Handbook of the international phonetic association

TheHandbook of the International Phonetic Association is a comprehensive guide to theAssociation's 'International Phonetic Alphabet'.The aim of the International PhoneticAlphabet is to p

TheHandbook of the International Phonetic Association is a comprehensive guide to theAssociation's 'International Phonetic Alphabet'.The aim of the International PhoneticAlphabet is to provide a universally agreed system of notation for the sounds of languages,and for over a century the Alphabet has been widely used by phoneticians and othersconcerned with language The Handbook presents the basics of phonetic analysis so thatthe principles underlying the Alphabet can be readily understood, and exemplifies the use

of each of the phonetic symbols comprising the Alphabet The application of the Alphabet

is then extensively demonstrated by the inclusion of over two dozen 'Illustrations' concise analyses of the sound systems of languages accompanied by a phonetictranscription of a passage of speech.These Illustrations cover languages from allover theworld.TheHandbookalso includes a range of other useful information The 'Extensions'

-to the International Phonetic Alphabet cover speech sounds beyond the sound systems oflanguages, such as those with paralinguistic functions and those encountered inpathological speech.A full listing is given of internationally agreed computer codings forphonetic symbols, including not only those of the InternationalPhonetic Alphabet but alsothose of other traditions And there is extensive information on the history of theInternational Phonetic Association and its current activities The Handbookis an essentialreference work for all those involved in the analysis of speech

The International Phonetic Association exists to promote the study of the science ofphonetics and the applications of that science.The Association can trace its history back to

1886, and since that time the most widely known aspect of its work has been theInternational Phonetic Alphabet The Handbook has been produced collaboratively byleading phoneticians who have been on the Executive of the Association, and itincorporates (for instanceinthe case of the Illustrations) material provided by numerousmembers of the Association world wide

Sound filesto accompany the book are available at

http:/uk.cambridge.org/linguistics/ resourccs/ipahandbook

Handbook of the International Phonetic Association

A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet

Cambridge,New York,Melbourne, Madr id, Cape Town , Singapore,SiloPaulo

CambridgeUniversityPress ,

The Edinburgh Building, CambridgeCB28R~ ,UK

Published inthe UnitedStatesofAmericaby Cambridge University Press,New York

www.cambridge.org

Informationon thistitle:www.cam bridge.org/9 80521652360

©TheIntern ational Ph neticAssociation1999

This publicationis in copyrig ht.Subject to statutory exception

and totheprovisionsofrelevant collective licpsing agreements,

no reproductionof anypartmay take placewithout

thewrittenpermission of CambridgeUniversity Press

First published1999

Eighthprinting 2007

Printedinthe UnitedKingdomat theUniversityPress,Cambridge

A catalogue r ecord for thi s b ook i s a vailable from th e Briti sh Library

PART 1: Introduction to the IPA

2.1 Linguistically r e levant informati o in spe ech 4

-VI Co nt e nts

PART 2: Illustrations of the IPA

Am er ican Eng lish

App endi x 1 Th e Principl es o f the International Phon etic A ssociati on

App endi x 2 Computer coding of IPA s ymbol s

Appendi x 3 Ex tensions to th e IPA

A ppendix 4 Ab out th e Int ernat ional P honetic A ssoci ation

The H istory of the Associat i on

S tatut es and By- law s

H ow t o fi n o ut m ore abo ut t he Assoc iati on

H ow to joi n th e Associa t io n

Appendi x 5 R eferen ce ch arts

4 45 5 55

5866670 778

828690 9

1 00104108

III

11 7120

12 4

126131

1 5

1 40

143

147 151

1 97

1 9 199

200

TheHandbook o f th e Internati onal Ph oneti c A ssociati on is a resourcecontainingconc ise

informationon the International Phoneti cAlphabet andguida nce on how to use it - a kind

of 'use r's manual'.It replaces the Principl es of th e Int ernati onal Ph onet i c A sso ciation,

whic has been out of print for some time and which had not been revised since 1949 Butalthough theHandb ook replaces so me of the functions of the old Prin ciples , it is acompletely new workwith wider objectives

The old Prin cipl escontained ashorttutorialon phonetic description,examplesof the

use of pho netic symbols, and a large number of 'specimens ' cons isting of very brief

comments on the phoneticsof alanguageand atranscription of the 'No rth Wind and theSun' text translated into the language.Additionally,there was some informationabout the

Association ,and, printed on the insidecovers, a brief history of it

Thenew Handb ookbroadly speaking retainsthesecomponents.It isdividedinto three

part s:part 1cont ains an introduction to phonetic description andexemplificatio n of the

useof thesym bols; part 2 consistsof 'Illustrations' of the useof the International Phonetic

Alphabet for different languages(theseIllustrations are ones which have appeared inthe

J ournal of th e Interna tional Ph onetic Asso ciation since 1989) and part 3 conta ins

appendices withavarietyof referen cematerial

Beyond the basic sim ilarity of structure, theHandb ookis very differentfrom the old

Principl es Mostsuperficially,perhaps ,it reflects thechanges which have been made in

that most tangible and widelyknown product of the Asso ciation' s work,the IPA Chart.Discussion and exemplification isbased on the most recent (1996)edition of thechart

More substant ively,theHandbo okacknowledges the fact that overthe past half century

the advance of techniquesfor acoustic analys is meansthatmany readers willbe familiarwith,and quite possiblyworking with ,speech as an acousti c sig nal Thismeans it nowseems appropriate to use an acoustic displaysuch as a spectrogram not only as awayofpresenting one facetof speech ,but also to discu ss problemswhich arise in the relation

betw een a segm entally based syste m of notation and the physical speec heve nt The

Handb ook will also co nta in practical information to do with the use of the IPA oncomputers,such asthe computer codes for phonetic symbols

Themost fundamental differencesbetween the old Prin ciples and the new Handbook

perhaps arise from theexpectation that the readership of the new work willb much less

homogen eousthan that envisagedfor the oldone.The new Handbookis inten de d to be areferencework not only for language teachersand phoneticiansintere sted in the sounds ofdifferent langua es, but also for speech technolo gists , speec h pathologists , theoretical

phon olog ists, andothers

Thisbreadth of readership isto beencouraged ,given the goalthat the Internat ional

Phoneti c Alphabet here after 'the IPA')should b a standard for the represe ntatio n of

speec h.Butit poses particularchallengesfor the writingof the 'tutoria l' secti ons of the

H andb ook The challenges are further increased by the verticalsp read of readers from

thosewho are experiencedphoneticianstothose who know nothing about phonetics.The

viii F oreword

breadth ofreader shiphas led perha ps to amo reequi vocal tone inthe presentati on of thepremis es beh ind theIPA than in the Prin c iples Fo r inst ance ,the way inwhic h the IPA

dev eloped hist orically was close ly bou n6up witha 'stric tlysegme nted' phon emicvie w,

and in sectio n 10 the fact tha t the+ are altern ative s in pho no logi ca l theory isacknowledged.The vertica lsprea dof reader sposestherecurringquest ion ofhowmuch or

howlittle to say The low erboundis pres umab ly what ano viceneeds topickup inorde r

to have some ide aofthe princ ip les go ve rni ng the organi za tio nof the cha rt The uppe r

bou nd is the practi c al goa lof a compac t boo klet ,read ily afford able by stude nts, and

concis e enou ghtobe easily dige stedb non- sp ec ial ist reade rs

Theresulting text in part I ismoredi,scur sivethan tha tofthe oldP rinciples It should

be borneinmind, how ev er,that it doesriot atte m pt the job eitherofaphoneticste xtb ook,

or of acritiq ueof the IPA.Now ad aysth ~reare many good pho ne tics textbook s avai la ble,

and it woul d be exp ect ed that studen tsof pho netic s wou ld read oneor mo re of these in

conj unc tio n with the H andb ook. The purp ose of the Handb ook is not to provid e a

compre he nsiveorbal an cededuc at ion in:phon e tics ,but toprovide a co nc isesum maryof

infor ma tio n needed for getting togrips with theIPA.Likew ise ,whilst afull-scale critique

of the assumpt ion s on wh ic h theIP A is founde d isperhap sdue ,the prac ticall y-oriented

Handb ook isnotthe plac e for it.TheIPI\ is aworkin gtoolfor many, and whilst it maybepossible to improve thattool,the roleof theH andbookisthat ofan ins tructi on manua l fo r

thetoo!whichiscurrently available

Thecre at ion of theH andb ookhasbeenineverysense acollabora tiveeffo rt.The te xt

inpart Iis largel ythe respo nsi bi lityofFra ncisNol an,and theexemplifi cati on of the use

of sou nds was pro vi ded b Pet er Lad ef oge d and IanMaddi e son Ian Maddieso n, and

Martin Barry, a succes sive edi tors of the J ournal of th e In tern ational Ph on et ic Associat ion,hav ebeen respons ible for oversee ingandcolla ting the rich and eve rgrowi ng

stoc k ofIllustr ati o ns Mart in Ball was inst ru me nta lin formulati ng the Ext en si on s to theIPA (append ix 3), and Mike MacMaho n wro te appe nd ix 4 on the hist or y of the

Associat ion.John Esling is respo nsi ble for appe ndix2 onthecomp ute rcodi ngof symbols,

andfor most ofthe work invol vedinthefinalstagesof preparingtheHand bookincludin g

the final editingof thelIIustrat ion s And,of course,particul ar thanks are due tothe authors

ofthe Illust rat io ns, and to the large number of me mber s ofthe Intern a tio nal Phon et ic

Associati on who res ponded withsug ges tions andcorrec tio ns when adraft of partsofthe

H andbookwas publish edin theJ ournal of t he Int ernational Ph onetic Assoc iation

THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET(revised to 1993,updated 1996)

Wheres ym bo ls a ppenrIn pa irs.theone (Q t h e ng ht r epresents avo i cedconsonant Sha dedare as d en o te amc ulnuon s j udgedImpossib le

CONSONA NT S (NON- PULMONIC) VO WELS

, M ore r ound ed Labial ized N asalized

Less ro unded ':} j Palatalied t j d j n dn

M id-centrnlrz ede ~ R aised ~ < t =voi c ed a lve rf ri cative)

S yllabic I) T l ow e re d If ( §=vo iced bil ab i ala ppr o ximnnt)

~ No n -syllnbrc ~ ~ Ad vanced T on gueROO I y

~

Rh o l icily d'- a " R etr ac t edT o ng u e R OOI y

DI ACRlTI CS Di acrit icsm a yb e p laced ab ove J s ym bo l wi th a desc ende r e g ~

c~

1

fj

V OIcede pigto u at t ncau ve

V Oicelessl abml -v el ar tncauv c

v oiced l abra l-vel m ap pro xrmam

vcr cclcss cp rg lon al t n c a n v c

voice d l abra l -pa lnral n ppr ox rmanr

M

W

Cl i cks V icedrmplc s rve s E jecnv es

0 Bila bml 5 BIlabial , E x amp l e s

I Denia l cf D enudr alvcolnr p' Br l nbr al

I ( P os n o tvcolar f P alat al t' Dental/nl vcolar

:f Pel aroa lvccla r 9 V elar k' vela r

II Al veolarl ateral G U vular S' Alveo l arfnc an

O THER S YMBOLS

, I

Introduction to the IPA

1 What isthe InternationalPhoneti c Alphabet?

Theaim of the International PhoneticAssociatio n istoprom ote thestudyofthe scienceof

pho ne tics and the various practi cal app lica tions of tha t science Fo r both the se it isdesirableto have a consistentway ofrepresenting the soundsof language in written form

From its foun da tio n in 1886 the Associatio n has been conce rned to develop a set of

symbo lswhic h woul dbe convenient to use,butcom pre hensiveenoug h to cope with the

wide varietyofsou ndsfoun d in the languages oftheworld ; and toencouragethe use of

thisnotationas wide ly as possibleamong those concernedwith langua ge.Thesystem is

gene ra lly know nas the Intern ational Pho netic Alph abe t Bo th the Association and its

Alphabe t are widely re ferred to b the abbre viation IPA, and here the Alp habe t will

generally be abbrev iated to 'theIPA'.TheIPA isbased on the Roman alphabet,which has

theadva ntage of beingwide ly famili ar , butalso inc ludes letter s and add itiona lsymbo ls

from a varie ty of other sources.These add itio ns are necessary becau se the vari et y of

sounds in lan guages is muchgrea ter than thenumberof lette rsin theRom an alphabet.The

use of seque nces of phoneticsymbo ls to represe ntspeech is known astranscription

TheIPA can beused for many purposes.For instance ,itcan beused as a way to show

pronu ncia tio n in a dictiona ry, to record alangu age in lingui sti c field work ,to form thebasisof a writingsystem fora language, or to annotateacousticandotherdisp laysinthe

ana lysis of speech.For all these tasks it is necessaryto have a gene ra lly agreed setof

symbo lsfor designati ng soundsunamb iguou sly,and theIPA aims to fulfilthis role.ThepurposeofthisH andbookisto providea practicalguidetotheIPA andtothe conventio ns

associatedwith it

Phonet ics ,like anyscie nce,develops over time.Newfact s eme rge, new theo ries are

created, and ne w solutio ns to old probl ems are invent ed.Thenotati on al syste mof any

sciencereflects facts and theories ,andso itisnatur althat from timeto timetheAlpha bet

sh uld be mod ified to accommo d ate innova tio ns The Alpha be t prese nte d in this

H andb ook is the versio n revi sed by a Conv e ntion of the Intern ati on al Phon eti cAssociation he ld inKiel in 1989, subjec tto a subseque ntset of minormodificatio ns and

correctionsapprovedbytheCouncilof the Associatio n Desp itethese andearlierchanges

the Alphabe t tod ayshowsstriking continuity with theAssociat ion ' sAlphabetasitwas at

theendof the ninetee nthcentury.The developme ntof theIPAhas,throughoutthehistor y

of theAssociatio n, bee n guided by a set of 'Principles ',and these are listed in appendix1

2 Phonetic descriptionand theIPA Chart

Beh ind the syste mof notationknown as theIPA lie anumber oftheoret ical assumptions

about speech andhow it can bestbe analyzed.Theseincludethe follow ing:

- Someaspec ts ofspeech arelingu istic all yrelev ant ,whilstother s (suchaspersonal voice

quality)are not

- Speec hcan berep resent edp rtly as a sequence of discre tesoundsor 'segm ent s '

- Segmen tscan usefullyb dividedintotwo majorcatego ries,consonantsandvowels

- Thepho netic descr iption ofconsonantsandvowelscanbe made with reference tohow

4 Handbook of the {PA

they are produced and to their auditorycha~acteristics.

- In addition to the segments, a number of 'suprasegmental' aspects of speech, such asstress and tone,need to be represented independently of the segments

The IPA is summarized in the 'IPACh~rt',which is reproduced in its entirety after theforeword, and section by section in appendix 5;readers are encouraged to photocopy andenlarge the Chart for ease of reference.Th~structure of the Chart reflects the assumptionsabove The following subsections provideabrief introduction to phonetic description inthe context of these underlying assumptions, while referring to the relevant parts of theChart This introduction can only deal with a few important points, and readers who need

a more thorough treatment of phonetic description should consult phonetics textbooks

In introducing the IPA, it is necessary to refer to examples from languages.As far aspossible, languages are used with which many readers may be acquainted, but of coursethis is not possible for many sounds.Variationalso provides a problem:all languages havedifferent accents and other varieties of pronunciation.When a sound is exemplified by aword in a particular language, this should be taken to mean that the sound can often beheard in that word, not that it willalwaysoccur in pronunciations of the word

In the case of English, reference is made here mainly to two varieties, GeneralAmerican and Standard Southern British.These varieties are widely heard, in the UnitedStates and Britain respectively, in formal areasof broadcasting such as newscasts.GeneralAmerican is regarded as a variety which transcends regional divides Standard SouthernBritish (where 'Standard' should not be taken as implying a value judgment of'correctness') is the modern equivalent of what has been called 'Received Pronunciation'('RP') It is an accent of the south east of 9ngland which operates as a prestige norm thereand (to varying degrees) in other parts of the British Isles and beyond.Where necessary,reference will be made specifically to cine of these varieties, but normally the term

'English' will be used, indicating that th6 sound occurs in both General American andStandard Southern British In most cases'!of course, the sound will also occur in many

2.1 Linguistically relevant informationin speech

Although phonetics as a science is interested in all aspects of speech, the focus of phoneticnotation is on the linguistically relevant aspects For instance, the IPA provides symbols totranscribe the distinct phonetic events corresponding to the English spelling refuse

(['refjus] meaning 'rubbish' and [rrfjuz]'meaning 'to decline'), but the IPA does notprovide symbols to indicate information such as 'spoken rapidly by a deep, hoarse,malevoice' Whilst in practice the distinction between what is linguistically relevant and what

is not may not always be clear-cut, the principle of representing only what is linguisticallyrelevant has guided the provision of symbols in the IPA The need to go further, however,

is now recognized by the 'Extensions to the IPA' presented in appendix 3

2.2 Segments

Observation of the movements of the speech organs reveals that they are almost

Introduction to the IPA 5

continuous motion Similarly the acoustic speech signal does not switch betweensuccessive steady states, but at many points changes gradually and at others consists ofrapid transient events Neither the movements of the speech organs nor the acoustic signaloffers a clear divisionof speech into successive phonetic units This may be surprising tothose whose view of speech is influenced mainly by alphabetic writing, but it emergesclearly from (for instance) x-ray films and acoustic displays

For example, the movements and the acoustic signal corresponding to the Englishword worry will show continuouschange.Figure I presents a spectrogram of this word.Spectrograms are a way of making visible the patterns of energy in the acoustic signal.Time runs from left to right, and the dark bands reflect the changing resonances of thevocal tract as the word is pronounced.In the case of the word worry ,the pattern ebbs andflows constantly, and there are no boundaries between successive sounds.Nonetheless theword can be segmented as [WE1i] - that is, as [w]+[E]+[1]+[i] This segmentation isundoubtedly influenced by knowledge of where linguistically significant changes in soundcan be made A speaker could progress through the word making changes:in a Britishpronunciation, for instance,[WE1i] worry, [hari]hurry ,[heeri]Harry, [hreti]Hatty ,[heeto]

hatter.There are thus four points at which the phonetic event can be changed significantly,and this is reflected in the analysis into four segments.Languages may vary in the points

at which they allow changes to be made, and so segmentation may have to be tentative in

a first transcription of an unknown language (see section 9) Nonetheless there is a greatdeal in common between languages in the way they organize sound, and so many initialguesses about the segmentation of an unfamiliar language are likely to be right

6 H andbook of t he IP A I

i

Phoneti c analysisis basedon thecruc ial~remisethat itispossibl e todescr ibe speec h

in terms of a seq ue nce of segments , and o the further crucia l assumptio n that eac h

segm e ntcan be characte rized by an articul atory target 'Articulation' isthe technicalterm

for the activi tyof hevocalorga nsin makingiaspeec hsound.The escription ofthetarget

is static, but thisd es not implythatthe artcula tionitse lf is necessarilyheldstatic.So, forexample, [J](as in the wordwo rryabove) is~esc ri bedashaving anarrowingmadeby the

ton gue-t ip near the back of the alveo lar ridge (the flattish area beh ind the uppe r fro ntteeth).Theton gue-t ip actua lly makes acontinuo us move mentto and from that target, as

ref lecte d in the dipping patte rn of higher resonances on the spec trog ra m in figu re I

Ibetween 0.4and0.5s.In othersounds,atarget will behe ld for afixed amou nt of tme

The impo rtant pointisthat theuse ofsegme~tsandassociated'target'descriptionsallo ws

for a veryeco no mica l analysis of thec om ple~and continu ously varyingeventsof speech

2 3 The con sonant-vowel di stinction

Broadl y, speec hinvolvessuccess ive narrowing and open ing of the vocal tract, thepassagethrough whic h theairflow sduring speec h.'Phis can besee nclea rlyinan exampl e such as

b anana(jba'neeno]or bc'ncnol) inwhich the vocal tract isclosedthree times (firs t bythelips and then twiceb the tongue),eachclosure beingfollowed by anopening ofthe vocal

tract Thesuccessiveopen ings are the basisof sylla bles,and the word ban anaconsis ts

there for e of three sylla bles.The open p ar ~t of the cycle is regarded as the cen tre ,or

nucleu s, of the syllab le

Sounds like [b] and [n] which invol ve a closed, or nea rly closed , voca l tract , are

conso nants.Sounds like [g] and[a] which invol ve anope nvocaltract arevowe ls.More

preci sely, anysounds in whichtheflow of airout of themouth is impeded at leastenough

to cause a distur bance of theairflowareconsonants.So a sou ndsuc has[s], in whichthe'h issing ' that can be heard results from the airflow beingmade tu rbu lent, is as much a

consona nt as [b] Conve rsely any soundkin which the air flows out of the mouth

unimp eded arevowe ls.Thedistin ctionb et~veenconsonant and vowe l is fundamentalto

theway segme ntsare describ edin the frame work underpinn ingtheIPA

Itfollowsfrom thedefinition s of 'conson nt' and 'vowe l' , and from the orig inof the

sylla ble in therepeated opening and narrow ing of thevoc altract, that vowe ls arewell

sui ted toplayin gtheroleofsyllable nuclei l andconso nantsare wellsuited to definin gthe

marg ins of sylla bles The rel at ion ship betwee n sylla bles and typ e of sou nd is not ,

howe ver , tot ally straig htfo rward For one th ing, a sound whic h is a consonant may

none the less act as a sylla blecentre So in a commo npronunciatio nof the Engl ish word

butt on as [bxtn] there are twosyllables,but the nucl eus of thesecond is aconso nant,asjudged from the way it is produced.Conve rse ly in theword [jet] y t,the first sound, if

prolo nge d, is very sim ilar to thevowe lof [hid]h eed,and does not nvo lvea narr owingextre me eno ugh to produce frict ion How ever because [j] plays the same role in the

sylla bleassounds which are by definiti on conso na nts(e.g [b] in [bet]be t ),it is ofte n

incl uded in the classofconso nantsand described acco rdi ngly

OntheIPA Chart, there areseparatesections for vowelsand for conso na nts , refl ecting

Intr od uction 10 th e IP A

different techn iqu esfor descr ibin g them.The diffe rent techn iqu es arise from the more

close d articul ati on of conso nan ts and the mor eopen articulatio nofvowe ls

2.4 Consonants

Bec auseconson antsinvolvea narrowin g or'stricture'atan identifiable place inthevocal

tract, phonetici an s have tradition all y class ified a consonant in ter ms of its 'placeof

articu lat io n' The[t]of en,for instan ce ,requi res an airtightseal bet we entheupper rimof

the tongue and the upper gum or teeth Phonetic descriptio n of place ofartic u la tio n,howe ver ,con cent rate s on asec tio nor 'sl ice' through themid-lineof the vocal tract, themid-sagittal plane as it is known, and in thisplane the seal is made between the tip or

blade of the tongu e and thebonyridgebehindtheupper fronttee th,the alveo lar ridge.Thesound isther ef ore describedas alveol ar.Figure 2 showsa mid-sag itta lsectio nofthe vocal

tract, with thedifferent place sof articu latio n labell ed Asfurther examp les ,the [pJ ofp en

is bilabi al (the clos ure is mad e b the upper and low er lips), and the [k] ofK en velar

(ma de by the back of the ton gue agains t the sof t palate or velum) Othe r place s of

articulationare exempl ified insection 3

i;-7>\.7>

<I

Figure2 Mid-sag ittal sectionofthevocal tractwithlabelsforplace ofarticu latio n

On theIPA Chart, sym bo ls forthe majority of conso na ntsare tob found in the large

tab le at the top Place of articu latio n is refl ected in the organi zati on of this consona nt

table.Each columnrepr esents a placeof articulation, reflected inthelabels across the top

of thetablefrombilab ialat thelefttoglott al (conso na ntsmadeb the vocalcords or vocal

fold s) at the right The te rm s 'bi labia l' and 'labio de nta l' indicate that theconsonant is

made b the lo wer lip agains t the upper lip and the upper front teeth respectivel y;

I

I

otherwise it is normally assumed that the s9und at a named place of articulation is made

by the articulatorlying opposite the place qf articulation (soalveolars are made with thetipof the tongueor the blade (which liesju ~t behind the tip».The exceptionto this isthe

term 'retroflex'.In retroflex sounds,the tiAof the tongueiscur led back from its normalposition to a point behind the alveolar ridgp.Usually alveolar [l] sharessome degree of

this curling backof the tongue tip, which distinguishesit from other alveolars.Note that

except in the case of fricatives only one'sy mbo l is provided for dental/alveolar /postal veol ar; if necessar y , these three pla?es can be distinguished by the use of extra

marks or 'd iac ritics' to form compos itesymbols, as discussedinsec tio n 2.8.For example,

the dental/alveolar/ postalveol arnasalscan be represented as[l}n 0] res pec tively The rowsof the consonant table, label'Jedat the left side by termssuch as plosive,

nasal,trill, and soo ,reflect ano the r majorldescriptivedimension forconso nants, namely

'manner of articulation'.Manne rof articulationcovers a number of distinctfactors to dowith the articul ation of a sound.One isthe degree of stricture(na rro w ing) of the vocaltract involved If the articulation of the pJosive [t] ismodified so that the tongue tip or

blade formsa narrowgroove running from,front to back along the alveolar ridge,inste ad

ofan airtight closure,air canesca pe The airflow is turbulent, and thiscreates so und of a

hiss ingkind kno wnin phonet icsas frication.Sucha sound is calledafricative.Inthis case

theresultantsound would be [s]as insin.Other fricativesincl ude[f](asi n f in ) and [f](as

ins h in ) If even lessnarrowingis made in ~the vocal tract, an approximant will result, nwhich the airflow is not turbulent and no frication is audible Approximants are

exemplified by theso und OJat thestart of.ye t,and thefirstsoundinr edin most varieties

ofEnglish( [l ],[D,or[0] accordingto the variety)

'Mannerof articulation' also includes important factorssuc h as whether thevelum(the

soft part of thepal ate at the backof the mouth)israised or lowered.If it islowered, asforthe so unds [m] and [n] in m an ,the resonan ce sof the nasa)cavitywill contribute to the

sou nds.Conson ant swhere this happens te calle d nasal s Lateral s (late ra l approximants

suc h as English [I] inl et and lateral fricatives suc h as Welsh [i] inll an 'church (pl

ace-nameelement) 'are soundswhere air escapesnot in the mid-l ine of the vocal tract but at

the side.Trillsare soundslike [I'] in Span ish p err o 'dog' in which the air is repeatedlyinterrupted by an articulator(in this ase thetongue tip) vibrating in an airs trea m.A very

short contact,similarin duration to one cycle of thevibration of a trill, is calledatap, such

a the[r] in Spanishpero'but'

A furtherimportantfactorin the descriptionof consonantsis not shown in the column

or row label s.Thisis whethertheconson ant is voicedor voi celess.In voi cedconsonants

the vocal cords are producing acous tic energy b vibrating as air passes betwee n them,

and in voiceless ones they are not A sy mbo l on the left ofa cell in the table isfor a

voicelessconsonant,e.g [p] and[7],and'one on the right is for a voiced consonant, e.g [b] (the voicedcounte rpa rt of [pJ) and [m] Voi cingdistincti on sare actuallymore fine-

grain ed than implied by thistwo-way distincti on ,so it may be nece ssary to add to the

notation allow ed b the two basic symbols.For instance, the sy m bo lizatio n [ba pa pha]

implies consonant sin which the vocal cords are , respectively,vibrating duringthe plosiv e

Introduction to the IPA 9

closure, vibrating only from the release of the closure, and vibrating only from a time wellafter the release (giving what is often known as an 'aspirated' plosive) Where a cellcontains only one symbol, it indicates (with one exception) a voiced consonant and isplaced on the right The exception is the glottal plosive [7] (as the vocal cords are closed,they are unable simultaneously to vibrate)

It should be clear that the consonant table is more than a Jist of symbols; it embodies aclassificatory system for consonants It allows the user to ask a question such as 'howshould I symbolize a voiced sound involving complete closure at the uvula?' (The answer

is [0].)Or conversely, 'what sort of a sound is[j]?' (The answer is one which is voiced,and in which frication can be heard resulting from a narrowing between the tongue frontand the hard palate.)

Not all cells or halves of cells in the consonant table contain symbols.The gaps are ofthree kinds Shaded cells occur where the intersection of a manner and a place ofarticulation define a sound which is thought not to be possible, either by definition (a nasalrequires an oral occlusion combined with lowering of the velum, and so a pharyngeal orglottal nasal is ruled out), or because the sound is impossible or too difficult to produce,such as a velar trill or a bilabial lateral fricative Unless phoneticians are mistaken in theirview of the latter category of sound, no symbols will be needed for any of the shadedcells.An unshaded gap, such as the velar lateral fricative, may indicate that the sound inquestion can be produced, but has not been found in languages.Itis always possible that alanguage will be discovered which requires the gap to be filled in.A case of this kind isthe velar lateral approximant[L],which only became generally known among phoneticians

in the 1970s when it was reported in Kanite, a language of Papua New Guinea Anunshaded gap may also occur where a sound can be represented by using an existingsymbol but giving it a slightly different value, with or without an added mark separatefrom the symbol A symbol such as [13], shown on the chart in the position for a voicedbilabial fricative, can also be used to represent a voiced bilabial approximant if needed In

a similar way, no symbols are provided for voiceless nasals.A voiceless alveolar nasal can

be written by adding the voiceless mark [.Jbelow the symbol [n] to form an appropriatecomposite symbol[I}].Many of the gaps on the chart could be filled in this way by the use

of diacritics (sections 2.8 and 3) The formation of this kind of composite symbol isdiscussed further in the section on diacritics below

2 5 Non-pulmonic consonants

All the symbols in the main consonant table imply consonants produced using air from thelungs ('pulmonic' consonants).Whilst some languages rely exclusively on air from thelungs for sound production, many languages additionally use one or both of two other'airstream mechanisms' to produce some of their consonants.Symbols for these soundsare given in a separate box below and to the left of the main consonant table Thesesounds are exemplified in section 3

The more common of the two non-pulmonic airstream mechanisms used in languages,the 'g lottalic ' , involves closing the glottis, and squeezing or expanding the air trapped

I

1 H andb oo k of th e I PA

bet ween the glottisanda consonantstricturefurt herforward in the vocal tract.I the airis

squeezed, and therefore flows outwa rds~ abruptly when a closure furth er forw ard is

released , orbriefly butcontinuo us ly through a frica tivestrict ure- the sound isknown as

an 'ej ective '.Ejecti ves are symbo lize d b~ the appropria te voicel ess conso na nt symbo l

withthe additionofan apostroph e , e.g [p'I],[s '].Ifinsteadthe airbetween the glottisand

a los ure further forwardisexp and ed,reducin g itspress ure,air will flow intothemouth

abruptlyat the release of the forwar dclos ure.Usua lly the closurephase ofsu hsou ndsisacco mpa nied by vocalcord vibrati on , giving '(voic ed) implosi ves ' suc has [6] If it is

n cessary to sym bolize avoicelessversio nofsuc ha sound, this can bedoneby add inga

'Velaric' airs trea m sou nds , usu ally known as 'clicks' , again involve crea ting a

enclosed cavity inwhich thepress ure of ~ h aircan be changed , but this time the back

closureis made not with the glottis butwith theback of thetongue against the soft palate,

such that air is sucke d intothemouth when theclosur e further forw ard is relea sed The'tut-tut' or'tsk-tsk'sound,used bymany Englis hspeake rsas anindica tionof disapp roval ,

is produ ced in this way, butonly in isolat ion and not as partof ordi nary words Some

other lan gu age s use clicks as consona nts A sepa rate se t of symbo ls such as [f] is

providedfor click s.Since anyclick invo lves avelar or uvularclosure, it is possi ble to

symbo lize factorssuch as voice lessness,voicing,or nasality ofthe clickby combining the

clicksymbo l withthe appropria te vel ar orJvu lar symb ol:[ k:f if IilJ, [ 41]·

I

2.6 Vowels

Vowe lsare soundswhic hoccuratsyllablecentres,and which ,becausetheyinvolve aless

extreme narrowing of thevocaltract thanconsonant s, cannot easily b described in term s

of a'p lace of artic ula tio n' as conso nantsfan Instead, they areclass ified in term s of an

abstract 'vowelspace', which isrepresentep b the four-side dfigure known asthe 'Vo we lQuadrilater al' (see the Chart,middle right ).Thisspace bears a rel ation ,though not an

exactone, to the position oftheton gue invowel production,asexplainedbelow

Figu re 3 shows a mid-sag ittal section of the vocal tract with four supe rim posed

outlinesof the ton gue ' s shape.For the voJel labe lledt il,which is rather likethevowe l of

h ed or French si 'if', the bod yof the ton gue is displace d forwar ds and upward s in the

mouth,tow ardsthe hardpalate Thediagramshows a more extreme version of thisvowel

thannorm all yfound in Engl ish at least, m ~desothat any further narr owin g in the palat al

region would cause the airflo w tobecom e turbulent,result inginafricativ e.Thisextreme

vowel is taken as afixed reference point forvowel description.Since the tongue is near

theroof ofthe mouth thisvowelis describedas'close ',andsince thehigh est point of the

tongueis at the front of the area wherevow el articulationsare possibl e,i isdescribed as

'front'

Introduction to the IPA II

Figure 3 Mid-sagittal section of the vocal tract with the outline of the tongue shapefor each of four extreme vowels superimposed

Conversely, for the vowel labelled [0], which is rather like the vowel of StandardSouthern British or General American English palm , the tongue body is displaceddownwards and backwards, narrowing the pharynx The most extreme version of thisvowel, made so that any further narrowing in the pharynx would result in a fricative, istaken as a second fixed reference point The space between the tongue and the roof of themouth is as large as possible, so this vowel is described as 'open', and the tongue is nearthe back of the mouth, so it isdescribed as 'back'

If the tongue body is raised as close as possible at the back of the mouth,just short ofproducing a velar consonant, and (as is common in languages)the lips are simultaneouslyrounded and protruded, the close back vowel [u] results (see figure 3),which is similar tothe vowel of Frenchvous'you' or Germandu 'you ' And if a vowel is produced in whichthe highest point of the tongue is at the front of the mouth and the mouth is as open aspossible, the result is [a] This is rather like the quality of the vowel in cat in

contemporary Standard Southern British English (other dialects may have less openqualities or less front qualities) These two extreme vowels may also be regarded as fixedreferences

The first part of figure 4 shows that joining the circles representing the highestpoint ofthe tongue in these four extreme vowels gives the boundary of the space within whichvowels can be produced.For the purposes of vowel description this spacecan be stylized

as the quadrilateral shown in the second part of figure 4 Further reference vowels can now

be defined as shown in the third part of figure 4 Specifically,two fully front vowels [e]and [e] are defined between [i] and [a] so that the differences between each vowel and thenext in the series are auditorily equal; and similarly, two fully back vowels[:>]and [0] aredefined to give equidistant steps between [0] and [u] The use of auditory spacing in the

12 Handbook of the IPA

Idefinition of these vowels means vowel de~criptionis not based purely on articulation, and

is one reason why the vowel quadrilateral must be regarded as an abstraction and not adirect mapping of tongue position These ~ owelsand those defined below are exemplified

IThere are now four defined vowel heights:[i] and [u] are close vowels, [e] and [0]areclose-mid vowels, [e] and [::>] are open-mid vowels, and [a] and [a] are open vowels (notethat in this last pair the difference in letter shape is important, signifying a front vowel and

a back vowel respectively).The vowel space can be seen to be taking on the form of agrid.The eight reference vowels are known as the 'primary cardinal vowels' 'Cardinal' inthis sense refers to points on which the system of description hinges The description ofthe primary cardinal vowels outlined above differs slightly from that of the Englishphonetician Daniel Jones who first defined them, but is in accord with a widespreadconception of them today.The primary cardinal vowels are often referred to by numbersordered anticlockwise round the quadrilateral: I [iJ, 2 [e], 3 [e], 4 [aJ 5 [a],6 [::>J, 7 [oj,

8[u]

So far, lip activity has been largely ignored In the back series of cardinal vowels([a o uj) lip-rounding progressively increases,from none on [oj to close rounding on

[u].By conve ntio n unroundedvowel s are placed totheleft ofthe fro ntor back lineof the

quad ril ater al , androunded vowels tothe right Conve rsely inthe front series [a e e i] thelips are neutral for [a], andbecome progre ssiv ely morespread through the series to [i]

Thefact that [i e e a 0] are unrounded , and [o0 u] have increa singroun din g, reflec tsa

relationshipcommonl yfound inlanguagesbetweenvowelheight ,backn ess, and rou nd ing.Lip activityis,however, indepe nde nt of tonguepos ition,and many lan gu ages exploi t this

in their vowel systems

To reflect this, eight 'secondary cardina l vow el s' are thereforedefined which differ

only in lip posit ion from the ir primary counterpa rts The se are shown pair ed with the ir

primary counterpa rtsin thefour th partof igur e 4.So, for example, of the close vowe ls [i

y w u],[iw] have sprea d lips and [y u] have close ly roundedlips;and of the ope n-mid

vowe ls [e oeAo], [eA] have slig htlyspread lips and[oe o] haveopen rounding.Afur the r

two secondarycardinal vowel saredefined; these are the close central vow el s[i](sprea d)

and[H](close rounded).The secondary cardinalvow el s aresome times refe rredtob the

number of the corresp ond ing primary card ina l vo wel, for examp le [~] is 'seco ndar y

card ina l 2',or they are numbered anticlockwiseround thequadrilateral from9 [y] to 1

[w].[i]and[H]are thennumbered 17 and 18respectively

The comple tesetof IPA vowe lsymbols isshown in thequadrilateral on theChart.In

additio n to the cardin al vowe lsalrea dy discus sed ,which lie on the outs ide edg e of the

quad ril ateral,there are symbo lsfor mid central vowe ls, and forvow e lsatanumber of

inte rme dia te locat ion s.There is apair of symb ols for unrounded and rounded close -mi d

cent ral vowe ls, [e 8], and a corres ponding ope n-m id pair [30].The vow el [d] ,often

refer redto as schw a,lies at the middle of the vowel quadr ilateral , and [e] lies between

ope n-m id and open Thevow els[I Yo] are mid-centralized from [i yu]res pectiv ely.Since the vowel space is continuous,it is a matter of cha nce whe ther a vowel n a

langu age exac t ly coinci des with one of the refere nce points sym bo lize d on the

qua dri la tera l In par ticul ar, lan gu age s may use vow el s whicharesimi lar to , butnot as

peripher al as,the re fer en cepo ints indicated by thecardi na l vowels.If det ail ed phon et ic

descript ion is required, most vow el s in a lan guage ha ve to be placed in rel at ion to a

re fer en ce vowel, for inst ance 'avowel centraliz ed and low ered fro m cardin al [e]' :This

descr ipt ion can besym bo lized byadding diacritics (see sec tio n 2.8)to thecardin al vowel

sym bol:[i;:]

2.7 Suprasegmentals

A numberof prop ert ies of speec h tend to form patte rns whichexte ndover mor e tha none

segme nt, and/ortovaryinde pe nde ntlyof theseg mentaltarge ts Thisisparti cu larl ytrue of

pitch , lou dne ss , and pe rcei ved timing These prope rt ies are ofte n referred to as

'suprasegmentals', and part of theproce ssof phon et ic ana lysis is the sepa ratio nof these

prop ert iesfrom therest of the speechevent TheIP A pro vides a separatese tofsym bo ls

forsupraseg mentals, ob fou nd on theChart at thebott omright corner

Pitch variation , for instance, canope rateovercomple te utter an ce sto conve y mean ing

add itio na l to that of the word sinwhatisgenerall y terme d 'intonation' Thisistrue inall

1 H an dbook of /he I PA I

languages, tho ug hthe complexi tyoftheinton ation al system varies acrosslangu ages.The

sym bo l[il]can beused to mark the endorthe domain of an intonat ion pattern,andmto

de marcate asmalle r unit.The sym bo ls[>Hfor 'globalrise 'and'global fall' resp ectivel ymay also be useful for intonat ion , although a co mp le te intonation al transcripti on will

require sym bo ls notprovided on theIPA Char t

Another dom ain of pitch variatio n isihe word orsyllable, and suchpitch varia tio n

serves to dist ingu ish words in much the same way as the irsegmenta l make- up does

Lan gu ages inwh ichpitch hasthis func tio n are called tonelangu age s,andare thoughttoform amajority of thelan gu ages of thew<j>r1d.In Thai, for example ,[kh a.v] witha falli ng

pitc h (indica ted by the diagona l part o~ the symbo l foll ow in g the segme nts ) means

'servant' and[khaid]with risin g pitchmears'leg '

The IPA has two alterna tive sets of symbols for indicating tones In langu age s inwhich lexi cal contras ts are predo min antly depe nde nt on the pitch mo veme nt on each

sylla ble, suc has Thai and the various forms ofChinese, so- ca lled ton e lett er s are often

used.Thes e letters, as intheThaiexamples, indicate the tone of thepreceding syllable by

a vertica lstro ke witha line preced ing it the vertic al strok eis assumedto repre sent fivepossible pitch height s within the spea ker's range , andthe posit io n of theline shows the

hei ght and moveme nt (if any) of thepitchon the preceding syllable.Theton elett ers are

often used to indicate gene ral ton e move ments.For example,ifthereis onlyone fall ing

tone in a lang uage, and no stro ng reason todraw atten tio n to the parti cular level of its

endpo ints, it can be noted as going from the highest to the lo west lev el Thus a

tran scr ipti on ofthe Stand ard Ch inese wordfor 'scold ' is [mav], although most Chinese

speakers will not produce this syllable with a fall extending thr ough the ir whole pitchrange It is also poss ible to use the ton elette rstoshowmore deta iled transc riptions for

certain purposes.Thus, the Tha i high to~ecanbe tran sc ribed with the symbo l [l]; but

me asurem ents of the fund am ental freq uency in high tone sylla b les show that the re isactuallyarise anda fallinsylla blesofthis.sort sothetone could bere presented as[1]

Theothe r IPA system for transc ribing ton ehas oftenbeen used forlangu ages in which

ton al contras ts dep end predom inantl y on thepitch he ight in each syllab le.The reare three

diacrit ics, correspondi ng to high[e] ,mid[e ] and low[e] tone s, whic hcan be place dabo ve

the segme ntbearingthe ton e (hereexem plifie d by [e J).Thusthethree tones in theWest

Africa n lan gu age Yoruba can betranscribed as exemplified in the phrases [o a ] 'he/s he

met',r6 ba] 'he/she hid' ,[6 a] 'it perc hed'.Notice that these tonesymbols must not be

inter pret edas iconic;tha t is, altho ugh the 'acute accent' nlooks rising ,i infac t means

'high'.To repres e nt a rising tone it is nece ssaryto combin e a 'low ' and a 'high' ,and

sim ilarly for otherconto ur tones.So a syllab lesuc has[e] occurringo arisingtone is[e] ,

and o afa lling tone is [e ].On the othe r han d the 'ton lette rs' suc has [ell (mea ning

'hig ' ) and [e t] (mea ning'rising ' ) aredirectl yiconic

The cha rtshows the tone letter [l]as ifit wereequ iva le nt to n ,the extra-h igh ton e

symbo l in the othe r set of symbo ls,and $0on down the scale.But this isdone only tosimplify the layou t ofthe chart Thetwo sets of sym bo lsare notcompa rab lein this way

The four tones of Standard Chinese are ofte n sym bo lize d as [mal] 'mother', [rna v]

Introduction to the IPA 15

'scold ', [ma -t] 'he mp ', [ma-l] 'ho rse'.If they wer e tran scr ibed in the othersystem the ywould be [rna rna rna mal

The sy m bols [t] for upstep and [<] for down step are used to show modifi ca tion s(rais ing or low ering) of the pitch indic atedby ordi na ry ton e sym bols Upst e poccurs, forexample , in Hau sain thatthe last ofa se riesof high toned syllables befor e alow toneispronounced with ahigh er pitch thanthe othe rs Thus the Hausaword [nirantji] 'Engli sh'hasthree hightoneswiththe same pitch whensa id byitself Inthephrase [tur anttJ1 ne] 'it

isEnglish', the ra isin g of the high tone can be indica ted bythe modi fier [t] as show n Downstep occurs in the Ghan aian lan guage Aka n,as inthe word [:'ik:5 <t:5] 'cra b' whichhasa downstepped hightoneon the lastsyllabl e.Thistone isdemonstrably ahigh in that

ithasthe sam epitchlevel as an initialhigh tone inafollowi ngword

Symbol s arealso provid ed forind icatingthe relat ivepro m ine nceor stressof syllabl es,differing segme ntal length, andsy llable division s.The exact nature of syll abl eprominen ce

or stress variesfrom langu agetolan gu age,but theIPA providesfor up tothreedegrees ofprominen ce to be indicated;in[peerosarkuladji]pa raps ych ologythehighest level occurs

on the fourth syllable, and the seco nd highest on the first sylla b le, while the re mai n ingunmarked sy lla b les are less prominent (a fur ther divisi on amon g these may be inferredfrom vow el quality,those sylla bles with [a] bein g lea st prominent in Engli sh ).Extrastrongstresscan be indic ated by doublingthestress mark :[a"meI ZIIJ]amazing! Segm e ntallength can be ma rked on a continuum from short to lon g as [e e e:e:], tho ug h thepossib ilit y exists to showevengrea ter length a [e::].Syllabl edivisi on s, which it maybeuse ful to indicate for phon ol ogic al reasons or wher e the sylla b le divis ion determ ines

phonet icdiffer en cea in [nar.uert]nitrateversu s[nat t.rett]night -r ate, can be sym bo lized

as show n.The use ofsuprasegme nta lsymbo lsis further dem on strated insectio n3

2 8 Diacritics

Diacriti csare sma ll letter -sh ap ed symbo lsor othe rmarks wh ichcan be added to a vowel

orcons o nant sym bol tomodi fyor ref ineitsme an ing invariou sways.Asymbo land any

diac riticordiac ritics attach ed to it areregarded as asingle (com plex) sym bo l Thesetof

diacriti csapproved b the Intern at ion alPhonetic Associatio n is give n in the table at thebott om left of theChart

Anumber of diac riti csdeal with differ ent aspe ctsofphon at ion Two areavailab le to

re ve rse thevoic ing value other w ise im plie d by anysym bo l Voicel esstrills or nasals ,forins tan ce,for whic hthereareothe rwis e no symbols, can be not ated as (r], [i)] etc.(somediacriti csmay be placed abov e a sym bo l when adescenderon the sym bo l would interfe re

withlegib ilit y) Vow el swhich occ ur without voicin g can alsobe ind ica ted,e.g.[e ].Morerar el y em p loyed is U whic h indicates voi cin g in a sy m bo l otherw ise im p ly ing

voice lessn ess.Itsomet imes indic ates the sprea dingof voicing fromanadjacentseg me nt('assim ilation ' of voicing) , as in Fren ch [J a ~3u l!]chaque jo ur 'each day ' It is a moot

point whether[Js.] and[gJrefer tophon eti call y ide ntica lsounds,and like wi se[s] and[ ~] It

is possible tha tthe dist inct ion bet we en [k] and (g] or betw een (s] and [z] can invo lvedim en si on s inde pe nde nt of vocal co rd vibration , suc h as ten sen ess ve rsu s laxn ess of

1 H andbook of /he [ PA I

artic ula tio n, sothatthe poss ibili tyof not at ingvo ic ing separately beco mes important; but

in any case, it can be conven ien t tobe a~leto preservethe le xical sha peofa word (e g

Fre nch [Jak]c haque 'e ach' ) whi le not ing assimi lation.Thediacr itic[h]isused toindicate

a relea seof airafte ra conso nan t,mostcommo nly be twe en a voice less plos ive and a vowe l

as in [t''a r] ti e.Tw o differ ent phon ati on types which are used con tras tiv e ly by som e

lan gu a ge s,creakyvoice and bre ath y voice, canbe ind icate don vow e ls orconso na nts(see

examples at thetop ofthe secondcolu m nofthediac rit ic table)

The diac ritics sho w n in row s four to.nine of the firstcolu m n ofthe diac rit ictable,

together with the diacritics for 'raised' and'lowe red' show n to therightin rowsnine and

ten , can be used to modify the lip or ton gu eposi tio n impliedby a vowelsymbol Thus[1,1]

ind icate s a vowe l like card ina l[u] but witHalippositionfurtherfrom the 'rou nde d' end of

the 'spread-rou nde d' continuum than impli ed b the card ina l symbol , and (as see n in

sectio n2.6above)[ ~] ind ica tesa vowelcentra lized and lowe redfromcardi na l[e) Vowel

qualitiesbetw een [u]and[H]mig ht be sym bo lized[\:1],indicating retrac tio n rel at ive tothe

centra lvowel or (ifnearer bac k than centra l)[1,1]or [til ind ica ting fro nt ing relat ivetothe

bac k vowel The diacritic for 'mid- ce nt rali zed ' indi cat es a quality displ aced in the

direction of the midcentral vowel[;J]; thus: e]is eq uiva lent to[nand [5]to[9]

The diac riti cs for 'raised 'and 'lowered', when ap plied to acon son ant symbo l,change

its mann ercate gor y,so that [Il cou ld be used to indicate an artic ula tio n like that of an

alveolar plos ive but one in whic hcomplete closure isnot achieved, yie ld inga f

ricative-like sou nd (but lac kin g the groove d tongue shape of [s J) as in some Irish Engl ish

pronun ci a tion s of the sou nd at the end of r igh t The diacritics for 'advanced' and

'retrac ted ' are also com mon ly used to modify consona nt place of artic u latio n.So, for

insta nce, a vo icel essfricat ive at the fron t ofthevel arregi oncould be sym bo lize d[JS.]'and

a specifically posta lveo lar nasal(0)

The 'rhoti city'diacritic [-]indic ates a vowelwitha specificaudito ryeffec t likethat of

the vo we lin Gene ral Amer ica n [fo-]far and [o-]fu r(thecomb ina tio nof the 'rhotic ity'

diac ritic with[;J] is ofte n written and printed[a-D.The auditory effectisprob abl ycaused

by aco nstrict io n in thepharyn x comb inedwith anexpansionof the space inthe mouth in

frontofthe to ngu e, eithe r by cu rling the tonguetipupandback,or byretr ac tin g it into the

tongu e bod y while 'bu nc hi ng' the ton gu e bod yup tow ard s the pre-vel arreg ion.In some

lan gu agesthe tong ue rootfu nc tio nsindepe nden tlyofothe rdete rmi na n tsofvowel qualit y,

adj us ti ng the wid thof the phar yn x, and at he bott om rig h t of the table there are two

diacrit ic s to indic at e advance m e n t and retrac tio n of the tongu e roo t The 'syllabic'diacri tic is used to mar k conso na n ts whichare acting as syllab le nucl e i,and the non-

sylla bicdiacri tic to markvowels which are'notfulfilling the ircusto marysylla b ic role

The 'dental' diacritic (third column) modifies those conso nan tsymbols foundund er'alve olar' to ind ic ateunambigu o usl y aden tal articulation.As noted insection2, altho ug h

onlyone symbo lis pro vide d inthe conso na nt tabl e (except in thefrica tiv e row ), denta l /

alveo lar /posta lveo lar can be disti ng uis hedas [IJn 0] (posta lveo lar being mar ked b the'retrac ted' diac ritic ) The 'linguolabial' diacritic,whic hisusedto sym bo lizeanothe rwise

om itte d(and very rare ) conso na ntal ty pe, indicatesa sound madewiththe tip orbladeof

Int rodu ction t o th e IPA 17the ton gue aga inst the upp er lip The diacriti c is used to modify the re le va nt alveola rconson ant symbo l The diacriticsfor'apical' and 'Iaminal' make speci fic which partof the

frontmost are a of the tongu e is making an artic u la tio n: the tip (ap ic al), or the blade(laminal )

Sec ondary articu latio ns are narro win gs of the vocal tract whic hare lessnarr ow thanthe ma in one producin g a co nso na n t The names pa latalizati on , velarization, andpharyngealizati on, make explic it where the nar row in g is In one sens e a secondary

articu la tion is thesu pe rim pos itionofaclose -v o wel -like articu la tio non a conso nan t- [i)

for pal at a li zati on , sym bo lized for ins ta nc e [ti), [ill) for vela rization ([tV)), and [a) for

phar yn gealization ([t')) Labi alization strictly means reducti o nof the ope ni ngofthe lips

Ho w ever it has tended to be used for the com m o nly found comb ina tio n of roundin g(p ro trusio n)of the lips acco mpa nie d byvelarcon st ricti on.It is for such labiall y roundedvelari zati on that the superscript[W) ismost appropriate.I itisnecessary todistin gui sh a

se co nda ry re duc tio n of the lip ope ning accompan ied b neither protru si on nor vel a r

constrictio n,asupe rsc ript[Ill(the sym bo l for alabi odent al app ro xi ma nt) might be used

These supe rsc ript diacriti cswhich are placed after the sy mbo l lookrather asifthey imply

a sequen c e ofeve nts ; but str ictly the notation mean s that the secondary art icula tio nis

sim ulta neous with the co nso na nt This isunlike the case of the aspi ra tio n diacr itic (e.g

[th))whe re the plosiv eand the aspi rat ionare sequential.Thesimulta ne ity of the sec o nda ryarticul at ion is clearer from the altern ative diacriti c for sym bo liz ing veJari za ti o n orpharyn ge ali zati on, [-) ,whichisplacedthrough the co nso na ntsym bo l in quest ion (o ften tothe detriment of legibility).Nasalizati on ,despitethe sim ilarity of nam e ,isnot a seco nda ry

articu latio n in the same sen se ,but the add itio nof theresona nc es of the nasal cavitiesto a

sou nd Vow els (e.g.[e))andconso na n ts(e g (1]) can benasalized

Finall y, there are three diacri tic s in the third colum n de a li ng with rel e ase ('nasal

rele ase','lateralrel e ase ', and 'no aud iblere lease').All three sho w thatastop cons o na nt

has not bee nrele ased into avow el Instead ,theairescape is through the nos e(e.g [bAtnr;1

b ur/on), round the side oftheton gu e (e.g [bot']1b ottles,orthe air is not released until alater sound [lreg'breg)ra g ba g.Theuse ofdiacriticsisfurther exe mplif ied insectio n3

2 9 Oth er s ym bols

These sym bo ls are incl ude d in the ir ow n sec tio n of the Chart for present ati on al

conve nie nce.The sec tio ncontains sev er al co nso na n tsymbo ls which wouldnot fiteasi lyinto the 'pla ce andman ne r' gridof the main conso na nt table.In somecases, suc h as the

epig lo tta ls and the alve o lo-pa lata ls, no colum n isprovided for the place ofarticula tio nbecause of its rarity and the sma ll number of types ofso unds which are found the re.In

ot her cases,suc h as [w), the sou nd invol ve s two places of art ic ula t io n sim ulta ne ously,

whic h mak esitinco nve nie nt todispl ay in the tabl e.Ifse pa ra te columnsfor allconso na nts

with two plac es of articu la tion we re provided , the size of the grid would bec om eunmanageabl e.Most conso na nts that involvetwo simulta neo us places ofartic ula tionare

written b combinin g two sy mbo ls with the 'tie bar ' [~), fo r exam ple [kp) which

represents avoicel ess labia l-ve lar plosive

18 Handbook of the IPA

3 1 Exemplification of the symbols I

Thege ne ral value of thesym bolsin thechartislistedbelow In each case a sym bo lcan be

regardedas a shorth andequivalen tto aphon eti cdescription,and a way of representingthe

co ntras ting sou nds that occ ur in a lan gu age.Thus [m] is equivalent to 'vo iced bilabi al

nasal ' ,and isalsoawayof re prese ntingo ,eof the con tras ting nasal sounds that occur in

Engli sh and otherlangu age s :

When asymbo l issaid tobe suitable for:the re presentationof soundsin two languages ,

it doesnotnece ssaril ymean thatthesounds in the two languagesare identical.Thus [p] is

I

shown a being suitablefor thetran scr ipt ion of p eain English, and also forpis in French ;

simi larly [b] is shown as being sui tab leforfhe tran sc riptionof bee in Engli sh , andalso for

bis in French; but the corres po ndi ngsounds are not the same in the twolangu ag es TheIPA has resourcesfor den otin g the differen ces, ifit isnecessar y to do so, as illus trated

below in section4; butata more genera l leve lofdescription the sym bol scan be used torepresentthe soundsin eitherlangu age,

All languagesexhibit var iati on in theirpronunci ation,Sometimes an exam ple belowwill only be valid for somevarieties ofalanguage.For instancethe exempl if ication of [8]

b the Engli shword thi ef isnotvalid fordialects which pronounce the <th>a alabiodental

fricat ive [f] or a dentalstop [1].An examplemeans that the symbolexe m plifie d is, at least ,appropriate for oneor morewidelyspok en varietiesof the language.In thecase of English

examples , where the va rie ty is not further spec ified, it should be assumed that the

exemplifi cati on is app ro priate, at least , in General American English and StandardSouthern BritishEnglish (seesection2)

Thesym bo lsareexemplified in the or?e r in which they appe a ron the cha rt;and they

are discu ss ed using theterms givenas heapings for the rows andcolum ns.English (E ng.)

and French (F r.) exampl es are give n when unambiguou s Where practi cal , an ortho

-graph ic versio n of the exem plifying wo rd isprovided , in italic s Eng lishglosses of wor ds

inothe r languagesare giv.enin quot ati on marks.The langu agesused forexemplificat ion

areidentified at the endof thelist at the end of thissecti on,

PLOSIVES

P Eng.pea [pi]; Fr pi s[pi] 'worst' b

t Eng.t ea[ti]; Fr.the [te] 'tea' d

Hindi [tal] 'postpo ne ' et

c Hungarian ty uk [cu:k] 'hen' j

k Eng.cap [keep]; Fr qu and[kd] g

'w he n'; K'ekchi [ka l a] 'gr ind stone '

q K' ek chi [qa] 'our' G

? Ha waii anHawai'i[ha wa i?i] '(place

nam e)',ha 'a[ha ?a] 'dance'

Eng.bee[bi];F his[bis] 'enco re 'Eng.deep[dip] ;Fr.db:[dis]'ten'Hindi[etal] 'branc h'

Hungariangy ur[ju.r] 'to knead 'Eng.gap [grep];

Fr.g ant[go]'glove'

Farsi[Gar] 'cave '

Introdu ction the IPA 1

The plosives in the left-hand column above aresaid to be voiceless,and those on the

rightaresa id to be voiced.The extent of voicing may var y co ns ide ra bl y The voi ce less

co ns o nan ts may be not only voiceless, but also as pirate d; and the voiced co nso na nts may

be voiced throughout their duration,or may have voicingduring only part of that time

Usuallythe use ofapair ofsymbo lssuc has[p] and [b] in agive n languagesignifiesonlythat there isa contrast in the degree of voic ing within that pair of sounds Either of the

vari ant lettersha pes [g] and [g] may be used torepresentthe voiced velar plosiv e

NASALS

m Eng.me[mil;Fr.mis[mil 'put'

ll) Eng.emphasis [enjfosrs]

n Eng.knee [nil;Fr.nid [nil 'nest'

11 Mal ayalam[karjqi] 'link ina chai n'

J1 Fr agn eau [ajio] 'Iamb';Malayalam[kepji i] 'boi led rice and water'

N Inuit[saa s xi]'his bones'

Note thatthesym bo ls [t,d, n] listedabove, and thesy mbo ls [r, C,I,~ , J , I] which will

be exempli fied below , all re pr esen t so u nds tha t can be either dent al , or alveo lar, or

postalveol ar If there is a need to represent spec ifica lly one of these placesof articulation ,thereare IPA resourcesfor doingso,which will be exemplifiedlater

TRILLS

B Kele [mbsuen]'frui t'

Spani sh perro[pero] 'do g ' ; Finnishranta [rente]'sho re '

R Fr.rat [aa]'rat' ;Southern Swedishras[nas] 'bree d '

Note:mostform s of English, French,German ,Swedish do not havetrillsexcept inover-articulatedspeech,for instancewhen tryingto beclear over a poor telephoneline

TAPS OR FLAPS

Spanishpero[pew]'b ut'; Am.Eng.at om['rec~m]

Hausashaara Ua:ra] or [jaqa] 'swee ping'

(So mespe ake rs of Hau sahaveltlandothe rs have[-I.].)

FRICATIVES

The frica tives in the left-h and co lu m n below are voiceless, and those on the right are

voiced.To a somewhatlesser degreethan in thecase of the plos ive s,the extent of voicing

may vary

<p Ewee fa [e <P a]'he pol ished' 13 Ewef;.fJf; [ej3e]'Ewe'

2 Handb ook of th e IP A

f E ng fee[fi];Fr fi xe [fiksJ; v Eng.v at [veet]:Fr.vie [vi) 'life';

Eweefa[e fa] 'hewas cold' Ewe eve [eve] 'two'

8 Eng t hief [8if) I 5 Eng.t hee[oil

s Eng.see lsi];Fr si lsi] 'if' z Eng.zeal [zil];Fr.ze ro[zeso]'zero'

r Eng.she Ui];Fr.c hic Uik] 'chic' 3 Eng.v i sion [vtjn]; Fr.jou e[3u]'cheek '

~ StandardChineses ha [sa] 'to kill' z Standa rdChineserang [zaq] 'to assist'

9 Germanich [19]T j Eng.variantofOJinyeast [jist]

x German hoch (hox] 'high' y Greek ya.:ta['yala] 'milk'

X Hebr ew [rnayar] 'hesold' IS" Fr.ri z[lS"i] 'rice'

h Hebrew [hor)'ho le' 'I He brew ['lor) 'skin'

Although it is tradi tional to pair He brew and Arabic [h], ['I] as fricatives, the voiced

sound['I]isusuallypercei ved as anapproximant

[5]rep resents abreath yvoiced sound, ratherthan an rdinary voiced sound

I

LATERALFRICATIVE S

{ Zuluhlan z a[Hinza ]'vomit';

Welshlla n [lan] 'church'

!) Zulu d lalallia1a]'play'

APPROXIMANTS

u Hindi[n~ u E] 'ninth'

1 Hausashaara Ua:ra] or [jaqa] 'swepping'

(Some speakersofHausa have[r] and others have [D.)

j En ye s [jes] Fr.y euxIj<t>]'eyes'

Uj Turkishaga[atqa] '(a title)';Korean [tqisa] 'doctor'

LATERAL APPROXIMANTS

I Eng.l eaf[ li f) ; Fr.t u[Ii]'bed ' I

L Tam il[val] 'sword';Swedish p iirla[peerla]'pearl'

h Italia nfiglio [fiU ::>] 'son';Spanishll egar [,(e'y ar]'to arrive'

L Mid-W aghi ag lag le [a t.a r,e] 'dizzy'

NON-PULMONICCONSONANTS

CLICKS

o !X66[kOMI'dream'

I Xhosa u kucola[ukuklola ] 'togrind finely'

Xhos aukuqoba[uku0 05a ]'tobreak stones'

Introduction to the IPA 21

:j: !X60[(:faa] 'bone'

II Xhosaukuxhoba [ukuki[h05a]'to arm oneself'

VOICED IMPLOSIVES

5 Sindhi [5dlli] 'field '

cf Sindhi [drnu] 'festival'

J Sindhi [f;ltU]'illiterate'

9 Sindhi [gdnu]'hand le '

d' Mam [d'a] 'fire'

EJECTIVES

p' Amharic [p'ap'as] 'bishop (loan word)'

t' Amharic [t'il] 'fight'

k' Amharic [k'alat] 'word '

s' Amharic [sahar] 'sun'

VOWELS

The symbols on the vowel chart can be regarded as providing reference points in thevowel space.They can also be used to represent vowel qualities generally in the area ofthe corresponding reference points.With the vowel symbols it is especially important tonote thatthey may represent slightly different sounds in different languages For example,[i] may be used for the vowel in the English word heed or in the French word lit (bed),

despite the factthat the English vowel may be slightly diphthongal and less close than theFrench vowel

Because of their statusas reference points, it isdifficult to illustrate some of the vowel

sym bo ls appropriately in terms of particular languages; this is particularly true of the midcentral vowels [5,e, 3, 0].The symbols [;l] and [Il]are available for representing vowels

in the mid central and lower central regions.[a] is often used for an open central vowel.The open front rounded reference quality[CE]is rarely found in languages, though reportedfor Austrian German

The symbols in the right-hand column below specify vowels with more rounded lipsthan the correspondingsymbols in the left-hand column

Eng heed [hid]; Fr.lit [Ii] 'bed' y Fr lu fly] 'read';

GermanFufie [fyso]'feet'Eng.hid [hid] v GermanFlusse [flvso] 'rive rs ';

Swedishnytta [nvtta] 'use (noun)'

Fr les [Ie] 'the (pl.)'

e Eng head [hed]; Fr lait [Ie]'milk' ee Fr.peur[pees] 'fear'

ee Eng had [hoed]

a Fr.patte [pat] 'paw' CE Austrian GermanS eil[SCE:]'rope'

22 Handb ook of th e IPA

A Vietname se [ AI]] 'fa vour' (T his symbol o

is some times used foradifferent vowel,

thece ntralvowe l in Eng.hut [hutl.)

Y Vietnames e[tr] 'silk ' 0

ui Viet name se[tur] 'fourth'

Kore an[gim] 'go ld'

uu

BritishEng.b oth er[booo]

BritishEng.c aught [btl;

Ger G ott [g:)t] 'go d';

Vietnamese[t:)]'large '

F l ot[10] 'share ' ;Vietnamese[to] 'soup bowl '

Eng.book [buk]

Eng.s chool [skut];

Fr l oup (lu]'wolf';

Vietnamese[tu] 'to drink '

Norwegi anbutt root] 'blunt'

OTH ER SY MBOLS

M Scotti shEng.wh eth er[MeO;)1]

w Eng.we athe r[we O;)(1)] ; Fr.o ui [wi]'yes'

1I F huit [qit] 'eig ht'

H Avar[man]'o o r'

't Avar[ma't] 'na il'

'I Agul[jai'ar] 'centres'

c Poli shRa sia[baca] 'Barbara(d im.)'

J KiCh aka[iJa a] 'todress oneself'

o Somedialect s ofSwe dishsc hal foal] 'scarf' (No te: or some speaker s there is little

or noUJfric tion in this sound.)

Affricates and double articulat io ns

kp,tJetc Eng.c hief[ tJif); Yorubaapa [akpa] 'arm ';Tswan atset sef.f§e!§e] 'tse tsefly'Note: the tiebarcan beplacedabove or belowthesymbo ls tobe linked

Ingenera l, only one or twodegrees ofstress aremarked:

mayb used toindicate extrastrongstress

Eng.phon eti cs[fa'netrk s]

Eng.pho netician [.founa'trjan]

Length mayb contrast ivefor vowels and/orconso nants:

Finnish ma tt o [rnct: o] 'carpet' ;maat on [merton] 'landle ss ' ;maatt o [rno.t:o]

'electricalearth/grou nd '

Finnishm ato[mc to] 'worm '

Note:as in Finni sh orthography , len gth canalso be indicated in phonetictranscription

by double letters:e.g Finnishmaatt o[rncctto] 'electrical earth/ground'

In trodu ction t o t he IP A 23

Esto nian has athree-wayle ngth orquanti ty contrast:

Estonians aada[sa:da] 'to get'

Eston ians aad a[sada]'send(im pe rative)'

Estoni ansada[sad a) 'hundred'

Lengthisnot contras tive(at least,witho utconco mi tantchangesinquality)inEng lis h,

butallop ho nicdiffere ncesexempli fythe use of thelen gthdiacrit ics:

Eng.bead[bi:d]

Eng.b eat[bi·tJ

Eng.po lic e[poli-s]

White spacescan beusedto ind ica teword boundaries.Syllable break scanb marked

whe nrequ ired.Theother two bound ary symbols areused to mark thedomain of largerprosodicunit s.There is alsoa link ingsymbo l that can beused forexpl icitl yind ic atin gthe

lack of aboundary

Eng lamb pr e pa r ed[Ieern.pra.pead],l amp r epair e [Izemp ra pead]

Eng.J ack , p repa ring th e w ay , we nt o n ['d3rekIprc'peanqO~'wei Iwent 'on II ]

F J acqu es, p reparant l e so l , to mba[3ak Ips epas clo solIt5b a II ]

'Jack, preparingthe soil, fe lldown'

Fr.p etit ami[potitami] 'boyfriend '

As expla ine d in the previous section, ther e are two alte rnative syste ms of ton e

tran scr iption The chart sho ws these two systems as if there weredirect equ iva le ncies

bet ween the m.How ever,they are usually usedin differentways

Bariba[nf n na ko] 'I am the one who came'

Yorub a0 b [6ba] 'h /she met'

Yor ub a0 ba[6 ba]'he/she hid'

Yoruba0 ba[6ba] 'it perched'

Triqu e[e?]'bitter'

It is also possibleto combine thesesymbols sothat , forexamp le,[e)represents ahigh

tonefoll o wedby alow tone on the vowel [e), e.a falling tone.Sim ilarl y[e)re present s a

risingtone,and[e)and[e)represent high-rising and low-risin gtone s

There are two symbo ls for show ing that subseq ue nt ton es may be a ste p lo wer or

highe r.The introduc tio nof adownstep is phono logicallycontras tive intheIgb o examp le

below,but the Rausaupstep indicates onlya predicta bleallophone

Igboul o an y][u~l:S ~aJ11 )'our hou se '

Hausa[turan Tt[i ne] 'it isEnglish'

24 Handbo ok o f th e IPA

The use of the other set ofsy mbo ls isillustrated below

CHINESE (S TANDARD)

[~i-I] 'to try'; [ ~it-l]'toreveal'

[ ~i~] 'matte r' ;[ ~ik~] 'to eat'[siJ]'time'

[~i '!] 'poe m '

[~ i A] 'city'[~i1]'to cause'

THAI

[naiv]'face '

[nan] 'aunt/uncle'[na:-A] 'th ic k'[nari] 'paddy field'[na:-J] '(nic k name)'

The symbols for global riseand global fall areapprop riate for use in many languages

to mark intonation

Burmese [l}a]'nose' ;

The voiceless diacritic can also be used to sho w that a sy m bo l that usuall y

represents avoiced sound in apart icul ar langua ge o someoccasionsre presents avoiceless sou nd , as in a det ailed tran scrip tion of con ve rsat io na l Eng lis h PL ea se

s ay a [pli ~s ]

The voice d diacriti c can be used to sho w that a sy mbo l that usu ally represents avoice les s sound in a parti cul ar larygu age on some occasi on s represents a voiced

sou nd,as in a detailedtran scription:of conv er sati on alEngli sh ba ck o f as[bee];~ v ].

Hind i[khan] 'mine'

Det ailedtranscripti on of Engl ishpe a ea , k ey [phi,thi,khi]

Assamese[pot] 'to bury'

Insome formsof Engli sh , e.g Standard SouthernBritish,over-rounded[J]isfound ,

Introduction t o the IPA 25

Eng.[e] in well [wet]

Eng.[0] in Novemb er[novem!Y.l(l)]

Eng.0]ui fiddl e[fld!]

Spanish poeta [po'eta] 'poet'

Am.Eng.[;}'] in bird [bo-d] This sound can also be written [!]

Hindi [kornar] 'potter'

Mazatecnda '[nd~] 'buttocks'

Tangoa [1eJe] 'butterfly'

W Eng.[t] in twin [tWm];Cantonese[kw:>k] '(family name)'

Russian [mati] 'mother'

Y Russian (lYisij]'bald '

Arabic[s'ad](letter name)

Eng [I] inhill[hrt]

Some forms of South African Eng.[1]indry[drat]

Danish [9]in lad e[l<e9d] 'barn'

Igbo 6bJ[9b)]'heart'

Igbo~b.J[Vb}] 'poverty of ability'

Eng.[1] in width(WI!S]

Ewe e da [e gal 'he throws'

Ewee da [e <;ja] 'he cooks '

Fr.fin[fe]'end'

n Russian [d-no] 'bottom '

Navajo [diM?] 'pra irie dog'

Eng.[k'] in a ct[zek't]

3.2 Languages usedfor exemplification

The principalcountry in which a language is spoken is given only when it is not apparent

from the name

Agul, Caucasian, spoken in the N.E.Caucasus

Amharic, Afro-Asiatic,spoken in Ethiopia

Arabic, Afro-Asiatic,spoken in many North African and Middle Eastern countries

Assamese,Indo-European ,spokenin India

Avar, Caucasian, spoken in the N.E Caucasus

Bariba,Niger-Congo,spoken in Nigeria

Burmese,Sino-Tibetan,spoken in Myanmar

Cantonese,Sino-Tibetan,spoken in China

Chinese (Standard), Sino-Tibetan

Danish,Indo-European

English,Indo-European

Ewe,Niger-Congo, spoken in Ghanaand Togo

Farsi ,Indo-European,spoken in Iran

26 Handbook of/he IPA

Finn ish ,Finno-Ugri c

French ,Indo-Eu ropean

Germ an ,Indo-Eu ropean

Greek,Indo-Eu ropean

Hausa, Afro-Asiatic,spokenin Nigeria

Haw aiian , Austro nesian

Hebrew , Afro-Asiatic,spoken inIsrae l

Hind i, Indo-European,spokenin India

Hungarian,Finno-Ugr ic

Igbo,Niger-Co ngo, spokenin Nigeria

Inuit, Eskimo-Alen t

Italian,Indo-Eur opean

K'e kchi, Mayan, spokenin Guatema la

Kele,Austronesian , spoke nin PapuaNew Guinea.KiCha ka , Niger-Con go, spokeninTanzania

Korean,Altaic

Malay alam,Dravidi an , spoke n in India

Mam,Mayan ,spoken inGua tema la

Mazatec ,Oto-Man gue an , spoken in Mexico

Mid-W aghi ,Papu an, spokenin PapuaNewGuine a

Navajo ,Na-Dene, spo kenin UnitedStates

Norwegian, Indo-Europea n

Pol ish , Indo-Euro pea n

Russian ,Indo-European

Sindhi,Indo-Europe an, spoken inPakistan

Spanish, Indo-Europe an

Swedish,Indo -Euro pean

Tamil,Dravidian ,spokenin India

Tangoa, Austronesian,spoken in Vanuatu.Thai,Tai-Kadai

Trique,Oto-Manguean,spoken in Mexico.Tswana, Niger-C ongo , spoken inBotswana

Vietna mese,Austro-Asiatic ,

Welsh,Indo-Eu rop ean

Xhosa ,Niger-Congo , spoke n inSouthAfrica

!X65, Khoisan,spokeninBotsw ana

Yoruba , Nige r-Cong o, spo ken in Niger ia

Zulu, Niger-Cong o, spoken in South Africa

In troduction t o th e IP A 27

4 The phonem ic principl e

Fro mitsearl iestdays (see appendix 4) the Internat ionalPhonetic Associatio n has aimed toprovide 'a separatesig nforeach distin ctive sound ; that is ,for each soundwh ich,being

usedins tea dof anot her,in thesame lan guage,can cha nge the meani ng of aword'.This

noti on of a'dis tinc tivesound' iswhat bec am ewide lyknownin the twe ntieth centuryasthe phoneme.Itshistor y is far lon ger, though.For instance , the phonemic princ ipl e is

im plic it in the inve nti on of alpha be tic writing Howe ve r a lot of lan gu age s , suc h as

Engli sh ,have spell ingsystems inwhich the relatio n betw eenphonemes and lett er s ofthe

alp ha be t has becom e obscured This very fact wasa motivat ion for the cre atio nof a

univer sally agreedsys te mofphoneti cnotation.So, in Engl ish,the IPA provides a symbol

IkJwhich stand s unam biguo us ly for the phonem e whic hisvariou sl y writtenas «» (ca r) ,

<k>(kett le),-ck- ( back),ech-( monarch),<q>(quick) ,andinotherways

Each lan gu age can be an lyze das havin g an inventor y of phon emes.This inve nto ry

may ran ge insize from aroundadoz en phonem es to neare r ahundreddepend ing on the

lan gu age Conventio nally ,as in the Eng lis h examp le above, symb ols for the phonemes of

alangu age are placed withinoblique lines:I I

In general, the sym bo l for a phoneme will be an unmod ified lett er oftheIPA,but

letters may also be com bined to make aphonem e sym bo l (for ins ta nce I tJ/ ,as at the

beg inn ing and end of Engli sh c hurch; if necessary the pho no log ica l unity ofthe tw osegme nts can be shown by a tie bar: It]' I ).Diacritic s may also be employed to crea tesymbols for phonemes ,thus reduci ng the need to crea te newletter sha pes.Thismayb

conve nie nt in particul ar when a subsetof the pho nemic system of a langu age sha res a

phon eti c prop ert y , as in the caseof the nasal ized vowel phonem es of Fren ch I f'. ce a5 ,

whichwhen they stand alo ne represent Fren chh ein 'huh' ,u 'a, one', an 'year' ,andon

'one(im personal pron oun )'

The use of the phras e 'dis tinc tive sound' above impliesthat there are othe rsounds

whic h do not cha nge the identityof a word , sounds which are not 'dis tinc tive ' in this

techn ical sense.Centra l to thenot io n of thephon emeisthe recogniti on tha t many fine ly

dist inct sounds can bephon etically iden tifiedwhich donot havetheword-d istin gui sh ing

role of,say, Engl ish Ikl and It!(as inI kil k eyvs.Itil t ea ).For instan ce ,the Englis hIkJ

phonem eismade with a tongue clos ure further forw ard in themouth before afront vowe l(such astheI iiofk ey)than before aback vow el (suc has theh iofcaw ) Butcruc ially itis

notpossible, in Engli sh ,toexchange these two varietiesofIkJtomake twone wwords,so

thetwovarieties ofIkJare not 'distinc tive 'inEngli sh

Aphon em e can berega rded as an leme nt in an abstr actlingui st ic system ,an elem ent

whic h has to be realized in thephysical worldby an acou sti c signal produ ced by vocal

activi ty Variati on arises in the proce ss of real ization Som e of this varia tio n can be

attributed tothe influe nceofadjac entsounds affec ting the articu latio n,so forins tance the

I kl of key may be tho ug htof as beingfurther forw ard to facilitate integrat ion with the

followi ng/iI,while inothercasesthe variationseems tobe mere lyalangu age-spe cifi cbut

phon et icall y unmotiv ated hab it Variant realiza tions of a phon eme are known as its

allopho nes

28 Handbook of the [PA

The IPA aims not only to provide symbols which can unambiguously representphonemic inventories, but also to be able!torepresent details of phonetic realization.Theabove example could be represented as t~hi:] key and lkh:):]caw, where the 'Subscriptplus' and 'Under-bar' indicate advanced and retracted articulation respectively (seeappendix 2 for diacritic names) A further detail of realization is also indicated here - the'Superscript H' indicates aspiration, a dflay in the onset of voicing after the voicelessplosive, characteristic of such plosives fit the beginning of stressed syllables in manyvarieties of English Square brackets are used conventionally to make clear that a symbol

or sequence of symbols represents phonedc realizations rather than phonemes

In providing the means to show the detail of phonetic realization in a given language,the IPA also achieves the delicacy of notation needed to compare the phonetic detail of

different languages For instance, although a phonemic representation Itrul might be suitable for the English word true or the French word trou, the difference in pronunciation

of the two words is reflected in phonetically more detailed representations such asU;IJ]

(true) and l!liu] (trou) These show the dental realization of It! in French compared to the

alveolar realization in English, here retracted under the influence of the following

postalveolar; the uvular realization of Irl in French compared to the postalveolar

realization in English, both realizations devoiced after the voiceless plosive; and the fullyback realization ofluiin French compared to the central realization in (many varieties of)English

5 Broad and narrow transcriptions

A connected text represented in terms of phonemes is known as a 'phonemictranscription', or, almost equivalently, a 'broad transcription'.The term 'broad' sometimescarries the extra implication that, as far as possible, unmodified letters of the romanalphabet have been used This restriction may facilitate printing, and might be consideredparticularly if a phonemic transcription is to form the basis of a writing system.Under this

definition a transcription of English hideJut as Ihaidautl would be broad, while/haidaot/

would not be because it introduces letter shapes to the symbol for the phoneme laJ! and the phoneme laul which are not absolutely necessary for the unambiguous representation of

the phonemes of English, but which may be desirable to remind the reader of the phoneticrealization of these phonemes.Frequently, though, 'broad' is used merely as a way ofreferring to transcriptions which are phonemic,regardless of the letter shapes used torepresent the phonemes Phonemic transcriptions are one type of 's yste matic 'transcription, meaning they require the phonological patterns or 'system' of a language to

be known before they can be made

The term narrow transcription most commonly implies a transcription which containsdetails of the realization of phonemes There are two ways in which such a transcriptionmay come about Ifa transcription is made in circumstances where nothing can beassumed about the phonological system, it is necessary to include all phonetic detailsbecause it is not clear which phonetic properties will turn out to be important Thetranscription would be made taking into account only the phonetic properties of the

Introduction to the IPA 29

speech This type of narrow transcnption, as might be made in the first stages offieldwork, or when transcribing disordered speech, is sometimes called an impressionistictranscription or a general phonetic transcription.If an impressionistic transcription weremade of an utterance of the English phrase check the lens well it might be

[tJ~?k~dlenzw~t] This includes a glottalized velar stop, a dental approximant (thelowering diacritic indicating that the stricture was not close enough to cause frication),avelarized or pharyngealized lateral (probably involving, for many English speakers, asecondary articulation of 'uvularization' intermediate between velarized [IV] andpharyngealized [l~]),and three different vowel qualities in the stressed syllables, eventhough these vowels are the same in phonemic terms

The other kind of narrow transcription containing realizational information is termedallophonic.Ifthe relevant phonological system is known, atranscription can be devisedwhich includesany number of additional symbols to indicate the phoneticrealizations ofthe phonemes, i.e their allophones An allophonic transcription is also known as asystematic narrow transcription In the knowledge that a possible phonemic analysis of

check the lens well is /tjekoolenzwel/, one allophonic or systematic narrow transcription

would, perhaps surprisingly, be [tJ~?k~dlenzw~t], that is, one which is identical to theimpressionistic transcription in the previous paragraph, incorporating all the phoneticdetail which can be heard The difference is that now it would be possible to express, inconventions,the relation between the allophones transcribed and the phonemes which theyrealize Alternatively, it is possible (and customary) to be selective about the informationwhich is explicitly incorporated into the allophonic transcription The choice might bemade, for instance,to leave out the information about vowel height (the closer vowel in

check is triggered by the high tongue body position of the following velar, and the more

open and retracted quality inwell caused mainly by the secondary articulation of thefollowing lateral), and about vowel nasalization(which is very general before a following

nasal), giving a transcriptionwhichfocuses on consonant realization:[tJefk~dlenzwet]

Minimally, if the focus of interest were glottalization of plosives, the allophonictranscription could be [tJe?kodlenzwel], or if the focus were the 'dark' lateral,

[tjekoalenzwer].These last two transcriptions look superficially very like a phonemictranscription, but they are in principle different because information has been included(albeit sparingly) which is not required for the unambiguous representation of the words

Narrownessis regarded as a continuum, so that [tjckoalenzwer] might be regarded as aslightly narrow (or 'narrowed') transcription, and[tJ~fk~;}lenzw~t]as very narrow.(In allthese transcriptions, no spaces between words have been included.This is inevitable in animpressionistic transcription where it is not yet known how the utterance divides intowords In phonemic and allophonic transcriptions it is common to includespaces to aidlegibility, but their theoretical validity is problematic.)

Any transcription is connected to a speech event by a set of conventions.In the case of

an impressionistic ('general phonetic') transcription, the conventions are precisely thoselying behind the IPA Chart, indicating for instance that the phonetic value of [fk) is a

simultaneous velar and glottal closure In the case of a phonemic transcription, the