Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.
Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.
Clicks
Voiced implosives
Ejectives
ʘ
Bilabial click release
ɓ
Bilabial voiced implosive
ʼ
For example:
ǀ
Dental click release
ɗ
Alveolar voiced implosive
pʼ
Bilabial ejective stop
ǃ
(Post)alveolar click release
ᶑ
Retroflex voiced implosive
tʼ
Alveolar ejective stop
ǂ
Palatal click release
ʄ
Palatal voiced implosive
kʼ
Velar ejective stop
ǃ̢
Retroflex click release
ɠ
Velar voiced implosive
sʼ
Alveolar ejective fricative
ǁ
Lateral click release
ʛ
Uvular voiced implosive
t͡ʃʼ
Post-alveolar ejective affricate
Front
N.-front
Central
N.-back
Back
Close
Near-close
Close-mid
Mid
Open-mid
Near-open
Open
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel.
ʍ
Voiceless labial-velar fricative
w
Voiced labial-velar approximant
ɥ
Voiced labial-palatal approximant
ɕ ʑ
Alveolo-palatal fricatives
ɧ
Simultaneous ʃ and x
Affricates and double articulations can be represented by two symbols joined by a tie bar if necessary: k͡p t͡s
ˈ
Primary stress (indicated before the stressed element)
ˌ
Secondary stress (indicated before the stressed element)
ː
Long
ˑ
Half-long
˘
Extra-short
.
Syllable break
ǀ
Minor (foot) group
ǁ
Major (intonation) group
‿
Linking (absence of a break)
Tone letters may come before or after a word or syllable. In the IPA Handbook , they come before to indicate prosodic pitch in Portuguese, and after to indicate lexical tone in Cantonese.
They may also face left or right. The distinction is used for tone sandhi .
Upstep and downstep always come before the syllable.
Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. ŋ̊.
̥
Voiceless
̤
Breathy voiced
̪
Dental
̬
Voiced
̰
Creaky voiced
̺
Apical
ʰ
Aspirated
̼
Linguolabial
̻
Laminal
˒
More rounded
ʷ
Labialized
̃
Nasalized
˓
Less rounded
ʲ
Palatalized
ⁿ
Nasal release
˖
Advanced
ˠ
Velarized
ˡ
Lateral release
˗
Retracted
ˁ
Pharyngealized
̚
No audible release
̈
Centralized
̴
Velarized or pharyngealized
̽
Mid-centralized
̝
Raised (ɹ̝ = voiced alveolar fricative)
̩
Syllabic
̞
Lowered (β̞ = voiced bilabial approximant)
̯
Non-syllabic
̘
Advanced tongue root
˞
Rhoticity
̙
Retracted tongue root
͍
Labial spreading
͈
Strong articulation
͊
Denasal
͆
Dentolabial
͉
Weak articulation
͋
Nasal escape
̪͆
Interdental/Bidental
\
Reiterated articulation
͌
Velopharyngeal friction
̳
Alveolar
͎
Whistled articulation
↓
Ingressive airflow
̼
Linguolabial
͢
Sliding articulation
↑
Egressive airflow