International Phonetic Alphabet Download Mac

This book is a comprehensive guide to the International Phonetic Alphabet, widely used for over a century to transcribe the sounds of languages. The Handbook is in three parts: Part I contains an. International phonetic alphabet for mac - google search. The 'Font Book' is here: They have some excellent IPA fonts that you can download for free. Find out what the International Phonetic Alphabet, or IPA is, including why and when it was invented and how to read the IPA chart.

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If this is your first encounter with phonetics, you had betterstart reading the general phonetic notes beforetrying to make sense of the tables.

The tables
- Regular IPA
General phonetic notes
- Different kinds of segments
Description of segments
- Consonants

The tables

The International Alphabet was invented by the International PhoneticAssociation in 1888 and has undergone constant revision since.Here is theofficial chart.

The tables shown here follow the manner of the official chart withthe addition of an “epiglottal” column in the consonantstable because there is no reason not to do so (there are as manysymbols in the epiglottal as in the glottal locations, and it isinteresting to parallel the pharyngeal, epiglottal and glottalconsonants), and similarly an “implosives” row.

When the consonants' table shows two characters in a square, thefirst is the voiceless sound and the second is voiced; when only onecharacter is shown, it is voiced, except for the glottal andepiglottal plosives, which are voiceless (it is — probably— not possible to pronounce a voiced pharyngeal, glottal orepiglottal plosive). A grey rectangle (if your browser displays it,that is) means that the corresponding sound is impossible topronounce, or meaningless; the voiceless pharyngeal plosive ispossible (only the voiced counterpart is not), it just doesn't have asymbol. An empty square means that the sound is (presumably)possible, but no symbol has been defined (because no language uses it,or because it is just as convenient to use diacritics over an existingsymbol). Dentals, alveolar and postalveolar consonants use the samesymbols except for fricatives: ifnecessary, diacritics can be used to mark them apart; the standardversion is alveolar (though in my opinion,the approximant used to mark the English ‘r’ (lowercaseturned r, number 151) is distinctlypostalveolar, even slightly retroflex).

The vowels' table attempts to map the vowel symbols. However, whenused phonemically, their value varies greatly from language tolanguage, much more than consonants. When two vowels are shown in asquare, the first is unrounded and the second is rounded (though it isby no means true that all “unrounded” vowels are equallyunrounded, or even that all “rounded” vowels are equallyrounded). When a single vowel is shown, it varies in roundedness,being generally of somewhat neutral value; however, the ash (lowercaseae ligature, number 325) is a distinctly unrounded front semi-openvowel, and the upsilon (number 321, which looks like a turned smallcapital omega) is a distinctly rounded back-center semi-closedvowel.

Regular IPA

The following tables show the regular IPA symbols.

Displayed with graphics

These tables show one small (PNG) graphics file for each character.These graphics file were prepared from the “TIPA”TeX/LaTeX fonts written by Rei Fukui (fkr@tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp)using an ad hoc Perl script to convert the METAFONT output toindividual PNG files.

The images are numbered using the International Phonetic'sAssociation standard numbering of IPA symbols. If your browser istext-only, you will see the corresponding numbers in place of theimages.

CONSONANTS	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Plosive
Nasal
Trill
Flap
Fricative
Lateral fricative
Approximant
Lateral approximant
Implosive

VOWELS	Front	Central	Back
Close
Semi-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Semi-open
Open

CLICKS
Bilabial
Dental
Alveolar or postalveolar
Palatoalveolar
Alveolar lateral

EXTRA SYMBOLS
Voiceless labial-velar fricative
Voiced labial-velar approximant
Voiced labial-palatal approximant
Voiceless postalveolo-velar fricative
Alveolar lateral flap
Alveolo-palatal fricatives

Using Unicode characters

These tables contain the Unicode characters of thevarious phonetic symbols. If you are lucky enough to have afunctional Unicode web browser with the appropriate fonts correctlyinstalled (something rather unlikely!), it should look just as prettyas the previous table, and it should work even if your browser istext-only. If not, you will probably see lots of question marks,unreadable or incorrect characters, or simply blank squares. This hasbeen tested using Mozilla onLinux, with an impressive number of fonts; and also using lynx on an xterm withUnicode support.

CONSONANTS	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d			ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k g	q ɢ	ʡ	ʔ
Nasal	m	ɱ	n			ɳ	ɲ	ŋ	ɴ
Trill	ʙ	r			ʀ
Flap	ɾ			ɽ
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ ʁ	ħ ʕ	ʜ ʢ	h ɦ
Lateral fricative	ɬ ɮ
Approximant	ʋ	ɹ			ɻ	j	ɰ
Lateral approximant	l			ɭ	ʎ	ʟ
Implosive	ɓ	ɗ			ʄ	ɠ	ʛ

VOWELS	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	ɨ ʉ	ɯ u
Semi-close	ɪ ʏ	ʊ
Close-mid	e ø	ɘ ɵ	ɤ o
Mid	ə
Open-mid	ɛ œ	ɜ ɞ	ʌ ɔ
Semi-open	æ	ɐ
Open	a ɶ	ɑ ɒ

CLICKS
Bilabial	ʘ
Dental	ǀ
Alveolar or postalveolar	ǃ
Palatoalveolar	ǂ
Alveolar lateral	ǁ

EXTRA SYMBOLS
Voiceless labial-velar fricative	ʍ
Voiced labial-velar approximant	w
Voiced labial-palatal approximant	ɥ
Voiceless postalveolo-velar fricative	ɧ
Alveolar lateral flap	ɺ
Alveolo-palatal fricatives	ɕ ʑ

ASCII IPA

Representing IPA characters on a computer is very inconvenient: thecharacters themselves are unusual and consequently not found in mostfonts, and diacritics are many. Although the progressive acceptanceof Unicode will probably alleviate the problem, it is still a fewyears before tables like the previous ones are displayed correctlyeverywhere. Besides, even when it works correctly, there are placeswhere using Unicode representations is inconvenient, for example inUsenet articles. For this reason, a pure-ASCII representation of theIPA has been devised, mostly for use on the sci.lang Usenet group. Its specificationis by EvanKirshenbaum (kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com).

I have made some changes in the following table with respect toEvan's specification to correct some (IMHO) illogical features (orcontradictions) in the document, and to bring the representation inline with the latest standard of the IPA itself (1996). I have addedan “epiglottal” feature, represented by “epg”.I have represented the voiced uvular fricative by‘Q'’, rather than ‘g'’, which oughtto be a voiced plosive (note that the same objection could be madeabout the ‘r'’ symbol which is here shown as a trillwhereas it ought to be an approximant, but in fact the correspondingIPA symbol is often used as an approximant, so it does not matter verymuch). I have represented the labiodental approximant by‘v<apr>’ because it seems much more appropriate thanthe proposed ‘r<lbd>’ for a language such as Hindi(of course, different symbols can be used for different languages,even, in strict phonetic transcription, when they represent the samesound).

CONSONANTS	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Epiglottal	Glottal
Plosive	p b	t d			t. d.	c J	k g	q G	?<epg>	?
Nasal	m	M	n			n.	n^	N	n'
Trill	b<trl>	r<trl>			r'
Flap	*			*.
Fricative	F V	f v	T D	s z	S Z	s. z.	C C<vcd>	x Q	X Q'	H H<vcd>	h<epg> Q<epg>	h h<vcd>
Lateral fricative	s<lat> z<lat>
Approximant	v<apr>	r			r.	j	j<vel>
Lateral approximant	l			l.	l^	L
Implosive	b`	d`			J`	g`	G`

VOWELS	Front	Central	Back
Close	i y	i' u'	u- u
Semi-close	I I.	U
Close-mid	e Y	@<umd> o'	o- o
Mid	@
Open-mid	E W	V' O'	V O
Semi-open	&	@<sml>
Open	a a.	A A.

CLICKS
Bilabial	p!
Dental	t[!
Alveolar or postalveolar	t!
Palatoalveolar	c!
Alveolar lateral	l!

EXTRA SYMBOLS
Voiceless labial-velar fricative	w<vls>
Voiced labial-velar approximant	w
Voiced labial-palatal approximant	j<rnd>
Voiceless postalveolo-velar fricative	S'
Alveolar lateral flap	*<lat>
Alveolo-palatal fricatives	s^ z^

General phonetic notes

Segments

One of the fundamental (but perhaps debatable) postulates behindthe International Phonetic Alphabet is that speech, or, at any rate,the meaningful and “abstract” content of speech, can bedivided in atomic sound utterances called phones or segments.For example, the English word “dog” consists of threesegments, which happen to be represented by one letter each; themiddle one is a vowel (a roundedback vowel that is relatively open, though the degree of opennessdepends on the variant of English being considered) and the first andlast are consonants (a voicedalveolarplosive, and a voiced velar plosive, respectively). Another importantpostulate is that some phones are common between languages. Forexample, the segment [v], corresponding to thefirst consonant (‘v’) in the English word“view” is the same as that which starts the French word“ver”, the Germanword “weg” or theRussian word “вода”.

Naturally, the validity of these hypotheses is not complete.First, spectral analysis of sounds show that dividing a continuousutterance into well-delimited segments is hopeless: there exists allsorts of complicated transition patterns, and a sound only makes sensein a certain phonetic context. Second, phones do not fall in neatlydefined little bins, and there exists a continuum of possibilities(this is even more true for vowels than for consonants). Third, notwo phones are exactly identical: within a same language, peoplepronounce things differently, and between different languages, no twosounds are ever exactly identical. Still, despite all theselimitations, the hypotheses we have formulated are a useful basis thatworks well in practice.

Although there is a slight correspondance between letters andsegments, it is by no means true that every letter corresponds to asingle segment or vice versa. In English, this is“particularly false”, in fact. In the name“Vaughan”, the letter sequence ‘augha’corresponds to a single segment; in the word “music”, theletter ‘u’ corresponds to two segments (the first being aconsonant and the second a vowel). Furthermore, a given letter orletter sequence can correspond to several different segments orsegment sequences according to context, and a given segment or segmentsequence can be represented by several different letters or lettersequences in various words. Again, English is particularly badly behavedin this respect: compare “laughter” and“daughter” or “how” and “low” onthe one hand, “bury” and “berry” or“son” and “sun”.

All segments are pronounced using the vocal tract, from the larynxto the lips, including the nose. Sounds which could be produced byother parts of the body (such as by snapping one's fingers) are notincluded in phonetic studies: it seems that no language uses them forarticulated communication, though there is no reason why they shouldnot be. (Of course, body gestures are used by the hearingimpaired, but the language in question is visual and not phonetic, itsvery ratio operandi in fact.)

Different kinds of segments

Voiced and voiceless phones

During normal speech, in particular when one is not whispering, thevocal cords are vibrating part, but not all, of the time. Phoneswhich are pronounced with the vocal cords vibrating are called voiced, and the others are called voiceless. This is illustrated by thedifference between the English words “view” [vju:]and “few” [fju:]: the initial segment (a labiodentalfricative) is voiced in the former andvoiceless in the latter. This should be perfectly clear if you putyour hand to your throat: you should feel your vocal cords vibratingwhen saying “view” whereas when saying “few”they start vibrating only after the ‘f’.

Or, to say things differently: voiced segments are pronounced witha simultaneous “humming” sound (vibration of the cords)whereas voiceless segments are pronounced without it.

Despite this, even when whispered, the [v] and [f] segments do notsound exactly identical (though the differences is muchslighter than in normal speech): this is presumably because the vocalcords, although not vibrating, are not quite in the same position when[v] is pronounced as when [f] is pronounced; if the difference betweena devoiced [v] and an [f] is to be emphasized, the former can becalled a lenis and the latter a fortis.

Consonants and vowels

Vowels are sounds which are produced withthe vocal tract unobstructed, whereas consonants are those which are produced withsome obstruction to the flow of air. For example, if the mouth isopened widely, with the tongue kept at rest, completely out of the wayof the air, while the vocal cords are made to vibrate, the sound [a]is produced: it is a vowel (not found in English, but in French, as inthe word “ami”), andit is the furthest removed from any consonant. On the other hand, ifthe lips are closed so as to interrupt the flow of air, and thenopened again, all while the vocal cords are vibrating, the sound [b]is produced: it is a consonant, and specifically a bilabialplosive.

Vowels are voiced except when they arewhispered. Consonants, on the other hand, can be voiced or voiceless.

The distinction between vowels and consonants is not alwaysclear-cut, and there exists a fuzzy boundary region. First note thatany consonant (except perhaps a plosive) can be used as a syllablenucleus just as if it were a vowel: this is particularly common inEnglish for the consonants [l] and [n]. For example, in way the word“bottle” is usually pronounced, the second syllableconsists of the consonant [l] all by itself (though it is alwayspossible to add a weak schwa vowel before it to serve as syllablenucleus in its stead). This does not concern the sound of the segmentitself but rather its duration and phonetic environment.

Second, there exists sounds which are just in between vowels andconsonants. In the English word “yeast”, the‘y’ is clearly a consonant (a voiced palatalfricative, number139). In “year”, it is still a consonant, but it ismuch more open: it has changed from a fricative to an approximant. On the other hand, the‘e’ in “Seattle” is ever so slightly moreopen, and, this time, it is a vowel.

Kinds of consonants

Plosives (also called“occlusives” or “stops”) are consonants which are produced by completelyinterrupting the flow of air by obstructing it in some way. Forexample, the two consonants in the English word “copy” are(voiceless) plosives. A plosive consists of three parts: first, theflow is interrupted (this is the attack), then for some timethere is no flow (and thus no sound if the plosive is voiceless), and finally comes therelease which terminates the plosive.

If the plosive is the first phone pronounced, then there is noattack: if the plosive is voiced, it starts with a vibration of thevocal cords, and if it is voiceless it simply starts with the release.The release is usually the most audible part of the plosive, and it isfor this reason that final plosives tend to vanish, especiallyvoiceless ones (their release is suppressed, and then the entireplosive is reduced to very little).

The release might not be complete. If the plosive is the lastsegment, the release might simply be omitted or inaudible. If thenext segment is a nasal consonant articulatedin the same place, the release is nasal: the air is allowed to flowthrough the nose. If the next segment is a lateral consonant articulated in the sameplace, the release is lateral: the air is allowed to flow around theobstacle. The English words “button” and“bottle” show examples of nasal and lateral releaserespectively, if the final segment is pronounced syllabically: oncethe tip of the tongue is in place against the alveolar ridge (whenpronouncing the ‘t’ sound), it remains there, and therelease of air is made either through the nose or by the sides of thetongue.

Note that if a plosive is lengthened, it is the period betweenattack and release which is lengthened. In the case of a voicelessplosive, this is merely a period of silence.

See this section for adetailed segment-by-segment discussion of plosives.

Nasals are very much like plosives,except that the air is allowed to escape through the nose: the attackdiverts the flow of air through the nose rather thaninterrupting it. The sound commonlyrepresented by the letter ‘n’ in English is a nasalconsonant. A detailed description of nasals is found in this section.

Trills (or “rolledconsonants”) are produced by repeatedly interrupting theairstream. The “rolled r” of various languages aretrills; but in practice, trills, being rather hard to produce, areoften simplified to flaps or approximants. We will say more abouttrills and how to articulate them further on.

Flaps (or “taps”) are obtainedby shortening trills to a single interruption, which therefore comesvery close to a “light” plosive (but it is much shorter,and the interruption is usually not complete). Some British speakerswill pronounce intervocalic ‘r’ (of such words as“very”) as a flap; Americans, on the other hand, willpronounce some intervocalic ‘t’'s (such as that of“butter”) as a kind of (voiced) flap. More about this later.

Fricatives (also called“spirants” or “constrictives”) are probablythe most important kind of consonants, in that it permits the greatestnumber of easily producible and distinguishable places ofarticulation. A fricative is obtained by narrowing the airstream soas to make the flow turbulent and produce a kind of hissing sound(frication). A fricative does not usually have a clear attack andrelease; it can be arbitrarily prolonged. The two consonants in theEnglish word “fuss” are fricatives.

When the airflow is no longer turbulent, fricatives becomes approximants (also called“continuants” or “semivowels” — althoughthe latter term is better reserved for non-lateral approximants).This can be because there is less narrowing, or because the air flowsmore slowly (fluid dynamics teaches us that the Reynolds number, whichdetermines how turbulent the flow is, is proportional to the speed ofthe fluid).

Although approximants are classified as consonants, there is noreal distinction with vowels (at least for non-lateral approximantsbetween the palatal and pharyngeal regions): any vowel that issufficiently close or back can be made into an approximant. Theletter ‘y’ in the English words “year”,“you” or “yet” is a palatal approximant (onthe other hand, in the word “yeast” it comes closer to avoiced fricative); similarly, the letter ‘w’ in“worm” or “wet” is a labio-velar approximant(on the other hand, in some American pronunciations of“where”, the ‘wh’ is realized as a voicedfricative). The letter ‘u’ in the French word“nuit” is alabio-palatal approximant, and the letter ‘w’ in the Dutchword “wind” is a labio-dental approximant (whereas in thecorresponding German word it is a voiced labio-dental fricative).Note that the letter ‘r’ found in most American and someBritish pronunciations of English is also an (alveolar) approximant;but analysis of the English ‘r’ is by no means easy.Finally, the ‘l’ of English and French (the two are notthe same) are lateral approximants.

One sequence commonly found in many languages is the succession ofa plosive by the corresponding fricative. It then often happens thatthe release of the plosive merges with the attack of the fricative toform an affricate. In other words, anaffricate pair is a plosive with constrictive release. Whether anaffricate consists of a single segment or two is a theologicalquestion. Examples of affricates found in English are the‘ch’ sequences in the word “church” (voicelesspostalveolar affricates) and the‘j’ and ‘dg’ sequences in “judge”(the voiced counterpart). Further, an affricate can lead to anapproximant instead of a fricative: the ‘dr’ sequence insome English words is of this kind, at least in somepronunciations.

The voiced /voiceless distinction is mainly found in plosives andfricatives (and affricates). Nasals and approximants arevoiced (except when whispered), because it is hard to hear them whenthey are not: a laminar (the opposite of turbulent) flow of air notaccompanied by a vibration of the vocal cords is all but inaudible.In fact, voiceless approximants tend very strongly to be replaced bythe corresponding fricative: for instance, when the word“wet” is whispered, or when the word “when” ispronounced by those speakers who make a difference between voiced‘w’ and voiceless ‘wh’, the voiced(labio-velar) approximant is changed to a voiceless (labio-velar)fricative; even the approximant ‘r’ tends to turn into a fricative(not unlike ‘sh’) when whispered, at least in initial andpost-consonantal positions. Trills and flaps are, also, generallyvoiced (although there is no real reason for this).

Places of articulation

English Ipa Chart Pdf

Bilabials refer to consonants that areproduced using the lips, by narrowing or closing them. For example,the sounds usually represented in English by the letters ‘p’, ‘b’ and ‘m’ are bilabials (the first two areplosives, voiceless and voiced respectively, and the third is a nasal).

Labiodentals are consonants whichare formed with the upper teeth against the lower lip. English hastwo such consonants, [f] and [v], both being fricatives; since it knows no bilabialfricatives and the only labiodentals are fricatives, we can say thatEnglish does not distinguish bilabials and labiodentals. There alsoexists a linguolabial kind of sounds,made with the tongue against the upper lip; but apart from someAustronesian languages, I don't think they ever occur.

Dentals, alveolars and postalveolars are all made with the tonguein the front of the mouth: dentals use the tip of the tongue againstthe teeth, alveolars are articulated with the tip or blade of thetongue against the alveolar ridge (that is, the ridge of the gums ofthe upper teeth), and postalveolars are articulated with the tip orblade of the tongue a little behind the ridge. The ‘th’sounds of English (both the “soft”,i.e. voiced, one, and the “hard” or voiceless one) are dentalfricatives. The sounds [s], [z] such as found in English for example arealveolar. The approximant‘r’, the fricative ‘sh’ (as well as its voiced counterpart) and the affricate ‘ch’, in English, areall postalveolar.

One difficulty of dentals, alveolars and postalveolars is that thetongue, being very mobile in its front, has much freedom of placement,so there are many subtle differences between one sound and another.For example, the [t] and [d] found in French are clearly alveolar,perhaps even dental, whereas those in English are articulated furtherback, and could be classified as postalveolars. The sound can also bemade with the tip or the blade of the tongue: in the formar case it iscalled apical and in the latter, laminal.

Retroflex consonants are articulatedwith the tongue's tip curled back against the soft palate. Retroflexsounds are not found in English as such, but some postalveolarconsonants tend to have a certain retroflex quality about them, forexample the ‘r’.

Lateral consonants are pronounced withthe air escaping on the side of the tongue rather than on the front.The lateral quality is not really a “place ofarticulation” and can be combined with other properties of theconsonants: for example, [l] is a (laminal orapical) alveolar lateral approximant (which is further velarized insome cases in English).

Palatals are articulated by bringingtogether the front of the tongue and the hard palate (i.e. thefront part of the palate). The sound [j] foundat the start of the English word “yet” is a palatalapproximant; the soft ‘ch’ inGerman (found in such words as “ich”) is a (voiceless) palatal fricative; thesound represented in Italian by‘gli’ (for example in the word “figlio”) is a palatal lateral approximant; thesound represented in French by ‘gn’(such as in “mignon”)is a palatal nasal.

Velars are articulated further back thanpalatals: this time, the back of the tongue approaches the soft palate(i.e. the back of the palate, sometimes called its“veil”, or velum, hence the name). The term“guttural” is also sometimes found. The letters‘k’, ‘g’ and ‘ng’ in the Englishwords “key”, “get” and “ring”represent respectively a voiceless velar plosive, a voiced velarplosive and a velar nasal.

Uvulars are articulated even furtherback, with the very back of the tongue coming up to the uvula (theuvula is “that thing which hangs down at the back of ourthroats”). There are no uvular sounds in English, but theFrench ‘r’ sound is uvular (generally it is a voicedfricative, but it can be an approximant in certain contexts, and atrill if spoken carefully).

Pharyngeals are produced byconstricting the pharynx, which is the region extending from the uvuladown to the larynx (where the vocal cords are found). A strictlypharyngeal sound is produced with the root of the tongue, whereas anepiglottal is made with the epiglottis,i.e. that cartilage which prevents food from entering the tracheawhen one swallows. Finally, glottals or“laryngeals” are made at the level of the glottis. Thereare no pharyngeals (let alone epiglottals) in English, but there aresome glottal sounds: the normal ‘h’ sound is a voicelessglottal fricative, and, although it is not really part of the Englishphonemic system, one finds some glottal stops(plosives) in certain circumstances in many varieties of English.

Description of segments

Consonants

Plosives

Plosives are probably the easiest to pronounce.

[p]:voiceless bilabial plosive

This is the letter ‘p’ of many languages. There isno particular difficulty about this segment. Nearly every language inthe world makes use of this sound (or its voiced counterpart), withthe notable exception of Iroquois. The English ‘p’ isslightly aspirated, except when preceded by an ‘s’ in thesame syllable.

[b]:voiced bilabial plosive

This is the voiced counterpart of the previous segment. It is the letter‘b’ of many languages, such as English.

[t]:voiceless alveolar plosive

This is the letter ‘t’ of many languages. However,there is much variability, both between languages and within certainlanguages, in the articulation of this segment. In English, it isalveolar or even postalveolar,especially when followed by the letter ‘r’. In French, itcan be dental, as it is in Hindi (inopposition to retroflex counterparts). Furthermore, the articulationcan be apical or laminal.

The English ‘t’, as for the sound [p], is slightly aspirated, except when precededby an ‘s’ in the same syllable.

[d]:voiced alveolar plosive

This is the letter ‘d’ of many languages. As itsvoiceless counterpart, it can be articulated ina great variety of ways.

[ʈ]([t.] in ASCII IPA): voiceless retroflex plosive

This sound is like [t] except that it isretroflex, i.e. articulated with the tongue curled back. Itactually sounds very much like [t], and I think the difference mostlycomes from the way the following vowel gets “colored” bythe retroflex tongue position (rather than from the consonant'sarticulation itself). Some languages such as Hindi (and other Indiclanguages) oppose the dental and retroflex ‘t’ and‘d’.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a ‘t’ with a tail(or hook) on the right. ASCII IPA uses a dot to indicate retroflexquality, so the representation of this character is [t.].

[ɖ]([d.] in ASCII IPA): voiced retroflex plosive

This is the voiced counterpart of the retroflex ‘t’. Similar commentsapply: it sounds very much like a plain[d].

The IPA symbol for this segment is a ‘d’ with a tail(or hook) on the right.

[c]:voiceless palatal plosive

This is one of these mysterious sounds of which nobody knowsexactly what they're supposed to sound like. Depending on tongueplacement, one can get a sound resembling somewhat [kj] (if it is apical) or [tj] (if it is laminal). In any case, there always seems tobe some amount of affrication about thissegment (but of course it is really like [kç] or [tç]because the frication is voiceless), but a pure articulation shouldreduce it to a minimum. However, the attack is pretty muchindistinguishable from an alveolar or velar attack (according to theway the tongue is placed), and it is only the slight frication duringrelease that reveals the sound as palatal.

[ɟ]([J] in ASCII IPA): voiced palatal plosive

Pretty much the same as for its voicelesscounterpart applies to this one, mutatis mutandis: itsounds quite like [gj] or [dj] according to tongue placement.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a barred dotless‘j’. This looks somewhat like a turned ‘f’(and this printing is sometimes found in old texts), but the stroke ishigher than it would be for a turned ‘f’.

[k]:voiceless velar plosive

This is the ‘k’ (or “hard‘c’”) of many languages. Contrary to its palatal counterpart, it is unambiguously a plosive(though ‘qu’, in English for example, can be a labializedvelar affricate).

The English ‘k’, as for the sound [p], is slightly aspirated, except when precededby an ‘s’ in the same syllable.

[g] (ormore properly [ɡ]): voiced velar plosive

This is the ‘g’ (“hard‘g’”) of many languages.

The IPA symbol is an opentail (i.e. italic-type, or“script”) ‘g’. A looptail ‘g’ istolerated, if it is the font's normal type of ‘g’, but theopentail variant is strongly preferred. Of course, in ASCII IPA, itis simply ‘g’.

[q]:voiceless uvular plosive

This sounds much like [k] but it isarticulated at the very back of the tongue, against theuvula.

[G] (ormore properly [ɢ]): voiced uvular plosive

The voiced counter part of [q] soundsvery much like [g] but it is articulated at thevery back of the tongue, against the uvula.

The IPA symbol is a small capital ‘G’. Naturally, inASCII IPA, it is simply ‘G’.

[ʔ]([?] in ASCII IPA): glottal plosive

This “glottal stop” sound is made by abruptlyclosing the vocal cords (attack) and opening them again (release). Asfor any plosive, but particularly for thisone, the attack may be inexistant if the segment is initial (see below), and the release may be inexistantif the segment is final. The central part (between attack andrelease) is a period during which the vocal cords are kept closed: forthis reason, they are unable to vibrate, so this sound is necessarilyvoiceless.

To pronounce an initial vowel, one can maintain the vocal cords ina neutral (relaxed) position, perhaps letting an ever-so-slight flowof air go through them, and then get them vibrating with the tongue incorrect position: this is the normal “soft” attack. Contrarily, onecan also keep the vocal cords firmly shut, and get them to vibratejust as one opens them: this is the “hard” attack, whichcorresponds to pronouncing a glottal stop before the vowel (note thatthe attack of the vowel is qualified as hard, and it is therelease of the glottal stop; but the attack of theglottal stop itself is inexistant or inaudible, as the vocalcords were already closed to start with).

Hard attacks are not normally found in English, and never inFrench. German, on the other hand, makes a systematic use of them.In some versions of English (notably British), some consonants(notably the letter ‘t’) tend to be replaced by glottalstops (this is known as “glottal replacement”). Glottalstops are also an integral part of certain interjections, such as“uh-uh” (both parts have hard attack).

The IPA symbol for this segment is reminiscent of a dotlessquestion mark.

Note that there exists a (voiceless) pharyngeal plosive, but it has no symbol.There is also a (voiceless) epiglottalplosive, which will be described later.

Similarly, there exist labiodental plosives, but they have no IPAsymbol.

Nasals

[m]: bilabial nasal

This is the normal ‘m’ sound of such languages asEnglish. It is pronounced like the sound [b]but with the palate lowered so that the air can flow freely throughthe nose.

[ɱ]([M] in ASCII IPA): labiodentalnasal

This sound is somewhat like [m] exceptthat it is pronounced with the upper teeth (rather than theupper lip) against the lower lip.

Plosive counterparts to this nasal are possible, but they are notincluded in the IPA.

The IPA symbol is an ‘m’ with a left (“elephanttrunk”) hook on the right. The ASCII IPA uses a capital‘M’.

[n]: alveolar nasal

This is the ‘n’ of many languages. The sameremarks as for [t] (concerning the variety ofarticulation) apply to this nasal.

[ɳ]([n.] in ASCII IPA): retroflex nasal

This is like [n] but pronounced with thetongue curled back: see the discussion on the retroflex plosives.

[ɲ]([n^] in ASCII IPA): palatal nasal

Just as the corresponding plosive soundsa little like [tj] or [kj], this segment sounds somewhat like [nj];however, it should not be confused with it.

It is found notably in French, where it is transcribed‘gn’.

The IPA symbol is an ‘n’ with a left hook on left. Nonot confuse it with the eng.

[ŋ]([N] in ASCII IPA): velar nasal

The velar nasal is frequently found in place of the alveolar nasal before a velar plosive; sometimesit replaces both segments in one: so it is often written‘ng’.

In English, ‘ng’ can be either a plain velar nasal or avelar nasal followed by a (voiced) velar plosive: one should becareful to distinguish the two. Present participles ending in‘ng’ are pronounced with a plain velar nasal, as is(consequently) the word “singer”, whereas in the words“finger” or “English”, the ‘ng”combination is a velar nasal followed by a velar plosive.Practically, the two are distinguished by the fact that in the secondcase the flow of air through the nose has been interrupted before therelease, and the latter is stronger.

The IPA symbol is important enough to merit a special name: it iscalled an “eng” (from the sound itself) or“agma” (from the Greek word “ἄγμα” meaning“fragment”). It is an ‘n’ with a left hook atright. The ASCII IPA uses a capital ‘N’ to represent thissegment, despite the fact that the IPA itself uses the (small) capital‘N’ for the uvularversion.

[N] (ormore properly [ɴ]; [n'] in ASCII IPA): uvular nasal

This sounds quite like [ŋ] but itis articulated at the very back of the tongue, against the uvula, asare the plosive counterparts of thissound.

This is the normal (word-final) pronunciation of the Japanesesyllabic nasal, e.g. in such words as “日本” (“にほん” = “nihon”):[ɲihoɴ].

Note that it is not possible to pronounce a pharyngeal, epiglottal or glottal nasal, because the communicationbetween the throat and the nose is at the back of the soft palate, andpharyngeals &al are articulated even further back in the throat(so that blocking the flow of air there will block it even for thenose).

Trills

Trills take some practice before they can be correctly pronounced.The native English speaker may have particular difficulties on these,because none are found in this language. Once you know how toarticulate one trill, the others should be much easier.

[B] (ormore properly [ʙ]; [b<trl>] in ASCII IPA): bilabial trill

This sound is essentially that of the interjection (or should Irather say, onomatopeia) “brrr”, used (though perhaps notin English?) to signify, in essence, “I'm cold”.Essentially, keep your lips shut (relatively tightly), and blow hardenough through them so as to make them flutter. Now, do the samewhile humming slightly (to make the sound voiced): this is the segment we are discussing.(At least I hope it is… I must admit I have never heard itspoken — the sound is used, as far as I know, only in someAustronesian languages — but it certainly is a voiced bilabialtrill, and I don't think there can be much variety as tothat.)

[r]: alveolar trill

This is the “rolled ‘r’” of suchlanguages as Russian (yet even in Russian there is a tendency for thissegment to be replaced by a simple flap).Spanish maintains a difference between the full trill(‘rr’) and the simple flap (‘r’).

It is not evident to describe how to articulate this segment:pronouncing a “rolled ‘r’” can take somepractice, and cheap imitations should be shunned :-). I cannevertheless try offering some advice. First, you should nottry pronouncing anything that sounds like ‘sh’ (africative) or an American ‘r’ (an approximant). Second,although we classify this trill as alveolar, I find it ratherpostalveolar; in other words, keep your tongue about where youpronounce ‘sh’ (as opposed to ‘s’). Put thetip of your tongue in that place, against the palate, and build up avery slight excess of pressure behind it (i.e. above the tongue),so that the tongue will be forced away from the palate for a briefmoment before coming back in place, thus producing a short‘t’ sound (do not try to produce a‘t’ sound as such because if you do, your tonguewill not come back fast enough: no muscular action will be fast enoughto produce a trill). This is a simple flap. Now try to keep theflutter going, by maintaining the air flowing. Another possiblyhelpful idea is to keep one (side) edge of the tongue fixed againstthe palate while the other edge vibrates: strictly speaking, this is alateral trill, but nobody can tell the difference, and in thisposition a lateral trill is easier to articulate than a frontalone.

[R] (ormore properly [ʀ]; [r'] in ASCII IPA): uvular trill

In theory, this is the ‘r’ of French, but inpractice, it is nearly always degraded to a fricative, so that evennative French speakers (except perhaps those with a markedly Parisianpronunciation) might find it difficult to produce a completelysatisfactory uvular trill. For those who know neither French norGerman, the first step is probably to get the fricative in question correct.

It is the uvula which should be vibrating on the tongue, rather than thetongue on the uvula: it is probably for this reason that this trillsounds more like a fricative than the two previous ones. If thefricative is pronounced strongly enough, as a kind of“growling” sound, some flutter is inevitable. Now thetrick is to capture that flutter with no (or little) accompanyingfrication: the trill actually tends to be quiter than thefricative.

To finish on the subject of trills, I note that a palatal trillexists and is, in fact, relatively easy to pronounce. A retroflextrill is not too hard either (but I don't think it can ever be nearlyas completely retroflex as the corresponding plosives). A velar trill is, apparently, notpossible, because the tongue does not have enough freedom to vibrateat this point, and neither can the soft palate. A glottal trill isout of question. The Phonetic Association claims that labiodentalsand pharyngeal trills are possible (though the Alphabet does not havesymbols for them): for my part I was unable to produce suchthings.

Flaps

[ɾ]([*] in ASCII IPA): alveolar flap

This is the very shortest form of the alveolar trill, in other words the “shortrolled ‘r’”. It is found in English in essentiallytwo circumstances: in some British pronunciations of intervocalic‘r’, e.g. in “very”([vɛɾɪ]), and in the general American pronunciationof the letter ‘t’ in certain contexts, the most strikingexample being perhaps the word “butter” (pronounced as[bʌɾɚ]).

There is actually much variability in this segment; we have alreadyobserved this of the associated plosive.

The IPA symbol is a “fish-hook” ‘r’”.In ASCII IPA, it is an asterisk: [*].

[ɽ]([*.] in ASCII IPA): retroflex flap

This is the retroflex variant of the previous segment; see the retroflex plosives for general comments onretroflex sounds. As I pointed out on the subject of trills, however, your tonguecan never be as completely curled back as it would be for theplosive.

This is usually used to transcribe the ‘r’ of Japanese(which they use to transliterate both European ‘r’ and‘l’); but in fact, Japanese ‘r’ is more like apostalveolar than like a trueretroflex.

The IPA symbol for this segment is an ‘r’ with aretroflex hook. ASCII IPA uses [*.]

Fricatives

Fricatives are in principle the easiest sounds to produce.However, they also have the greatest variability, so some of them areactually quite hard for speakers of most European languages toproduce.

[ɸ]([F] in ASCII IPA): voiceless bilabialfricative

This is the sound made by blowing on something: you tightenyour lips (with or without rounding) so that the flow of air willbecome more rapid, and hence more turbulent. It sounds rather like an‘f’, but made without theteeth.

The IPA symbol is a phi. If we believe Unicode, it is aLatin small phi, whatever that means. ASCII IPA uses acapital F instead.

[β]([V] in ASCII IPA): voiced bilabial fricative

This is the voiced counterpart of the previous segment. It sounds much like a ‘v’ but made without the teeth. Ithas the tendency (like many other voiced fricatives, but this oneparticularly) to decay into an approximant.

The IPA symbol is a beta. ASCII IPA uses a capital Vinstead.

[f]:voiceless labiodental fricative

This is the ordinary ‘f’ of many languages, such asEnglish. It is made by lightly pressing the upper teeth against thelower lip, and blowing. Note that as English (for example) does nothave the bilabial ‘f’, this soundis perceived as the fricative counterpart to the bilabial plosive.

[v]:voiced labiodental fricative

This is the ordinary ‘v’ of many languages, such asEnglish (but not Spanish). It is the voiced counterpart of the ‘f’.

[θ]([T] in ASCII IPA): voiceless dentalfricative

This is the “hard” ‘th’ of English,found in the word “thin” for example. It is pronounced byputting the upper teeth against the tip (or blade) of the tongue, andblowing through. For this reason, it is somewhat similar to the sound[f], and some people confuse the two.

The IPA symbol for this sound is a Greek theta. ASCII IPA uses acapital T.

[ð]([D] in ASCII IPA): voiced dental fricative

This is the “soft” ‘th’ (symbolically,‘dh’) of English, the voiced counterpart of the previous segment.

The IPA symbol is a Scandinavian “eth” (sometimeswritten “edh”): graphically it is like a rounded (cursive)‘d’ with a bar through the top. The ASCII IPA uses acapital D to represent it.

[s]:voiceless alveolar fricative

This is the ordinary ‘s’ of many languages, such asEnglish. Compared to the dental sound, thetongue is further back, and further raised: the blade of the tongueand the alveolar ridge form a narrow passage for the flow of air, inwhich turbulence is heard.

[z]:voiced alveolar fricative

This is the ordinary ‘z’ of many languages, such asEnglish. It is the voiced analog of theprevious sound.

[ʃ]([S] in ASCII IPA): voiceless postalveolar fricative

This sound is usually represented by ‘sh’ inEnglish. Compared to [s], it is made with thetongue further back, and using the tip instead of the blade, curlingit slightly to produce a little channel through which the air canflow.

The IPA symbol is an “esh”, that is, an elongated‘s’, not unlike an integral sign in mathematics. ASCIIIPA transcribes by a capital S.

[ʒ]([Z] in ASCII IPA): voiced postalveolar fricative

This sound is usually represented by ‘zh’ intranscription. It is not inexistent in English (it is, for example,the ‘z’ in “azure”) but it is mildly uncommon.In French (and Catalan) it is represented by the letter‘j’. But most languages have this sound as part of thecorresponding affricate (e.g. ‘j’ and‘dg’ in English “judge”).

The IPA symbol is a tailed z, also called “ezh” or“yogh”. ASCII IPA uses a capital Z.

[ʂ]([s.] in ASCII IPA): voiceless retroflexfricative

This sound is like an ‘s’but articulated with the tongue curled back (i.e. retroflex). Infact, it sounds very much like the postalveolar. See also the discussion on retroflex plosives.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a ‘s’ with a tail(or hook) to the right on the end. ASCII IPA uses a dot to indicateretroflex quality, so the representation of this character is[s.].

[ʐ]([z.] in ASCII IPA): voiced retroflex fricative

This is the voiced analog of theprevious. It sounds very much like the postalveolar.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a ‘z’ with a tail(or hook) on the right.

[ç]([C] in ASCII IPA): voiceless palatalfricative

This is the soft ‘ch’ of German. To pronounce it,put your tongue in the position to pronounce [j], and blow. It is a kind of hissing sound,which could quite be used as an onomatopeia to illustrate a serpent(although of course [s] is also appropriate).Some people have trouble distinguishing this sound (‘ch’in German) from the postalveolar(‘sch’ in German): in fact, although they sound somewhatsimilar, this one is much closer to an [s], in the way the tongue isplaced, except that it is further back. The tongue does not touch thepalate, it is parallel to it.

The IPA symbol is a ‘c’ with cedilla. ASCII IPA uses acapital C instead.

[ʝ]([C<vcd>] in ASCII IPA): voiced palatal fricative

This is the voiced counterpart of the previous segment. It is often used instead of theapproximant[j],for example before an [i] (consider the English word“yeast”) or when whispering (in which case it is actuallythe voiceless version which is pronounced).

The IPA symbol is a ‘j’ with curly tail. ASCII IPArepresents it as the voiceless counterpart of the previous.

[x]:voiceless velar fricative

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Being the fricative counterpart to the sound [k], this sound would be naturally transcribed as‘kh’; it is the hard ‘ch’ of German; however,there are subtleties. Essentially, you pronounce it by putting yourtongue in the position to say ‘k’, and then force the airthrough it (i.e. between the palate and the tongue), thus makinga kind of rasping sound.

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The difficulty is that there are various kinds of“rasping” sounds. And one tends quite naturally topronounce a uvular fricative instead of thisone; or at any rate to not distinguish the two: German, for example,will use [x] as “hard ‘ch’” after [u] and [o](“Buch” and“hoch”), but theuvular sound is found elsewhere. The best way to make sure one ispronouncing a velar sound (rather than uvular) is to see whether onecan make a trill out of it: if one succeedsin getting something like the French‘R’, the sound was uvular (it is not possible toproduce a velar trill).

[ɣ]([Q] in ASCII IPA): voiced velar fricative

This is the voiced counterpart of the previous segment. It is found, for example, inmodern Greek, represented by the letter ‘γ’(gamma).

The IPA symbol is a lowercase Latin letter gamma (whateverthat is!), which should not be confused with the “ram'shorn” symbol used for the close-mid back unrounded vowel (number315) — and in practice it systematically does get confusedexcept in very carefully typeset texts. ASCII IPA represents thesound as a capital ‘Q’.

[χ]([X] in ASCII IPA): voiceless uvularfricative

As we have mentioned, this is a kind of rasping sound,differing from the previous one in that it isuvular rather than velar. See also the voicedcounterpart.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a (lowercase) Greek chi; ASCIIIPA uses a capital ‘X’ instead.

[ʁ]([Q'] in ASCII IPA): voiced uvular fricative

This is the voiced counterpart of the previous segment. It is the normal‘R’ of French, when not rolled (i.e. when notpronounced as a trill).

The IPA symbol is an inverted small Latin capital ‘R’.Evan Kirshenbaum proposes to represents the sound in ASCII IPA as a‘g'’, but I find it more logical to use‘Q'’.

[ħ]([H] in ASCII IPA): voiceless pharyngealfricative

This sound is found in the so-called “Oriental”pronunciation of Hebrew, where it corresponds to the letter‘ח’ (“het”, or, more accurately,“ḥêt”), transliterated ‘ḥ’(‘h’ with dot below). (Non-Oriental Hebrew substitutes auvular instead.) It also exists in (Classical)Arabic, corresponding to the letter ‘ح’(“hah”, or, more accurately,“ḥā'”), transliterated in the same way.

It is somewhat difficult to pronounce for one who does not know oneof the languages in question. It is a kind of ‘h’ butpronounced with a kind of “hoarse” voice: that is, withthe root of the tongue pulled back so as to constrict the pharynx. (Iwould tend to say: if pronouncing this sound makes you want to throwup, or at least to cough, your tongue is probably in the rightplace. :-) The main problem is to not pronounce a velar or uvular sound;on the other hand, a normal (glottal)English [h] (even pronounced loudly) will notdo either. Look at your throat in a mirror: your uvula should beclearly visible when you pronounce this sound (it should notbe touching the tongue).

The IPA symbol for this segment is a (lowercase) Latin‘h’ with a stroke; ASCII IPA uses a capital‘H’ instead.

[ʕ]([H<vcd>] in ASCII IPA): voiced pharyngeal fricative

This sound is the voiced counterpart of the previous one, and it is even trickier. It issupposedly found in the “Oriental” pronunciation ofHebrew, where it corresponds to the letter ‘ע’(“ayin”, or, more accurately, “aīn”),transliterated ‘`’ (reverse apostrophe). But in fact,Hebrew speakers pronounce an approximant rather than a true fricative.(Non-Oriental Hebrew substitutes a glottal stopinstead.) It also exists in (Classical) Arabic, corresponding to theletter ‘ع’ (“ain”, or, more accurately,“`ayn”), transliterated in the same way. But there again,it is not truly the canonical sound which is used, rather some kind ofpharyngealized glottal stop.

The reason why this sound is so difficult to pronounce as it shouldbe is the following. To pronounce a voicedsound, the vocal cords must vibrate, which limits the intensity of theair flow. But then, to produce the necessary turbulence(“frication”), the vocal tract must be very stronglyclosed. However, it is almost impossible to constrict the pharynxenough for that (except by swallowing one's tongue, which is deadly).If you do it right, you get a kind of very hoarse ‘R’sound. Otherwise, you get an approximant instead, which is what isgenerally meant by this segment, anyway.

The IPA symbol for this segment is a reversed glottal stop. ASCII IPA represents it as thevoiceless counterpart of the previous.

[h]:voiceless glottal fricative

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This is the ‘h’ sound of English, German and otherlanguages (in French, however, for example, the ‘h’ ismute and is never pronounced at all). It is the simplest sound ofall: just breathe out through your mouth (without letting your vocalcords vibrate). In other words, it is a pure (voiceless)aspiration.

Although it is classified as a fricative, it would make just asmuch sense to consider it as an approximant (but a voiceless one,which is strange), because you don't really constrict your vocal cordsbeyond the normal amount of frication that goes on in thelaryngeal region anyway.

[ɦ]([h<vcd>] in ASCII IPA): voiced glottal fricative

This sound is the voiced counterpart of the previous one. It is also a kind of “nothingsound”: this time you blow out with the vocal cords vibrating;or, if you will, you do a kind of humming sound. Only a great amountof hypocrisy can get this sound classified as a fricative (rather thanan approximant): it physically doesn't make sense to produce at once aregular vibration (humming) and turbulence (frication) at the samelevel (the vocal cords). In fact, even classifying this sound as aconsonant is an act of faith (or a bizarre way to split hair), becausewhat you're really doing is pronouncing a vowel and wishfully thinkit's a consonant.

Yet through the kind of bizarre, unexplainable magic that onlyphonetics has, this sound still exists in a very definite way. Forexample, it is found in the most common way of pronouncing the Englishword “inherent” (corresponding to the letter‘h’). Also, Hindi (and other Indic languages) has aseries of voiced aspirated stops, which are clearly distinguished fromthe unaspirated by the presence of this elusive sound. The mostprobable solution to the mystery is that the segment probably isn't asdistinctly voiced as it claims to be, thus allowing a flow of airgreater than what would characterize a vowel.

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The IPA symbol for this segment is a ‘h’ with hook ontop (reminiscent of the symbol for the pharyngealsound). ASCII IPA represents it as the voiceless counterpart ofthe previous.