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 Template:Angbr IPA for standard . Several symbols indicating secondary articulation have been dropped altogether, with the idea that they should be indicated with diacritics: Template:Angbr IPA for is one. In addition, the rare voiceless implosive series Template:Angbr IPA 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 Template:Angbr IPA to represent the sound of -i in Pinyin hanzi which has been variously described as , , or . (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 Americanist symbols, including affricates such as Template:Angbr IPA for . Extensions from the Americanist affricate convention of c = ts and č = tš include 𝼝 = tʂ and ɕ = t𝼞.

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 Template:Angbr. Other pseudo-IPA capitals supported by Unicode are Template:Angbr. (See Case variants of IPA letters.)

Capital letters are also used as cover symbols in phonotactic descriptions: Template:Angbr = consonant, Template:Angbr = vowel, Template:Angbr = nasal, Template:Angbr = sonorant, etc.

This list does not include commonplace extensions of the IPA, such as doubling a symbol for a greater degree of a feature ( extra-long , extra stress, strongly aspirated , and extra-rhotic ), nor superscripting for a lesser degree of a feature ( slightly prenasalized , slightly affricated , and epenthetic schwa). The asterisk, as in 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.

Table

Obsolete and/or nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Symbol or exemplar	Name	Meaning	Standard IPA equivalent	Notes
	question mark	glottal stop		typewriter substitution
	digit seven	glottal stop		typewriter substitution
	apostrophe	glottal stop		typewriter substitution
		primary stress		a mistake
	q	glottal stop		used in Maltese, Khmer and Malayo–Polynesian languages transcriptions.
	q with hook tail	bilabial click		the tenuis bilabial click, and basis of digraphs for other bilabial clicks; equivalent to IPA [[[:Template:IPA link]]].
	Greek phi	voiceless bilabial fricative		a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
	Greek psi	retroflex click		used by (Doke 1925).
		bunched-r		proposed by John Laver (1994)
		voiced bilabial fricative trill		Proposed by Sinologists.
		voiceless labio-alveolar affricate	p͡s	Used by Blench (2008).
	sharp s	voiced bilabial fricative		a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
or $\int$	integral symbol	voiceless postalveolar fricative		a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
	digit three	voiced postalveolar fricative		a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape; often confused with open-mid central unrounded vowel
	d with stroke	voiced dental fricative		a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
	thorn	voiceless dental fricative		a mistake
	turned delta	labialized voiced alveolar or dental fricative		intended for the voiced whistled sibilant, ɀ, of Shona and related languages, withdrawn 1976
	sigma	labialized voiceless alveolar or dental fricative		intended for the voiceless whistled sibilant, ȿ, of Shona and related languages, withdrawn 1976
	ezh with tail	labialized voiced alveolo-palatal fricative		intended for w before front vowels in Twi; may also be used for the lightly rounded English , withdrawn 1976.
	reversed esh with top loop	labialized voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative		intended for hw before front vowels in Twi; may also be used for the lightly rounded English , withdrawn 1976.
	barred digit two	voiced alveolar affricate		withdrawn 1976
or	turned voiced epiglottal trill	voiceless alveolar affricate		withdrawn 1976
	superscript digit one and two	tonal stress	or , depending on dialect	used in Swedish and Norwegian
	superscript digit one, two, three and four	Chinese tones	or or similar, depending on dialect and analysis, or Chao tone letters	used in Chinese studies
	superscript digit one, two, three, four and five	tones	or	variant of IPA tones
	superscript digit one, two, three, four, five, seven and eight	Southern Min tones		used in Sinologists of Taiwan includes Hokkien
	eta	moraic nasal	, , ,	Intended for the moraic nasal of Japanese. Withdrawn 1976
	palatal hook	palatalization		Typically used in the transcription of Slavic languages such as Russian. Superseded 1989
	retroflex hook	voiced alveolar or retroflex approximant		a mistake; an example like // was actually [ʒ͡ɻ]
		r-colored vowels	or	Superseded 1989; MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK (U+02DE) is now preferred
File:LATIN SMALL LETTER SCHWA WITH FISHHOOK.svg	unstressed central rhotic vowel	r-colored vowel in American English	or	Proposed in 1934, MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK (U+02DE) is now preferred
		alveolo-palatal consonants	Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link, and Template:IPA link; respectively	broad transcription; especially Japanologists and Koreanists
	a		any open vowel	Often a substitute for Template:IPA link in printing when the distinction between Template:IPA link and Template:IPA link is not needed.
	Latin alpha		any open vowel	Often a substitute for Template:IPA link in printing when the distinction between Template:IPA link and Template:IPA link is not needed.
	Greek alpha	open back unrounded vowel		Old form of ⟨ɑ⟩, but still used in some italic fonts as the symbol for [[[:Template:IPA link]]] to avoid confusion with italic "small letter a" that written as ⟨ɑ⟩ for [[[:Template:IPA link]]].
	turned Greek alpha	open back rounded vowel		Old form of ⟨ɒ⟩, but still used in some italic fonts as the symbol for [[[:Template:IPA link]]] to avoid confusion with italic "small turned letter a" that written as ⟨ɒ⟩ for [[[:Template:IPA link]]].
a	reversed a	near-open front unrounded vowel		Proposed in 1989, rejected
	c		Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link or sometimes Template:IPA link.	broad transcription
File:Latin small ligature nv.png	nv ligature	close front rounded vowel		proposed in 1989, rejected
	barred horseshoe u with hook	back sulcal vowel		proposed in 1989, rejected
File:W with left hook.svg	w with left hook	voiced labial-velar fricative (labialized voiced velar fricative)		proposed in 1989, rejected
	letters with left-swinging top hook	dental consonants		proposed in 1989, rejected; Malayalam transcriptions
File:Latin small letter script G with ascender.svg	long-leg g	voiced velar lateral approximant		proposed in 1989, rejected
	hooktop ezh	voiced velar fricative		proposed in 1989, rejected
File:Looptail g.svg	double-loop g	voiced velar fricative		from 1895 to 1900, represented that consonant before 1895, after 1900
		voiced velar plosive		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 and the single-loop g for , but the distinction never caught on.
		voiced postalveolar affricate		used in Arabic transcriptions
File:Opentail g with stroke through tail.svg	single-loop g with stroke	voiced velar fricative		replaced double-loop g in 1900, then replaced by gamma around 1928-1930. the character ǥ may not have the single-loop shape in some fonts.
ƹ	reversed ezh	voiced pharyngeal fricative	Template:IPA link	it is based on the Arabic letter () instead of letter ezh, used in Arabic and Ethiopic transcriptions
j	j		Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link or sometimes Template:IPA link
	barred dotless small j (or turned f in some fonts)		Template:IPA link or Template:IPA link	can be written as ⟨ȷ⟩ or ⟨f⟩
etc.	subscript w	labialization	etc.	mark may appear above letters with descenders like or . removed 1989
	curly-tail esh	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative		variant, also for Russian щ (now Template:Angbr IPA). removed 1989
	curly-tail ezh	voiced alveolo-palatal fricative		variant, removed 1989
	curly-tail n, d, t, l	alveolo-palatal consonants	or	used by some Sinologists.
	r with háček	voiced strident apico-alveolar trill		Intended for ř in Czech and related languages. Template:Angbr IPA from 1909, replaced by Template:Angbr IPA in 1949, Withdrawn 1989
	long-leg r	voiced strident apico-alveolar trill		Intended for ř in Czech and related languages. Template:Angbr IPA from 1909, withdrawn 1989.
		syllabic alveolar trill		a mistake
Ꙫ	Cyrillic o with two dots inside	nasal-ingressive velar trill		a paralinguistic impression of a snort, due to the graphic resemblance to a pig snout.
(File:Latin small letter Lambda.svg)	Greek lambda	voiced palatal lateral approximant		a mistake
		voiced alveolar lateral affricate		used by Americanists
	barred lambda	voiceless alveolar lateral affricate		used by Americanists
	l with stroke	voiceless alveolar lateral fricative		used by Americanists, also a typographic substitute
		velarized voiced alveolar lateral approximant		used by Baltic transcriptions
	small capital Cyrillic el	voiced uvular lateral approximant
	s c z with háček	postalveolar consonants	;	used by Americanists, Uralicists, Semiticists, Slavicists
	j, g, ezh with háček	voiced postalveolar affricate	;	used by Americanists, Slavicists
	curly-tail s	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative		used by Americanists, Slavicists
or	c with retroflex hook and curly-tail c or ts with retroflex hook and curly-tail ts	voiceless retroflex and alveolo-palatal affricate		used by Americanists, Slavicists
	c l n s z dz with acute accent	alveolo-palatals or palatals and postalveolar consonants	;	used by Slavicists
	w	voiced bilabial approximant		broad transcription, includes in Austronesian languages where the bilabial approximant and voiced labial–velar approximant phonemes cannot be distinguished
	x, Latin gamma	voiceless and voiced uvular fricative (or voiced uvular approximant)	or	broad transcriptions in Hindi, Arabic and Hebrew transcriptions
	x with dot	voiceless uvular fricative		used by Americanists
	uppercase x	voiceless uvular fricative		a mistake
	uppercase y	voiced labial–palatal approximant		a mistake
File:IPA Unicode 0x0264 baby gamma.svg	baby gamma	close-mid back unrounded vowel		used from 1921 to 1989, replaced by ramshorn to avoid confusion with gamma ; LATIN SMALL LETTER RAMS HORN (U+0264) now represents both glyphs
	rho	voiced bilabial trill		common before an official letter was adopted
	barred j	voiced post-palatal approximant
(ɥ̵)	barred turned h	compressed voiced post-palatal approximant
(w̶)	barred w	protruded voiced post-palatal approximant
	barred small capital i / upsilon	near-close central unrounded / rounded vowel		used by some English phoneticians, including the Oxford English Dictionary
	closed epsilon	open-mid front rounded vowel		alternate symbol from 1904-1920s
		open-mid central rounded vowel		removed 1996
	Latin iota	near-close near-front unrounded vowel		longstanding alternate symbol until 1989
	barred Latin iota	near-close central unrounded vowel		longstanding alternate symbol until 1989
	dotless small i	near-close near-front unrounded vowel		a mistake or typographic substitute; or used by Americanists.
	db and qp ligatures or footless phi and headless phi	voiced and voiceless labiodential plosives		Used by Africanists.
, , or	digit zero, slashed digit zero or uppercase slashed o	null initial		usually used in phonology to mean a spelling with no sound value. however, in Chinese and some Korean linguistics, some scholars use it for a weak glottal stop; the sound value of the first consonant of syllables started by a vowel.
	hooktop p, t, ʈ, c, k, q	voiceless implosives	or	brief additions to the IPA; removed 1993
	turned t	dental click		removed 1989; see click letters, but in some African languages still use this symbol to avoid confusion with ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ (voiced lateral approximant)
	stretched (or descended) c	alveolar click		removed 1989; see click letters
		voiced retroflex flap		some assumed this symbol was made by combining ⟨ɾ⟩ with ⟨◌̢⟩ and thus was used as the symbol for voiced retroflex flap ([[[:Template:IPA link]]]); ⟨ɽ⟩ assumed as the symbol of voiced retroflex trill ([[[:Template:IPA link]]]).
	turned pharyngeal fricative	alveolar lateral click		removed 1989; see click letters
	turned k	originally a palatal click, reinterpreted as a velar click		velar articulation was judged impossible. later reanalyzed and found paralinguistically. For several years used for a voiceless velodorsal stop in the extIPA.
(⨎)	esh with two bars	voiced palatal implosive		old form of ⟨ʄ⟩.
		fricated palatal click	or	uncommon letter in Ekoka !Kung transcription
	triple vertical bar	retroflex lateral click
	ou	close-mid back unrounded vowel or voiced velar fricative	or	a common mistake
	r	alveolar trill	any rhotic sound (including r-colored vowels)	broad transcription
or	small capital or uppercase r	long vowel or prolonged moraic N		used by Japanologists. This symbol represents phonemic long vowel (such as //) or //) or rarely prolonged moraic N (hatsuon).
	reversed small capital r	voiced epiglottal trill	or	rare
	dotless long i with fishhook	syllabic denti-alveolar approximant	,	used by Sinologists, and by Japanologists specifically for the Miyako and Tarama languages.
	turned iota	syllabic denti-alveolar approximant	,	old form of ⟨ɿ⟩, used by Sinologists, and by Japanologists specifically for the Miyako and Tarama languages.
	dotless long i with fishhook and tail	syllabic retroflex approximant	,	used by Sinologists. See Chinese vowels
or	reversed (baseline) esh	syllabic retroflex approximant	,	old form of ⟨ʅ⟩, used by Sinologists. See Chinese vowels
	turned h with fishhook	labialized syllabic denti-alveolar approximant		used by Sinologists
	turned h with fishhook and tail	labialized syllabic retroflex approximant		used by Sinologists
	small capital a	open central unrounded vowel		used by Sinologists
	small capital turned a	close-mid back unrounded vowel		withdrawn in 1928.
	barred Latin alpha	open central unrounded vowel		Proposed by Charles-James N. Bailey in 1976
	ao ligature	open central unrounded vowel		Used by Leoni & Maturi (2002).
	small capital e	mid front unrounded vowel		Bloch & Trager (1942). Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists
	barred e	close-mid central unrounded vowel		used by Teuthonista
	small capital turned e	mid back unrounded vowel		used by some Koreanists who study Gyeongsang dialect, where there is no phonemic differentiation between (RR eo; Hangul ㅓ) and (RR eu; Hangul ㅡ).
	closed omega	near-close near-back rounded vowel		longstanding alternate symbol until 1989
	omega	near-close near-back unrounded vowel	or	made from obsolete symbol.
		near-open back rounded vowel		Proposed by Bloch & Trager (1942) and Sinologists.
	small capital omega	mid back rounded vowel		Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists ; also Bloch & Trager (1942).
	barred o	close-mid central rounded vowel		used by Teuthonista; variant shape of ɵ in some early 20th century works.
	small capital u	near-close near-back rounded vowel		Americanist notation; also shape of ʊ when it was adopted as a symbol in 1898 or early 20th century works.
	barred small capital u	near-close central rounded vowel		Americanist notation
	uppercase letters	small caps		often mistaken by typing, uppercase alternatives to symbols shaped like small capitals
	small capital q	pharyngeal stop		proposed for the pharyngeal stop of Formosan languages, ExtIPA for same purpose.
		sokuon		used by Japanologists.
	capital Q	sokuon		used by Japanologists.
	l	all coronal liquid consonants.		broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists.
	belted letters	voiceless lateral fricatives (retroflex, palatal, and velar)		now in the extIPA
	turned y	alveolo-palatal lateral approximant	[] or []	broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists and Sinologists
	n with left hook	alveolo-palatal nasal	[] or []	broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists, Sinologists, and Japanologists
	w with hook	bilabial flap
𝼈	turned r with long leg and retroflex hook	retroflex lateral flap
ᶘ ᶚ	esh or ezh with retroflex hook	retroflex palato-alveolar fricatives		may be impossible to pronounce
	barred y	close central compressed vowel
	small capital barred y	near-close central compressed vowel
ұ	barred straight y (Cyrillic straight u)	near-close near-back unrounded vowel	[] or []	used in Mande studies
◌̣	underdot	retroflex or r-colored vowels	etc.
, , etc.	apostrophe	no audible release	, , etc.	removed
		palatalization	, , etc.	common in X-SAMPA
etc.	uppercase letters (not small capitals)	fortis	, etc.	used by some Koreanologists
ɔ̩	vowel with tilted line below	lower-pitched rising / falling tone contour		for languages that distinguish multiple rising or falling tones
	turned comma above	weak (sometimes normal) aspiration	(sometimes )	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)
	ligatures	affricates		formerly acceptable variants
	ligatures with palatal hook	palatalized affricates
	ligatures with retroflex hook	retroflex affricates		John Laver used in Polish transcription
etc.	prime	palatalization	etc.	traditional Irish phonology transcription
etc.	combining apostrophe	palatalization	etc.	traditional Russian phonology transcription
	asterisk	syntactic gemination	(none)	used in some Italian dictionaries
	open corner	release/burst	(none)	IPA number 490
	without diacritics	dental consonants		broad transcriptions; in some English dialects, // often described as ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ for /⁓/
or	without diacritics	approximant consonants or mid vowels	or	broad transcriptions; in Spanish, // and // often described as ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ and ⟨Template:IPA link⟩
	without diacritics	mid vowels		broad transcriptions; for example in some languages, // and // maybe described as ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ and ⟨Template:IPA link⟩, also // maybe described as ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ or ⟨Template:IPA link⟩
	without diacritics	central vowels		broad transcriptions; in some English dialects, // often described as ⟨Template:IPA link⟩ in English for //
or	c or stroked c	voiceless alveolar affricate	Template:IPA link	Americanist notation
	ezh	voiced alveolar affricate	Template:IPA link	Americanist notation
	y	voiced palatal approximant	Template:IPA link	Americanist notation
	a with diaeresis	near-open front unrounded vowel, open-mid front unrounded vowel or open front unrounded vowel	Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link or Template:IPA link	Uralicist notation
	o with diaeresis	close-mid front rounded vowel, open-mid front rounded vowel or mid front rounded vowel	Template:IPA link, Template:IPA link or Template:IPA link	Americanist and Uralicist notation
	u with diaeresis	close front rounded vowel or near-close near-front rounded vowel	Template:IPA link or Template:IPA link	Americanist and Uralicist notation
etc.	right single quotation mark	Korean fortis	etc.	used by some Koreanists for fortis sounds; equivalent to , 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
	Modifier h with hook	breathy/ voiced aspiration		Equivalent on the IPA
	Modifier glottal stop	creaky voice/ glottalization		Equivalent on the IPA
	Combining middle tilde	velarization		Equivalent on the IPA
	Modifier high, mid and low macron behind	high, mid and low-level tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high and low equals sign behind	extra-high and extra-low level tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high, mid and low grave behind	falling or high falling, mid falling and low-falling tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high and low acute behind	high rising and low rising tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high and low caron behind	high dipping and low dipping (falling-rising) tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high and low circumflex behind	peaking (rising-falling) tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high and low tilde behind	"wavy" tone or intonation		removed
	Modifier high, mid and low dot behind	atonic syllable with high, mid, and low pitch; respectively		removed
	Acute accent, circumflex, grave accent, breve	stress symbols: primary stress, weakened primary stress, secondary stress, and no stress; respectively	ˈˈ◌, ˈ◌, ˌ◌, ◌	some English phoneticians and phonologists use acute and grave accents as primary and secondary stress symbols. Some linguists 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 not just other IPA symbols.
	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 ([]).
	Macron, acute accent, caron, grave accent	Chinese tones	or 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.

See also

• History of the IPA
• Americanist phonetic notation
• Uralic Phonetic Alphabet