The IPA

The International Phonetic Association

• founded in France in 1886
• most original members were language teachers. (Until 1897, its name was the Phonetic Teachers' Association.)
• published the first version of its alphabet in 1888.

The International Phonetic Alphabet

• one sound = one symbol

  There should be a one-to-one correspondence between a speech sound and the symbol used to represent it. A symbol should always represent the same sound, regardless of the language being transcribed. A sound should always be represented by the same symbol.

• use letters of the Roman alphabet where possible

  Since there are many more speech sounds than there are letters of the Roman alphabet, many new symbols had to borrowed or created. Most were created by modifying the letters of the Roman alphabet in some way, for example, by using small capitals as in [, , ], turning the letter backwards or upsidedown as in [, , ], or by extending the tail of the letter or adding some other flourish, as in [, , ]. In some cases, the association resorted to less familiar letters from some of the Roman-based alphabets of Europe, e.g., [, , , ], or letters of the Greek alphabet, e.g., [, , ]. In only a few cases were entirely new symbols like [] or [] created.

• Major sounds are represented by symbols; minor modifications of sounds are represented by diacritics on symbols.

  The number of speech sounds that the human vocal tract can produce is vastly greater than the number of unique symbols that any group would want to invent or any person would want to memorize. In order to solve this problem, the IPA includes a number of diacritics, small accent marks that can be placed above, below, or next to a major symbol to indicate that the sound it represents in this case is slightly different from the sound it normally represents. Some examples:

  • [] -- the circle diacritic indicates that the sound being transcribed is just like an ordinary [n], except that the vocal folds are not vibrating.
  • [] -- the plus sign under the [k] an "advanced" sound. This sound is made with the tongue hitting the roof of the mouth a little further forward than it does for an ordinary [k].
  • [] -- a nasalized [o], exactly like a regular [o] but with air flowing through the nose as well as the mouth.

• has been revised a number of times since 1888, most recently at the association's 1993 convention in Kiel, with a few minor changes approved in 1996.
• has become the standard system of phonetic transcription in the discipline of linguistics.
• has been adopted by the American Speech and Hearing Association (ASHA), the licensing body for speech/language pathologists and audiologists in the U.S.
• has been used for the pronunciation entries in several dictionaries (almost all foreign language dictionaries and most recent British dictionaries).

A page from the "Maître phonétique", the journal that the International Phonetic Association used to publish entirely in its phonetic alphabet.

We'll be using IPA for the rest of this course.