How the table works
In the pulmonary table, columns move from the lips toward the glottis, and rows describe manner. Where two symbols share a cell, the left one is voiceless and the right one voiced. An empty cell means that the official chart has no dedicated basic symbol at that intersection; it is not necessarily evidence that no human language can make anything similar. The IPA's shaded cells are judged impossible articulations, so a digital re-rendering must not populate them with invented letters. Select any symbol to see its component features.
This chart follows the International Phonetic Association's official inventory rather than a list of English sounds. IPA is a notation, not a list of phonemes that every language possesses. A chart symbol can be modified with diacritics, and a language may distinguish combinations for which the basic chart has no single character. The absence of a dedicated glyph is therefore different from the absence of a sound.
Interactive reference
The International Phonetic Alphabet
The complete set of base symbols and modifiers displayed on the International Phonetic Association’s official chart. Choose a character to inspect it; the chart describes possible speech sounds rather than claiming that any one ancient language used them all.
Tap a symbol to see what its chart position and notation mean. This is a description, not a recording or reconstruction of an ancient speaker.
Pulmonic consonants
Across the mouth from lips to larynx; within a paired cell, voiceless is left and voiced is right. Scroll horizontally on a small screen.
| Manner | Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | — | — | — | — | |||||||
| Nasal | — | — | |||||||||
| Trill | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||||
| Tap or flap | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||||
| Fricative | |||||||||||
| Lateral fricative | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||||
| Approximant | — | — | — | — | — | ||||||
| Lateral approximant | — | — | — |
A plain dash means no dedicated basic symbol. Hatching marks an articulation the official IPA chart judges impossible; half-hatching marks only the voiced half impossible. A blank symbol slot alone does not imply impossibility.
Non-pulmonic and other consonants
Clicks
Voiced implosives
Ejectives
Other symbols
Vowel space
Rows run from close (high tongue) to open (low tongue); columns run front to back. In paired cells, unrounded is left and rounded right. Near-close and near-open symbols have their own rows.
| Height | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | |||
| Near-close | — | ||
| Close-mid | |||
| Mid | — | — | |
| Open-mid | |||
| Near-open | — | ||
| Open | — |
Diacritics
The dotted circle is a placeholder showing where a mark attaches to a real segment. A stand-alone modifier such as [ʰ] follows or adjoins a base.
Voice and phonation
Articulator
Vowel position and syllabicity
Secondary articulations
Tongue root and release
Suprasegmentals, tones and word accents
Stress, length and boundaries
Tone levels and contours
Source
Adapted from the International Phonetic Association’s official chart (2026 issue, revised 2015/2005), copyright © 2026 International Phonetic Association. The chart and this interactive adaptation of its symbol arrangement are available under CC BY-SA 4.0. No Handbook audio is reproduced.
Pulmonic and non-pulmonic consonants
The largest table covers consonants made with air pushed out of the lungs. The separate tables cover five basic click letters, five voiced implosive letters and the ejective mark with representative combinations. The click letter marks a place of front closure; a full transcription may add symbols specifying its accompanying release and voicing. The ejective mark [ʼ] combines with a consonant such as [pʼ] or [sʼ], so four printed examples do not exhaust possible ejectives.
Several sounds do not fit a single cell: [w] has simultaneous labial and velar articulation; [ɥ] is labial and palatal; [ɧ] denotes simultaneous [ʃ] and [x]. The official “other symbols” group also contains epiglottal consonants, a lateral flap and alveolo-palatal fricatives. Affricates can be written with a tie bar, for example [t͡s]. These are part of the official chart and are displayed below the main grid.
Phonetic specificity
Square brackets [ ] describe a phone or a proposed phonetic form; slashes / / describe a contrastive phoneme in a particular language. A word can contain [pʰ] without /pʰ/ being a distinct phoneme. Conversely, a phonemic transcription may omit predictable phonetic details. The editor must say whether a historical transcription is broad, narrow or reconstructed. None of these buttons plays audio: the IPA's Handbook sound recordings have separate copyright restrictions and cannot simply be embedded in another product.
Modern-language examples on this page clarify a linguistic pattern. They do not establish unattested sounds or forms for an ancient language. Follow the cited sources below and keep editorial readings separate from the surviving trace.