The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) possess a variety of obsolete and nonstandard symbols. Throughout the history of the IPA, characters representing phonetic values have been modified or completely replaced. An example is ‹ɷ› for standard . Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that such things should be indicated with diacritics: ʮ for z̩ʷ is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ has been dropped.
Other characters have been added in for specific phonemes which do not possess a specific symbol in the IPA. Those studying modern Chinese phonology have used ‹ɿ› to represent, a vowel which represents the i in hanzi (see Pinyin).
There are also unsupported symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as ƛ, and many Americanist symbols.
While the IPA does not itself have a set of capital letters (the ones that look like capitals are actually small capitals), many languages have adopted symbols from the IPA as part of their orthographies, and in such cases they have invented capital variants of these. This is especially common in Africa. An example is Kabiyé of northern Togo, which has Ɔ Ɛ Ŋ Ɣ Ʃ (capital ʃ). Other pseudo-IPA capitals supported by Unicode are Ɓ/Ƃ Ƈ Ɗ/Ƌ Ə/Ǝ Ɠ Ħ Ɯ Ɲ Ɵ Ʈ Ʊ Ʋ Ʒ. (See Case variants of IPA letters.)
Capital letters are also used as cover symbols in phonotactic descriptions: C=Consonant, V=Vowel, etc.
This list does not include commonplace extensions of the IPA, such as doubling a symbol for a greater degree of a feature ( extra-long, extra stress, strongly aspirated, and extra-rhotic ), nor superscripting for a lesser degree of a feature ( slightly prenasalized, slightly affricated, and epenthetic schwa). The asterisk, as in for the fortis stop of Korean, is the convention the IPA uses when it has no symbol for a phone or feature.
For symbols and values which were discarded by 1932, see History of the International Phonetic Alphabet.
| Symbol or exemplar |
Name | Value | IPA equivalent |
Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ? | question mark | glottal stop | ||
| ƍ | turned small delta | labialized voiced alveolo-dental fricative | ||
| σ | small sigma | labialized voiceless alveolo-dental fricative | ||
| ƺ | ezh with tail | labialized voiced postalveolar fricative | ||
| ƪ | reversed esh with top loop | labialized voiceless postalveolar fricative | ||
| ƻ | barred two | voiced alveolar affricate | withdrawn 1976 | |
| ƾ | rotated epiglottal plosive | voiceless alveolar affricate | withdrawn 1976 | |
| ƞ | right-leg N (Latin eta) | moraic ("syllabic") nasal | withdrawn 1976 | |
| ᶀ ᶁ ᶂ ᶃ ᶄ ᶅ ᶆ ᶈ ᶇ ᶉ ᶊ ᶋ ƫ ᶌ ᶍ ᶎ |
letters with left hook | palatalization | [bʲ dʲ fʲ ɡʲ kʲ lʲ mʲ pʲ nʲ rʲ sʲ ʃʲ vʲ xʲ zʲ] |
superseded 1989 |
| ʓ | curly-tail ezh | voiced alveolo-palatal(ized) fricative | or | withdrawn 1989 |
| ʆ | curly-tail esh | voiceless alveolo-palatal(ized) fricative | or | withdrawn 1989 |
| λ | lambda | voiced alveolar lateral affricate | Used by Americanists | |
| ƛ | lambda bar | voiceless alveolar lateral affricate | Used by Americanists | |
| ł | l bar | voiceless alveolar lateral fricative | Used by Americanists | |
| š č ž | s c z with caron | postalveolars | , | Used by Americanists, Slavicists |
| ǰ, ǧ, ǯ | j, g, ezh with caron | voiced postalveolar affricate | Used by Americanists, Slavicists etc. | |
| ẋ | x with dot | voiceless uvular fricative | Used by Americanists | |
| baby gamma | close-mid back unrounded vowel | rejected 1989; Unicode LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (U+0264) represents either glyph | ||
| ᵻ / ᵿ | barred small capital I / upsilon | near-close central unrounded / rounded vowel | used by the OED among others | |
| ⱻ | small capital turned E | close-mid near-back unrounded vowel | used by some Koreanologists who study Gyeongsang dialect, where there is no phonemic differentiation between /ʌ/ (RR eo; Hangul ㅓ) and /ɯ/ (RR eu; Hangul ㅡ). | |
| ʚ | closed epsilon | open-mid central rounded vowel | a misprint of ɞ | |
| ɷ | closed omega | near-close near-back rounded vowel | rejected 1989 | |
| ω | omega | near-close near-back unrounded vowel | Made by analogy to ɜ and ɞ from ɷ or ʊ symbol. | |
| ı | dotless small i | near-close near-front unrounded vowel | a mistake | |
| ȹ ȸ | voiceless and voiced labiodental plosive | used in Africanist linguistics | ||
| ∅ or Ø | slashed 0 or uppercase slashed O | null initial | Usually used in phonology to mean "no sound values." However, in Chinese linguistics, some scholars considered it as "weak" glottal stop or something similar as sound value of the "existent" first consonant of syllables started by a vowel (e.g. ān in Tiān'ānmén), and this opinion can be connected with ㅇ (ieung) in hangul. ∅ can be confusing with close-mid front rounded vowel . | |
| ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ | hooktop P, T, C, K, Q | voiceless implosives | withdrawn in 1993 | |
| ʇ | turned T | dental click | superseded 1989; see click letters. | |
| ʗ | stretched C | alveolar click | superseded 1989; see click letters. | |
| ʖ | inverted glottal stop | alveolar lateral click | superseded 1989; see click letters. | |
| ʞ | turned K | velar click | Proposed symbol withdrawn 1970; articulation judged impossible | |
| ɩ | small iota | near-close near-front unrounded vowel | rejected 1989 | |
| ɼ | long-leg R | voiced strident apico-alveolar trill (Czech ř) | withdrawn 1989 | |
| looptail g | voiced velar plosive | The standard Unicode Basic Latin/ASCII lower-case g (U+0067) may have a "looptail g" glyph; the preferred IPA "open-tail g" (U+0261) is in the IPA Extensions Unicode block | ||
| ȣ | ou | close-mid back unrounded vowel or voiced velar fricative | or | a mistake in either case |
| я | reversed ʀ or Cyrillic ya | voiced epiglottal trill | ||
| ɿ | reversed fishhook R / turned iota | high back unrounded vowel, with frication from the preceding consonant | used by Sinologists, and by Japanologists studying the phonology of the Miyako language | |
| ʅ | squat reversed esh (actually ɿ with retroflex tail) | high central unrounded vowel, with frication from the preceding consonant | used by Sinologists. See Chinese vowels | |
| ʮ | turned h with fishhook | high back rounded vowel, with frication from the preceding consonant | used by Sinologists | |
| ʯ | turned h with fishhook and tail | high central rounded vowel, with frication from the preceding consonant | used by Sinologists | |
| ᴀ | small capital A | open central vowel | any of | used by Sinologists |
| ᴀ | small capital A | open back unrounded vowel | superseded 1900 | |
| ᴇ | small capital E | mid front unrounded vowel | or | used by Sinologists and some Koreanologists |
| G R Πetc. | uppercase letters | etc. | Uppercase alternatives to symbols shaped like small capitals | |
| Q | small capital Q | gemination | or etc. | Used in Japanese phonology to represent the Sokuon. Also sometimes used to represent a pharyngeal stop. |
| | belted | Voiceless lateral fricatives (retroflex, palatal and velar) | ||
| | Retroflex lateral flap | |||
| ɑ̢ etc. | underdot | ("retroflex" or r-colored vowels) | etc. | |
| ȡ ȶ ȵ ȴ etc. or d̂ t̂ n̂ l̂ etc. | curl or circumflex | alveolo-palatal | used by Sinologists | |
| k', etc. | no audible release | , etc. | Withdrawn | |
| k̫ etc. | subscript w | labialization | etc. | superseded 1989 |
| K P T etc. | uppercase letters (not small capitals) | fortis | , etc. | used by some Koreanologists |
| ɔ̗ / ɔ̖ etc. | lower-pitched rising / falling tone contour | In a language which distinguishes more than one rising or falling tone. | ||
| k‘ t‘ or kʻ tʻ | left quote or reversed comma | "weak" (or sometimes "normal") aspiration | (sometimes ) | First symbol may be left single quotation mark (U+2018) or modifier letter apostrophe (U+02BC); second symbol may be single high-reversed-9 quotation mark (U+201B) or modifier letter reversed comma (U+02BD) |
| ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ etc. | ligatures | affricates | etc. or etc. | Formerly an acceptable variant |
| etc. | prime | palatalization | etc. | Traditional in accounts of Irish phonology |
The table below shows official IPA symbols not used as the original definition of IPA.
| c | It is sometimes used as, or . |
| j | It is sometimes used as or . |
| ʒ | It is sometimes used as . |
| y | It is sometimes used as . |
| ä | It is sometimes used as or . |
| ö | It is sometimes used as or . |
| ü | It is sometimes used as or . |
| r | It is frequently used as one of rhotic sounds (including R-colored vowels) or of liquid sounds especially in phonological transcriptions. |
| l | It is usually used as one of liquid sounds especially in phonological descriptions. |
| a | It is frequently used as alternative for in printing when the distinction between and is not used. |
| ɑ | It is frequently used as alternative for in handwriting when the distinction between and is not used. |
| k’ etc. | Fortis sounds in Korean used by some Koreanologists. =, etc. above. |
| ʃ ʒ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ | They are sometimes used as alternative for, and respectively especially by some Japanologists and Koreanologists. |
| ɲ ʎ | They are sometimes used as alternative for the unofficial symbols and respectively especially by some Japanologists and Koreanologists. |
| ʀ | Chōon in Japanese especially used in some phonologic transcriptions. |
Famous quotes containing the words obsolete, symbols, phonetic and/or alphabet:
“The sage belongs to the same obsolete repertory as the virtuous maiden and the enlightened monarch.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.”
—Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911)
“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“I believe the alphabet is no longer considered an essential piece of equipment for traveling through life. In my day it was the keystone to knowledge. You learned the alphabet as you learned to count to ten, as you learned “Now I lay me” and the Lord’s Prayer and your father’s and mother’s name and address and telephone number, all in case you were lost.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)