA symbol is a turned lowercase lett ...
was approved in 1973. On the same occasion, , , , and or as alternatives for were proposed but the votes were inconclusive. Diacritics (subscript, not attached) for retroflexion, for palatalization, and for indicating non-fricative continuant were proposed but rejected. The following changes were approved in 1976: * for the rounded equivalent of (taken from the accompanying text to Daniel Jones's 1956 recording of the Secondary
Cardinal Vowels Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. They are classified depending on the position of the tongue relative to the roof of the mouth, how far forward or back is the highest po ...
) * representing "centralized" rather than "central" * for aspiration (though this was approved merely as an alternative to , neither the latter diacritic nor the letter succeeding a plosive were mentioned in the 1979 chart) * for absence of audible release (omitted in the chart) * for a
bilabial click The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants that sound like a smack of the lips. They are found as phonemes only in the small Tuu language family (currently two languages, one moribund), in the ǂ’Amkoe language of Botswana (also mo ...
* for
breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...
* for a
velar approximant The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\. The consonant is not presen ...
*Application of (but not ) to consonant letters to denote fricative and approximant, respectively, as in On the same occasion, the following letters and diacritics were removed because they had "fallen into disuse": * for palatalization * for * for Japanese moraic nasal * for labialized * for r-colouring, as in On the other hand, for the close-mid central unrounded vowel, for the open-mid central rounded vowel, and for the
open central unrounded vowel The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back , it ...
were proposed but rejected. The proposal of was based on . for the
voiced palatal fricative The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is (crossed-tail j), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j\. It is t ...
and for
creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...
were proposed but the votes were inconclusive. In the 1979 chart, , previously defined as "lowered varieties of ", appeared slightly centered rather than simply midway between and as they did in the 1912 chart. , the predecessors to , were acknowledged as alternatives to under the section "Other symbols". appeared as the rounded counterpart to rather than between and . The name of the column "Dental and alveolar" was changed to "Dental, alveolar, or post-alveolar". "Pharyngeal", "trill", "tap or flap", and "approximant" replaced "", "rolled", "flapped", and "frictionless continuants", respectively. , which were listed twice in both the fricative and frictionless continuant rows in the previous charts, now appeared as an approximant and a fricative, respectively, while the line between the rows was erased, indicating certain fricative letters may represent approximants and vice versa, with the employment of the raised and lowered diacritics if necessary. , previously defined as "voiceless ", was specified as a fricative. remained listed twice in the fricative and approximant rows. , previously defined merely as "a sound between and ", was redefined as an alveolar lateral flap, in keeping with the use for which it had been originally approved, "a sound between l and d".


1989 Kiel Convention

By the 1980s, phonetic theories had developed so much since the inception of the alphabet that the framework of it had become outdated. To resolve this, at the initiative of IPA President
Peter Ladefoged Peter Nielsen Ladefoged ( , ; 17 September 1925 – 24 January 2006) was a British linguist and phonetician. He was Professor of Phonetics at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962 to 1991. His book ''A Course ...
, approximately 120 members of the IPA gathered at a convention held in
Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...
,
West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, in August 1989, to discuss revisions of both the alphabet and the principles it is founded upon. It was at this convention that it was decided that the ''Handbook of the IPA'' would be written and published to supersede the 1949 ''Principles''. In addition to the revisions of the alphabet, two workgroups were set up, one on computer coding of IPA characters and computer representation of individual languages, and the other on pathological speech and voice quality. The former group concluded that each IPA character should be assigned a three-digit number for computer coding known as IPA Number, which was published in . The latter devised a set of recommendations for the transcription of disordered speech based on the IPA known as the
Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA , are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association to augment the Internatio ...
or extIPA, which was published in 1990 and adopted by the
International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association The International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) is an international scholarly association dedicated to the study of speech disorders and language disorders. It was founded in 1991. The Association sponsors a biennial con ...
, which now maintains it, in 1994. A drastically renewed chart of the alphabet reflecting decisions made at the convention appeared later in the year. Additions were: *Consonants ** for a
voiced bilabial trill The voiced bilabial trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is B\. Features Features of the voiced ...
** for a
voiced palatal fricative The voiced palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) that represents this sound is (crossed-tail j), and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j\. It is t ...
, with now standing only for the approximant ** for a
voiced velar lateral approximant The voiced velar lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used as a distinct consonant in a very small number of Speech, spoken languages in the world. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is (s ...
(proposed at least as far back as 1926) ** for voiced palatal and uvular implosives ** for voiceless implosives ** for epiglottal fricatives ** for a
voiced epiglottal plosive The epiglottal or pharyngeal plosive (or stop) is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Epiglottal and pharyngeal consonants occur at the ...
** for dental, (post)alveolar, alveolar lateral and palatal clicks, replacing and obsolescent (see
click letter Various letters have been used to write the click consonants of southern Africa. The precursors of the current IPA letters, , were created by Karl Richard Lepsius and used by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, who added . Also influential were Daniel ...
) *Diacritics ** for
creaky voice In linguistics, creaky voice (sometimes called laryngealisation, pulse phonation, vocal fry, or glottal fry) refers to a low, scratchy sound that occupies the vocal range below the common vocal register. It is a special kind of phonation in which ...
** for
linguolabial Linguolabials or apicolabials are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from ling ...
,
apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...
, and
laminal A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
** for more and less rounded, now placed under the letter ** for mid-centralized ** for
advanced and retracted tongue root In phonetics, advanced tongue root (ATR) and retracted tongue root (RTR) are contrasting states of the root of the tongue during the pronunciation of vowels in some languages, especially in Western and Eastern Africa, but also in Kazakh and Mong ...
** for rhoticity ** for
labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...
, replacing ** for palatalization, replacing ** for
velarization Velarization is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four dia ...
and
pharyngealization Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound. IPA symbols In the International Phonetic Alphabet, pharyngealization can be indicated ...
** for nasal and lateral release ** for non-syllabic, replacing , which now stands for extra-short *Suprasegmentals **, which previously stood for non-syllabic, for
extra-short The International Phonetic Alphabet uses a breve to indicate a speech sound (usually a vowel) with extra-short duration. That is, is a very short vowel with the quality of . An example from English is the short schwa of the word ''police'' . Th ...
** for a syllable break ** for minor (foot) and major (intonation) groups ** for linking (absence of a break) ** for global rise and fall of pitch ** for
downstep Downstep is a phenomenon in tone languages in which if two syllables have the same tone (for example, both with a high tone or both with a low tone), the second syllable is lower in pitch than the first. Two main kinds of downstep can be disting ...
and
upstep In linguistics, upstep is a phonemic or phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language. It is best known in the tonal languages of Sub-Saharan Africa. Upstep is a much rarer phenomenon than its counterpart, downst ...
Tone, which had been indicated with an iconic line preceding the syllable or above or below the vowel, was now written one of two ways: with a similar iconic line following the syllable and anchored to a vertical bar, as in ( Chao's
tone letter Tone letters are letters that represent the tones of a language, most commonly in languages with contour tones. __TOC__ Chao tone letters (IPA) A series of iconic tone letters based on a musical staff was devised by Yuen Ren Chao in the ...
s), or with more abstract diacritics written over the vowel (acute = high, macron = mid, grave = low), which could be compounded with each other, as in . The palato-alveolar column was removed and were listed alongside the postalveolars. appeared at the same horizontal position as the other alveolars rather than slightly more back as did in the previous charts. was specified as a trill rather than either a trill or flap. The alternative raised and lowered diacritics were eliminated in favour of , which could now be attached to consonants to denote fricative or approximant, as in . Diacritics for relative articulation placed next to, rather than below, a letter, namely , were no longer mentioned. The diacritic for no audible release was finally mentioned in the chart. were eliminated in favour of . The letter for the
close-mid back unrounded vowel The close-mid back unrounded vowel, or high-mid back unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is , called "ram's horns." This symbol is distinct from the symbol f ...
was revised from ("baby gamma"), with a flat top, to ("ram's horns"), with a rounded top, to better distinguish it from , which represents a
voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
. was revived in place of . was no longer mentioned, and instead a right-hook diacritic was added for rhoticity; the superscript rhotic diacritics were no longer mentioned. for palatalized and for the alveolar fricative trill were withdrawn (now written and ). The affricate ligatures were withdrawn. The tie bar below letters for affricates and doubly articulated consonants, as in , was no longer mentioned. The practice of placing a superscript letter to indicate the resemblance to a sound, previously illustrated by , was no longer explicitly recommended. At the convention, proposals such as for a voiced labial–velar fricative, for a
voiceless velar lateral fricative The voiceless velar lateral fricative is a rare speech sound. As one element of an affricate, it is found for example in Zulu and Xhosa (see velar lateral ejective affricate). However, a simple fricative has only been reported from a few lang ...
, for a
voiced velar lateral fricative The voiced velar lateral fricative is a very rare speech sound that can be found in Archi, a Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, in which it is clearly a fricative, although further forward than velars in most languages, and might better ...
, for a
voiceless palatal lateral fricative The voiceless palatal lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in a few spoken languages. This sound is somewhat rare; Dahalo has both a palatal lateral fricative and an affricate; Hadza has a series of affricates. In Bura, ...
, for "the 'hissing-hussing' fricatives of some Caucasian languages", and for an
open central unrounded vowel The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back , it ...
were discussed but dismissed.


New principles

The six principles set out in 1888 were replaced by a much longer text consisting of seven paragraphs. The first two paragraphs established the alphabet's purpose, namely to be "a set of symbols for representing all the possible sounds of the world's languages" and "representing fine distinctions of sound quality, making the IPA well suited for use in all disciplines in which the representation of speech sounds is required". The second paragraph also said, " is a shorthand way of designating the intersection of the categories voiceless, bilabial, and plosive; is the intersection of the categories voiced, bilabial, and nasal; and so on", refining the previous, less clearly defined principle #2 with the application of the
distinctive feature In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature oicedistinguishes the two bilabial plosives: and There are many diffe ...
theory. Discouragement of diacritics was relaxed, though recommending their use be limited: "(i) For denoting length, stress and pitch. (ii) For representing minute shades of sounds. (iii) When the introduction of a single, diacritic obviates the necessity for designing a number of new symbols (as, for instance, in the representation of nasalized vowels)". The principles also adopted the recommendation of enclosing phonetic transcriptions in square brackets
nbsp; In word processing and digital typesetting, a non-breaking space, , also called NBSP, required space, hard space, or fixed space (though it is not of fixed width), is a space character that prevents an automatic line break at its position. In ...
and phonemic ones in slashes / /, a practice that emerged in the 1940s. The principles were reprinted in the 1999 ''Handbook''.


1993 revision

Following the 1989 revision, a number of proposals for revisions appeared in the '' Journal of the IPA'', which were submitted to the Council of the IPA. In 1993, the Council approved the following changes: * for the voiceless implosives were withdrawn. *The non-pulmonic consonants (ejectives and implosives) were removed from the main table and set up with the clicks in a separate section, with acknowledged as an independent modifier for ejective (therefore allowing combinations absent in the chart). *It was noted that subdiacritics may be moved above a letter to avoid interference with a descender. *The central vowels of the 1921 chart were restored, bringing the total back to five: schwa plus open-mid and , and close-mid and . *The right half of the cell for pharyngeal plosives was shaded, indicating the impossibility of a voiced pharyngeal plosive. On the same occasion, it was reaffirmed that and are typographic alternatives. The revised chart was now portrait-oriented. and were moved to the centerline of the vowel chart, indicating that they are not necessarily unrounded. The word "voiced" was removed from the definition for , now simply "
epiglottal plosive The epiglottal or pharyngeal plosive (or stop) is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . Epiglottal and pharyngeal consonants occur at the ...
". "Other symbols" and diacritics were slightly rearranged. The outer stroke of the letter for a bilabial click was modified from a circle with a consistent width to the shape of uppercase O.


1996 update

In 1996, it was announced that the form of the open-mid central rounded vowel in the 1993 chart, , was a typographical error and should be changed to , stating the latter was the form that " J. C. Catford had in mind when he proposed the central vowel changes ... in 1990", also citing and , who had . However, the letter Catford had proposed for the value in 1990 was in fact (a barred ), with an alternative being , but not . Errata for appeared in 1992, but the printed form was again and the errata even acknowledged that was included in , as pointed out by David Abercrombie. In the updated chart, which was published in the front matter of the 1999 ''Handbook of the IPA'', the subsections were rearranged so that the left edge of the vowel chart appeared right beneath the palatal column, hinting at the palatal place of articulation for , as did in all pre-1989 charts, though the space did not allow the back vowels to appear beneath the velars. A tie bar placed below letters, as in , was mentioned again. was now attached to the preceding letter, as in . A few illustrations in the chart were changed: was added for rhoticity, and were replaced with . The examples of "high rising" and "low rising" tone contours were changed from (4–5) and (1–2) to (3–5) and (1–3), respectively. The word "etc." was dropped from the list of contours, though the 1999 ''Handbook'' would continue to use contours that did not appear on the chart.


1999 ''Handbook''

The 1999 ''Handbook of the International Phonetic Association'' was the first book outlining the specifications of the alphabet in 50 years, superseding the 1949 ''Principles of the IPA''. It consisted of just over 200 pages, four times as long as the ''Principles''. In addition to what was seen in the 1996 chart, the book included for mid central vowel release, for voiceless dental fricative release, and for voiceless velar fricative release as part of the official IPA in the "Computer coding of IPA symbols" section. The section also included for a
voiced retroflex implosive The voiced retroflex implosive is a type of consonantal sound. It is not known to be phonemically distinct from alveolar in any language. Sindhi has an implosive that varies between dental and retroflex articulation, while Oromo, Saraiki and ...
, noting it was "not explicitly IPA approved". The book also said "might be used" for "a secondary reduction of the lip opening accompanied by neither protrusion nor velar constriction". It abandoned the 1949 ''Principles'' recommendation of alternating and for ordinary and advanced velar plosives, and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.


21st-century developments

In 2005, was added for the
labiodental flap In phonetics, the voiced labiodental flap is a speech sound found primarily in languages of Central Africa, such as Kera and Mangbetu. It has also been reported in the Austronesian language Sika. It is one of the few non- rhotic flaps. The ...
. In 2011, it was proposed that be added to represent the
open central unrounded vowel The open central unrounded vowel, or low central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. While the International Phonetic Alphabet officially has no dedicated letter for this sound between front and back , it ...
, but this was declined by the Council the following year. In 2012, the IPA chart and its subparts were released under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work".A "work" is any creative material made by a person. A painting, a graphic, a book, a song/lyrics ...
. In 2016, three versions of a revised chart dated 2015 were released online, each with the characters rendered in a different typeface (IPA Kiel/LS Uni developed by Linguist's Software,
Doulos SIL Doulos SIL (Ancient Greek for "slave") is a serif typeface developed by SIL International, very similar to Times or Times New Roman. Unlike Times New Roman, Doulos only has a single face, Regular. The goal of its design according to the SIL In ...
, and
DejaVu Sans The DejaVu fonts are a superfamily of fonts designed for broad coverage of the Unicode Universal Character Set. The fonts are derived from Bitstream Vera (sans-serif) and Bitstream Charter (serif), two fonts released by Bitstream under a free l ...
). No character was added or withdrawn, but some notes and the shapes of a few were slightly modified. In particular, was replaced by , with a continuous, slanted stroke, and the example of a "rising–falling" tone contour was changed from (4–5–4) to (3–4–3). In 2018, another slightly modified chart in different fonts was released, this time also in TeX TIPA Roman developed by Rei Fukui, which was selected as best representing the IPA symbol set by the Association's Alphabet, Charts and Fonts committee, established the previous year. The example of a "rising–falling" tone contour was again changed from (3–4–3) to (3–4–2). In 2020, another set of charts was released, with the only changes being minor adjustments in the layout, and Creative Commons icons replacing the
copyright sign The copyright symbol, or copyright sign, (a circled capital letter C for copyright), is the symbol used in copyright notices for works other than sound recordings. 17 U.S.C. The use of the symbol is described by the Universal Copyright Conv ...
.


Summary


Values that have been represented by different characters


Characters that have been given different values


See also

*
Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet #REDIRECT Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet #REDIRECT Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet {{R from other capitalisation ...
{{R from other capitalisation ...
*
Americanist phonetic notation Americanist phonetic notation, also known as the North American Phonetic Alphabet (NAPA), the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet or the American Phonetic Alphabet (APA), is a system of phonetic notation originally developed by European and American an ...


Notes


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * Reprinted in . * * * Reprinted in . * Reprinted in . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Reprinted in ''Journal of the International Phonetic Association'' 40 (3), December 2010, pp. 299–358, . * Reprinted in . * * * * * Reprinted in . * * * * * * * Reprinted in ''Le Maître Phonétique'' 3, 6 (23), July–September 1928, . Reprinted in . * * * * * * Reprinted in . * Reprinted in . * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Reprinted in Collins, Beverly; Mees, Inger M., eds. (2003), ''Daniel Jones: Selected Works'', Volume V: European Languages II – Russian, London: Routledge, . * * * *


Further reading

* * * * * *


External links


History of the International Phonetic Association


{{IPA navigation International Phonetic Alphabet History of linguistics