Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) possesses a variety of obsolete and nonstandard symbols. Throughout the history of the IPA, characters representing phonetic values have been modified or completely replaced. An example is ⟨ɷ⟩ for standard [ʊ]. Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that they should be indicated with diacritics: ʮ for z̩ʷ is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ has been dropped.

Other characters have been added in for specific phonemes which do not possess a specific symbol in the IPA. Those studying modern Chinese phonology have used ⟨ɿ⟩ to represent the sound of -i in Pinyin hanzi which has been variously described as [ɨ], [ɹ̩], [z̩] or [ɯ]. (See the sections Vowels and Syllabic consonants of the article Standard Chinese phonology.)

There are also unsupported symbols from local traditions that find their way into publications that otherwise use the standard IPA. This is especially common with affricates such as ƛ, and many Americanist symbols.

While the IPA does not itself have a set of capital letters (the ones that look like capitals are actually small capitals), many languages have adopted symbols from the IPA as part of their orthographies, and in such cases they have invented capital variants of these. This is especially common in Africa. An example is Kabiyé of northern Togo, which has Ɔ Ɛ Ŋ Ɣ. Other pseudo-IPA capitals supported by Unicode are Ɓ/Ƃ Ƈ Ɗ/Ƌ Ə/Ǝ Ɠ Ħ Ɯ Ɲ Ɵ Ʃ (capital ʃ) Ʈ Ʊ Ʋ Ʒ. (See Case variants of IPA letters.)

Capital letters are also used as cover symbols in phonotactic descriptions: C=Consonant, V=Vowel, etc.

This list does not include commonplace extensions of the IPA, such as doubling a symbol for a greater degree of a feature ([aːː] extra-long [a], [ˈˈa] extra stress, [kʰʰ] strongly aspirated [k], and [a˞˞] extra-rhotic [a][1]), nor superscripting for a lesser degree of a feature ([ᵑɡ] slightly prenasalized [ɡ], [ᵗs] slightly affricated [s], and [ᵊ] epenthetic schwa). The asterisk, as in [k*] for the fortis stop of Korean, is the convention the IPA uses when it has no symbol for a phone or feature.

For symbols and values which were discarded by 1932, see History of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Obsolete and/or nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet
Symbol or
exemplar		 Name Meaning Standard IPA
equivalent		 Notes
? Question mark Glottal stop ʔ Typewriter substitution
7 Digit seven
' Apostrophe
ƍ Turned small delta Voiced labialized alveolar or dental fricative ðʷ, zʷ, z͎ Intended for the voiced whistled sibilant, ɀ, of Shona and related languages[2]
σ Small sigma Voiceless labialized alveolar or dental fricative θʷ, sʷ, s͎ Intended for the voiceless whistled sibilant, ȿ, of Shona and related languages[2]
ƺ Ezh with tail Labialized voiced postalveolar fricative ʒᶣ, ʑʷ Intended for w before front vowels in Twi;[2] may also be used for the lightly rounded English /ʒ/.
ƪ Reversed esh with top loop Labialized voiceless postalveolar fricative ʃᶣ, ɕʷ Intended for hw before front vowels in Twi;[2] may also be used for the lightly rounded English /ʃ/.
ƻ Barred digit two voiced alveolar affricate d͡z Withdrawn 1976
ƾ Rotated epiglottal plosive (actually a vertical ts ligature) Voiceless alveolar affricate t͡s Withdrawn 1976
ƞ Latin eta, very similar to the lowercase Greek letter eta (η)) Moraic (fast syllabic) nasal m, n, ŋ Intended for the moraic nasal /N/ of Japanese.[2] Withdrawn 1976
ᶀ ꞔ ᶁ ᶂ ᶃ ꞕ ᶄ ᶅ 𝼓 ᶆ ᶇ 𝼔 ᶈ ᶉ 𝼕 𝼖 ᶊ ᶋ ƫ ᶌ ᶍ ᶎ 𝼘 Letters with palatal hook Palatalization bʲ t̠ʲ dʲ fʲ ɡ̟ hʲ k̟ lʲ ɬʲ mʲ nʲ ŋ̟ pʲ rʲ ɹʲ ɾʲ sʲ ɕ tʲ vʲ x̟ zʲ ʑ Typically used in the transcription of Slavic languages such as Russian. Superseded 1989
ᶏ ᶐ ᶒ ᶓ ᶔ ᶕ ᶖ 𝼚 𝼛 ᶗ ᶙ Vowels with retroflex hook R-colored vowels ɝ ɚ etc. Superseded 1989; MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK (U+02DE) is now preferred
a Reversed a Near-open front unrounded vowel æ Proposed in 1989, rejected[3]
nv Ligature Close front rounded vowel y
ᵿ˞ Barred horseshoe u with hook Back sulcal vowel
W with left hook Voiced labial-velar fricative ɣʷ
Letters with left-swinging top hook dentals
Long-leg g Voiced velar lateral approximant ʟ
Hooktop ezh Voiced velar fricative ɣ
Double-loop g Voiced velar fricative ɣ From 1895 to 1900, [q] represented that consonant before 1895, [ǥ] after 1900
Voiced velar plosive ɡ The standard Unicode Basic Latin/ASCII lower-case g (U+0067) may have a double-loop g glyph. The preferred IPA single-loop g (U+0261) is in the IPA Extensions Unicode block. For a time it was proposed that the double-loop g might be used for [ɡ] and the single-loop g for [ᶃ] (ɡ̟),[2] but the distinction never caught on.
Voiced postalveolar affricate d͡ʒ Used in Arabic transliterations
Single-loop g with stroke Voiced velar fricative ɣ Superseded double-loop g in 1900, superseded by gamma [ɣ] between 1928 and 1930. The character ǥ may not have the single-loop shape in some fonts.
k̫ etc. Subscript w Labialization kʷ etc. Diacritic may appear above letters with descenders such as [ɡ] and [ŋ]. Superseded 1989
ʆ Curly-tail esh Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative ɕ Irregular, instead of ⟨ʃ⟩ with a tail. Used for Russian щ (now ⟨ɕ⟩). Withdrawn 1989
ʓ Curly-tail ezh Voiced alveolo-palatal(ized) fricative ʑ Irregular, instead of ⟨ʒ⟩ with a tail. Withdrawn 1989
ȵ, ȡ, ȶ, ȴ Curly-tail n, d, t, l Alveolo-palatal consonants n̠ʲ, d̠ʲ, t̠ʲ, l̠ʲ or ɲ̟, ɟ˖, c̟, ʎ̟ Used by some Sinologists.
ř R with caron Voiced strident apico-alveolar trill r̝ Intended for ř in Czech and related languages. ⟨ř⟩ from 1909, replaced by ⟨ɼ⟩ in 1949, Withdrawn 1989
ɼ Long-leg r
λ () Lambda Voiced alveolar lateral affricate d͡ɮ Used by Americanists
ƛ Barred lambda Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate t͡ɬ Used by Americanists
ł Lowercase L with stroke Voiceless alveolar lateral fricative ɬ Used by Americanists
Voiced alveolar lateral approximant ɫ Used by Baltic transcriptions
š č ž s c z with caron Postalveolars ʃ t͡ʃ ʒ; ʂ tʂ ʐ Used by Americanists, Uralicists, Semiticists, Slavicists
ǰ, ǧ, ǯ j, g, ezh with caron Voiced postalveolar affricate d͡ʒ Used by Americanists, Slavicists etc.
ẋ X with dot Voiceless uvular fricative χ Used by Americanists
Baby gamma close-mid back unrounded vowel ɤ Proposed in 1989, rejected; LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (U+0264) now represents both glyphs
ρ Greek rho Bilabial trill ʙ In common use before an official letter was adopted
ɉ J with stroke Voiced post-palatal approximant ȷ̈
ᵻ / ᵿ Barred small capital I / upsilon Near-close central unrounded / rounded vowel ɨ̞ / ʉ̞, ɪ̈ / ʊ̈ Used by the OED among others
ʚ Closed epsilon Open-mid front rounded vowel œ Duplicate symbol[4] (from 1904 until the 1920s)
Open-mid central rounded vowel ɞ Superseded 1996
ɷ Closed omega Near-close near-back rounded vowel ʊ Longstanding duplicate symbol; rejected 1989
ω Omega Near-close near-back unrounded vowel ʊ̜ or ɯ̽ Made iconically from the obsolete ɷ symbol. Also Bloch & Trager (1942) for [ɒ̝].
ɩ Small iota Near-close near-front unrounded vowel ɪ Longstanding duplicate symbol; rejected 1989
ı dotless small i Near-close near-front unrounded vowel ɪ Mistake or typographic substitute; or used by Americanists
ȸ ȹ Lowercase DB and QP ligatures Voiced and voiceless labiodential plosive p̪ b̪ Used by Africanists
∅ or Ø slashed 0 or uppercase slashed O Null initial Usually used in phonology to mean no sound values. However, in Chinese linguistics, some scholars considered it as a weak glottal stop or the sound value of the first consonant of syllables started by a vowel (e.g. ān in Tiān'ānmén), and this opinion can be connected with ㅇ (ieung) in hangul. ∅ can be confusing with close-mid front rounded vowel [ø].
ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ Hooktop P, T, C, K, Q Voiceless implosives ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̊ Short-term additions to the IPA; Withdrawn 1993
ʇ Turned T Dental click ǀ Superseded 1989; see click letters
ʗ stretched C Alveolar click ǃ Superseded 1989; see click letters
ʖ Inverted glottal stop Alveolar lateral click ǁ Superseded 1989; see click letters
ʞ Turned K Velar click Proposed symbol; withdrawn 1970 as articulation judged impossible[5] but later reanalyzed and found paralinguistically. For several years used for a voiceless velodorsal stop in the extIPA.[6]
𝼋 (⨎) Esh with double bar Fricated palatal click ǃ͡s Uncommon letter in Ekoka !Kung transcription
⦀ Triple vertical bar Retroflex lateral click ǁ˞
ȣ OU Close-mid back unrounded vowel or voiced velar fricative ɤ or ɣ A mistake in either case
ʀ or R Small capital R or capital R Long vowel or prolonged moraic N ː Used by Japanologists. This symbol represents phonemic long vowel (such as /aʀ/) or /aR/) or rarely prolonged moraic N (hatsuon). It is represented variously in the Japanese kana: Chōonpu (ー) or others.
я Reversed small capital R or Cyrillic ya Voiced epiglottal trill ʀ̠ or ʢ Rare
ɿ Reversed fishhook R / turned iota Syllabic denti-alveolar approximant ɹ̩[7][8] Used by Sinologists, and by Japanologists studying the phonology of the Miyako language
ʅ Squat reversed esh (actually ɿ with retroflex tail) Syllabic retroflex approximant ɻ̩[8] Used by Sinologists. See Chinese vowels
ʮ Turned h with fishhook Labialized syllabic denti-alveolar approximant ɹ̩ʷ Used by Sinologists
ʯ Turned h with fishhook and tail Labialized syllabic retroflex approximant ɻ̩ʷ Used by Sinologists
ᴀ Small capital A Open central vowel ä, a̠, ɑ̈, ɑ̟, ɐ̞ Used by Sinologists
ᴇ Small capital E Mid front unrounded vowel e̞, ɛ̝ Bloch & Trager (1942). Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists
ⱻ Small capital turned E Close-mid near-back unrounded vowel ɤ̞ Used by some Koreanists who study Gyeongsang dialect, where there is no phonemic differentiation between /ʌ/ (RR eo; Hangul ㅓ) and /ɯ/ (RR eu; Hangul ㅡ).
ω, Ω or ꭥ Omega or Small capital Omega Mid back rounded vowel o̞, ɔ̝ Bloch & Trager (1942). Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists
ᴜ Small capital U Near-close near-back rounded vowel ʊ, ʊ̹ Americanist notation
B G Ɠ H L N Œ R Y Uppercase letters ʙ ɢ ʛ ʜ ʟ ɴ ɶ ʀ ʏ Uppercase alternatives to symbols shaped like small capitals
ꞯ Small capital Q Pharyngeal stop ʡ Proposed for the pharyngeal stop of Formosan languages.
Sokuon Used by Japanologists. This is a phonemic symbol for sokuon which written as Hiragana っ and Katakana ッ in Japanese Kana.
Q Capital Q
ꞎ 𝼆 𝼄 Belted letters Voiceless lateral fricatives (retroflex, palatal and velar) ɭ̥˔ ʎ̥˔ ʟ̥˔ Now in the extIPA[6]
ⱳ W with hook Bilabial flap ⱱ̟
𝼈 Retroflex lateral flap ɭ̆
ɏ Barred Y Close central compressed vowel ÿ
ʏ (ұ) Barred small capital Y Near-close central compressed vowel ʏ̈
ɑ̣ etc. Underdot (retroflex or r-colored vowels) ɑ˞ etc.
k', etc. No audible release k̚, etc. Withdrawn
K P T etc. Uppercase letters (not small capitals) Fortis k͈ p͈ t͈, etc. Used by some Koreanists
ɔ̗ / ɔ̖ etc. Lower-pitched rising / falling tone contour In a language which distinguishes more than one rising or falling tone.
k‘ t‘, kʻ tʻ Left quote or reversed comma Weak (sometimes normal) aspiration k t (sometimes kʰ tʰ) First symbol may be left single quotation mark (U+2018) or modifier letter apostrophe (U+02BC); second symbol may be single high-reversed-9 quotation mark (U+201B) or modifier letter reversed comma (U+02BD)
ʦ ʣ ʧ ʤ ꭧ ꭦ ʨ ʥ Ligatures Affricates t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ʈ͡ʂ ɖ͡ʐ t͡ɕ d͡ʑ Formerly an acceptable variant[9]
p′ etc. Prime Palatalization pʲ etc. Traditional in accounts of Irish phonology
p’ etc. Right single quotation mark Traditional in accounts of Russian phonology
* Asterisk Syntactic gemination None Used in some Italian dictionaries
˹ Open corner Release/burst (None) IPA number 490
c or ȼ c or stroked c Voiceless alveolar affricate t͡s Americanist notation
ʒ Ezh Voiced alveolar affricate d͡z Americanist notation
y y Voiced palatal approximant j Americanist notation
ä A with umlaut Open-mid front unrounded vowel or near-open front unrounded vowel ɛ or æ Uralicist notation
ö O with umlaut Close-mid front rounded vowel ø Americanist and Uralicist notation
ü U with umlaut Close front rounded vowel y Americanist and Uralicist notation
k’ etc. Used by some Koreanists for fortis sounds; equivalent to ⟨k*⟩, etc. above.
◌⸋ Box Unreleased ◌̚ Used where IPA ◌̚ would get confused with the corners used to indicate change of pitch in the Japanese pitch accent system
◌ʱ Superscript small letter h with hook Breathy/voiced aspiration ◌̤ Used as aspirated voiced consonants.
◌ˀ Superscript small letter glottal stop Creaky/glottalization ◌̰ Used as glottalized consonants.
ˉ◌, ˗◌, ˍ◌ High, mid and low-level tone or intonation Superseded ⟨◌⟩ Is a placeholder
˭◌, ₌◌ Extra-high and extra-low level tone or intonation Superseded
ˋ◌, ˴◌, ˎ◌ Falling or high falling, mid falling and low-falling tone or intonation Superseded
ˊ◌, [NA], ˏ◌ (High) rising and low rising tone or intonation Superseded
ˇ◌, ˬ◌ (High) dipping and low dipping (falling-rising) tone or intonation Superseded
ˆ◌, ꞈ◌ Peaking (rising-falling) tone or intonation Superseded
˜◌, ̰◌ "Wavy" tone or intonation Superseded
˙◌, ·◌, .◌ Atonic syllable with high, mid and low pitch Superseded
◌́, ◌̂, ◌̀, ◌̆ Acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, breve Primary stress, weakened primary stress, secondary stress and no stress ˈˈ◌, ˈ◌, ˌ◌, ◌ Some English phoneticians and phonologists use acute and grave accents as primary and secondary stress symbols. Some linguists[10] use the circumflex as weakened primary stress in compound words and the breve as no stress. These symbols are also written on the English spellings such as élĕvàtŏr-ôpĕràtŏr.
◌̩, ◌̍ Vertical line below or above Moraic Used by Japanologists. In the standard IPA, these symbols represents syllabic sounds, but Japanologists use them for phonetic variants (except for nasal vowels) of the moraic N ([n̩, ɴ̩, ŋ̍ (or ŋ̩), m̩]).
◌̄, ◌́, ◌̌, ◌̀ Macron, acute accent, caron, grave accent Chinese tones ◌́, ◌̌, ◌̀, ◌̂ or similar, depending on dialect and analysis, or Chao tone letters Used by sinologists with the values the symbols have in Hanyu Pinyin. The standard IPA values of these diacritics are: mid, high, rising, and low tone.

The table below shows examples of expansion in the meaning of IPA symbols in broad transcription.

c t͡ʃ, t͡ɕ or sometimes t͡s.
ɟ d͡ʒ or d͡ʑ.
r Frequently used for any rhotic sound (including R-colored vowels), especially in phonological transcriptions.
a Often a substitute for ɑ in printing when the distinction between a and ɑ is not needed.
ɑ Often a substitute for a in handwriting when the distinction between a and ɑ is not needed.
ʃ ʒ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ ɕ, ʑ, t͡ɕ, and d͡ʑ respectively, especially by some Japanologists and Koreanists.
ɲ Sinologists, Japanologists and Koreanists use this symbol as a alveolo-palatal nasal letter ([ɲ̟] or [n̠ʲ]). Sinologists also use [ȵ], an unofficial IPA symbol.
l In Korean phonology, this symbol is used as a phonemic symbol which covers phonetic variants of coronal lateral approximants and rhotic consonants. This phoneme is reprented by Hangul consonant ㄹ in the Korean orthography.
ʎ Koreanists and sometimes Sinologists use this symbol as an alveolo-palatal lateral approximant letter ([ʎ̟] or [l̠ʲ]). Sinologists also use [ȴ], an unofficial IPA symbol.

See also

Footnotes or references
  1. Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 313–314.
  2. 1949 Principles of the IPA
  3. Henton, C. G. (1988). 5. Individual symbols and diacritics. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 18(02), 85. doi:10.1017/s0025100300003686
  4. 1912 Principles of the IPA
  5. An impossible sound
  6. "extIPA Symbols for Disordered Speech (Revised to 2015)" (PDF). Retrieved 15 February 2018.
  7. Lee, Wai-Sum; Zee, Eric (June 2003). "Standard Chinese (Beijing)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 33 (1): 109–112. doi:10.1017/S0025100303001208.
  8. Lee-Kim, Sang-Im (December 2014). "Revisiting Mandarin 'apical vowels': An articulatory and acoustic study". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 44 (3): 261–282. doi:10.1017/S0025100314000267. S2CID 16432272.
  9. Pullum, Geoffrey K.; William A. Ladusaw (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. p. 180. ISBN 0-226-68535-7.
  10. Trager, George L., and Henry Lee Smith Jr. 1951. An Outline of English Structure. Studies in Linguistics: Occasional Papers 3. Norman, Okla.: Battenburg Press.
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