In 1886, a group of French and British language teachers, led by the French linguist Paul Passy, formed what … See more

The general principle of the IPA is to provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment). This means that:
• It does not normally use combinations of letters to represent single sounds, the way English do… See more

The International Phonetic Alphabet is occasionally modified by the Association. After each modification, the Association provides an updated simplified presentation of the alphabet in the form of a chart. (See History of t… See more

Of more than 160 IPA symbols, relatively few will be used to transcribe speech in any one language, with various levels of precision. A precise phonetic transcription, in which sounds are specified in detail, is known as … See more

The International Phonetic Association organizes the letters of the IPA into three categories: pulmonic consonants, non-pulmonic consonants, and vowels.
Pulmonic consonant letters are arranged singly or in … See more

Diacritics are used for phonetic detail. They are added to IPA letters to indicate a modification or specification of that letter's normal pronunciation.
By being made superscript, any IPA letter may functio… See more

A number of IPA letters are not consistently used for their official values. A distinction between voiced fricatives and approximants is only partially implemented by the IPA, for example. Even with the relatively recent addition of t… See more