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The ''Phonetic Symbol Guide'' is a book by
Geoffrey Pullum
Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. He is Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.
Pullum is a co-author of ''The Cambridge Gram ...
and
William Ladusaw
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...
that explains the histories and uses of the symbols of various
phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription (also known as phonetic script or phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phones'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the ...
conventions. It was published in 1986, with a second edition in 1996, by the
University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...
. Symbols include letters and diacritics of 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 ...
and
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 ...
, though not of the
Uralic Phonetic Alphabet
The Uralic Phonetic Alphabet (UPA) or Finno-Ugric transcription system is a phonetic transcription or notational system used predominantly for the transcription and reconstruction of Uralic languages. It was first published in 1901 by Eemil Nesto ...
. The ''Guide'' was consulted by 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 ...
when they established names and numerical codes for the International Phonetic Alphabet and was the basis for the characters of the
TIPA set of phonetic fonts.
Symbols in Unicode
![TIPA_code_points](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/TIPA_code_points.png)
The symbols included in the 2nd edition of the ''Guide'' are as follows. All symbols that are not merely allographs and have been used by more than a single author are supported by Unicode. Those not found in Unicode are marked with an asterisk.
:
a ȧ ä ᶏ ɐ ɑ α ɒ ɒ̇ ɒ̈ ꭤ æ æ̇ æ̈ ᴀ #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 ...
A 4 ꜭ *
Ɐ ">mall cap Ɐ Æ *
">mall cap ʌ *
Δ ">mall cap Δ
:
b ḅ ƀ b̶ b̸ ь ъ ɓ ʙ β
:
c ć ꞓ ȼ č ç ƈ ɕ ʗ 𝼏
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 Dan ...
C
:
d đ ꟈ d̸ 𝼥 ɗ ɖ ᶑ ȸ ʣ ʤ ð δ D
:
e ë ę ᶒ
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 ...
ə ɚ ɘ ᴇ ᴇ̈ E ɛ ɛ̇ ᶓ ʚ ɜ ɝ ɞ
:
f ƒ ꜰ
:
ɡ ꞡ ǥ ɠ g ɢ ʛ G ɣ γ *
alatal-hook γ*
etroflex-hook γ ɤ *(and its allograph )
:
h ḥ ħ ɦ *
ight-tail ɦ ꜧ ɧ ɥ ʮ ʯ ʜ H
:
i ï ı ɨ ɪ ɪ̈ ᵻ
The close central unrounded vowel, or high central unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , namely the lower-case letter ''i'' with a hori ...
I ι ɿ ʅ
:
j *
ook-top j ɉ ʝ ǰ ɟ ʄ ᴊ
:
k ꝁ ƙ ʞ ᴋ 𝼐
:
l ɫ ƚ ɬ ɭ ɮ *(and its allograph
![Lezh old](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Lezh_old.svg)
)
ʟ L *
ʟ.html" ;"title="eversed ʟ">eversed ʟ λ ƛ
:
m ɱ *
-m ligature ɯ ɰ ᴍ M
:
n ń *
eft-arm n π ƞ ñ ɲ ŋ η ɳ ɴ N
:
o ȯ ö ǫ ƍ σ O ♀ ⚲ ʘ ɵ θ ø 0︀ (and its variant
∅)
ɸ œ ɶ 8
:
ɔ ɔ̇ ɔ̈ *
ꞓ.html" ;"title="urned ꞓ">urned ꞓ ᶗ ꭢ ω ω̇ ω̈ *
ω.html" ;"title="urned ω">urned ω ɷ ꭥ ꭥ̇ ꭥ̈ ꭥ̶
:
p ᵽ ƥ *
ƍ_.html" ;"title="traight allograph of
ƍ ">traight allograph of
ƍ ᴘ P ρ ƿ þ
:
q ʠ ȹ
:
r ɾ ɼ ɽ ɹ ɻ ɺ ʀ R ᴙ ʁ
:
s S š ʂ ʃ 𝼋
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 Dani ...
ƪ ʆ 𝼌
:
t ŧ 𝼪 ƫ ʈ ƭ ʇ 𝼍 ʦ ʧ
:
u u̇ ü ʉ *
alf-barred u ꞹ ʊ ᴜ ᴜ̇ ᵾ *
∩ ">mall cap ∩ U
:
v ʋ
:
w ◌̫ ẇ ẅ w̸ ʍ
:
x x̭ x̯ X χ
:
y ÿ ʎ ʏ
:
z ȥ ž ʑ ʐ ƻ ↊ ʒ ǯ ƺ ʓ ƹ ↋
:
ʔ ? 7 ʡ ʖ ƾ 𝼎 ʕ 9 ʢ
:
ǃ ǀ / ǂ ≠
In mathematics, an inequation is a statement that an inequality holds between two values. It is usually written in the form of a pair of expressions denoting the values in question, with a relational sign between them indicating the specific ine ...
ǁ ⫽ ⫻ # & *
:
Chao 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:
˩ ˨ ˧ ˦ ˥ ''etc.''
:IPA tone diacritics:
◌́ ◌̄ ◌̀ ◌̌ ◌̂ ◌᷉ ''etc.''
:
◌̄ ˉ ˗ − ◌̠ ˍ + ◌̟ ◌̽ ˭
:
◌̪ ◌̺ ◌̻ ◌̝ ˔ ◌̞ ˕ ◌꭪ ◌꭫
:
ˈ ˌ ◌̩ ◌̚
:
↑ ↓ ↗ ↘ ˂ ˃ ◌͕ *
←">uperscript ←:
◌̇ ꞏ . ˑ ◌̣ ◌̈ ◌̤ ꞉ ː
:
ʼ ʽ ʻ , ⹁
:
◌̊ ◌̥ ◌̜ ˒ ◌̹
:
◌̃ ◌̴ ◌̰ ◌̼
:
◌́ ˊ ◌̀ ˋ ◌̂ ◌̭ ◌̌ ◌̬
:
◌̨ ◌̧ ◌̡ ◌˞ ◌̢
:
◌̆ ◌̑ ◌̯ ◌͡◌ ◌͜◌
Some typewriter substitutions made by overstriking a Latin letter with a virgule require composite encoding in Unicode:
*, for a
voiced bilabial fricative
The voiced bilabial fricative 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 B. The official symbol is the G ...
*, for a
voiced dental fricative
The voiced dental fricative is a consonant sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English-speakers as the ''th'' sound in ''father''. Its symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet is eth, or and was taken from the Old Engli ...
*, used for
Nahua
The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...
Similarly , an unused proposal to replace Americanist .
![Front-hook d](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Front-hook_d.png)
Several of the symbols listed above were adopted in Unicode 14 or 15 and are supported by only a few fonts (such as
Gentium
Gentium (, from the Latin for "of the nations") is a Unicode serif typeface designed by Victor Gaultney. Gentium fonts are free software, free and Open-source software, open source software, and are released under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), ...
) as of 2022:
*The Beach
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 ...
s for the
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 ...
s and curly-tail for the
nasal click
Nasal clicks are click consonants pronounced with nasal airflow. All click types (alveolar , dental , lateral , palatal , retroflex , and labial ) have nasal variants, and these are attested in four or five phonations: voiced, voiceless, asp ...
s of
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. ...
. Used by other linguists for e.g.
Sandawe. Accepted for Unicode 14 as U+1DF0B and curly-tail U+1DF0C to U+1DF0F.
*t and d with a horizontal hook to the left, used alongside s, n, l, r by
Daniel Jones before were adopted by the IPA in 1923. For IPA use they were considered allographs, but had independent use in orthographies for India, and were accepted into Unicode 15 as U+1DF25 to 1DF2A. (Z with a horizontal hook was not included.)
*turned small capital K, , suggested in the 1949 ''Principles of the International Phonetic Association'' for a generic consonant but never adopted; now is generally used. Accepted as a symbol for a generic click consonant in Unicode 14.
Rare symbols
The following are not supported by
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
as of version 15,
[Updated fro]
Phonetic Symbol Guide
at ScriptSource ( was added to Unicode 11 as U+A7B9); additions in U14 and U15 are listed above. though all are supported by
TIPA (see there for characters that are not clear below):
Some of the symbols are idiosyncratic proposals by well-known scholars that never caught on:
![Prokosch (1939) right-tail hooktop h](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Prokosch_%281939%29_right-tail_hooktop_h.png)
*a right-tail hooktop h (fusion of and : approx. ''
''), found for the velar fricative in the Germanic 'fortis' voiceless spirant series ''
'', contrasting with the voiced series ' and the Indo-European 'lenis' spirants ' in Prokosch (1939) ''A Comparative Germanic Grammar''. (See esp. p. 51.) Prokosch describes the symbol as a "modified ''h'', since ''h'' is the usual spelling in all Germanic languages" (p. 83), though other authors simply write these sounds '.
*superscript spacing diacritic , used to indicate clicks in Smalley (1963)
Several symbols are graphic variants of characters that are supported by Unicode:
*hooktop j, an Americanist variant of in Smalley (1963) ''Manual of Articulatory Phonetics''. Unlike , in the Smalley letter the hook connects to the dot of the jay and so is detached from the body of the letter.
*p with a tail facing left (
ɋ) and reversed o with
ogonek
The (; Polish: , "little tail", diminutive of ) is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European languages, and directly under a vowel in several Native American languages. It i ...
(
ǫ). The first is an allograph in Doke of (turned delta ), and the latter a misanalysis by the ''Guide'' of the same letter.
*double virgule ⫽, a close-kerned // or italicized ǁ, is an allograph of . It might be adequately rendered with .
*triple virgule ⫻, a close-kerned /// or italicized ⦀, used in a passing mention of
retroflex click
The retroflex clicks are a family of click consonants known only from the Central !Kung dialects of Namibia. They are sub-apical retroflex and should not be confused with the more widespread postalveolar clicks, which are sometimes mistakenly ...
s in the Cole article "Bushman Languages" in the 1966 ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (4: 469). The symbol was removed from later editions. It might be adequately rendered with . This is an allograph of a triple pipe, for which Unicode recommends using character U+2980 TRIPLE VERTICAL BAR DELIMITER .
A couple symbols were mentioned in the 1949 ''Principles of the International Phonetic Association'' as recent suggestions for further improvement and were never adopted:
![H-m ligature](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/73/H-m_ligature.PNG)
*h-m ligature, approx.
or
(turned ) for
*turned small capital U,
, for a generic vowel; now is generally used
The majority of the non-Unicode symbols were proposed by
George Trager to improve the
Bloch & Trager system of vowel transcription and other conventions of Americanist notation, but were never adopted:
*inverted (turned) small capital ᴀ (
) to replace ; this had been the original IPA form of the letter that is now .
![Small capital A-O ligature](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Small_capital_A-O_ligature.png)
*small capital ligature (looks like an ligature) to replace
*small capital to replace
*barred ,
(turned ) to replace
*inverted (turned) ,
, to replace
*u with a bar on the left leg,
, to replace
*gamma with a palatal tail turning left, approx. γ̡, to replace
*gamma with a retroflex tail turning right, approx. γ̢, to replace
![Front-bar n](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Front-bar_n.png)
*a fusion of + (n with the arm of ᴛ to the left, approx.
) for the
dental nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
. It is similar in shape to in Unicode 15, though with a flat left arm.
*a reversed small capital L,
(turned ), for a labial lateral approximant; this is not a distinctive sound and the symbol was never used.
References
{{reflist
1986 non-fiction books
1996 non-fiction books
Phonetics books
Phonetic transcription symbols