IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)

What is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)?

In 1886, a group of phoneticians from France, German, Britain, and Denmark met to discuss the adoption of a universal system of pronunciation.

The IPA based on an alphabet written by British phonetician, Henry Sweet, represented the first successful effort for the pronunciation of speech sounds across most languages systematically.

The IPA provides the user with a universally accepted symbol for each of the speech sounds.

The IPA is phonetic, not phonemic in design. In other words, a particular symbol is used to represent the pronunciation of a speech sound, not to describe a change in meaning.

The IPA has been revised several times over the past century. The first published alphabet appears in 1888. Then expanded in 1900, revised in 1932 >> 1938 >> 1947 >> 1951 >> 1976 >> 1979 >> 1989 >> 1993 >> 1996. The most recent changes taking place in 2005.

The International Phonetic Association, the agency governing the IPA, has a system of detailed principles applied to the formation and variation of the alphabet. In its present form, the IPA provides detailed information on vowels, consonants, other additional symbols, diacritics, and suprasegmentals.