Assignment of ASCII Characters to IPA Symbols

IPA stands for International Phonetic Alphabet. Often, it is useful (or even necessary) to represent IPA symbols by ASCII characters. The following table proposes an assignment of ASCII characters to IPA symbols, such that the shape of the ASCII character corresponds most naturally to the shape of the IPA symbol (e.g., ASCII L for IPA L). Wherever this is impossible, other principles that have been followed by the author are: the frequency of the sound in various languages (e.g., ASCII R is assigned to IPA alveolar trill r rather than uvular trill R, while ASCII r is assigned to the alveolar approximant the English r), and that a single ASCII character should represent each symbol in the two main tables of consonants and vowels.

Legend:

IPA
symbol
D ASCII
character

In the table of pulmonic consonants, below, the first symbol within a cell denotes an unvoiced sound (e.g., t), while the second symbol denotes the corresponding voiced sound (e.g., d).

Pulmonic
Consonants		 Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive
p b
 
t d
\ /
c ]
k g
q G
 
?  
Nasal
  m
  M
  n
  %
  #
  N
  7
   
Trill
  }
 
  R
     
  8
   
Tap or Flap    
  P
  [
         
Fricative
F B
f v
T D
s z
S Z
$ 2
C J
x +
X Q
H 9
h 6
Lateral
fricative		    
4 5
           
Approximant  
  V
  r
  {
  j
  W
     
Lateral
approximant		    
  l
  |
  K
  L
     

In the table of vowels, below, wherever symbols appear in pairs, the leftmost symbol of the pair denotes an unrounded vowel, while the rightmost symbol denotes the corresponding rounded vowel.

Vowels   Front   Cen tral       Back
Close i y   1 -      
w u
      IY         U  
Close-mid   e 0   ) =    
, o
            @      
Open-mid     E ~   3 ;  
^ O
        &     *    
Open       a <      
A (

The above two tables span the range of most common sounds (pulmonic consonants and vowels). There are a few remaining ASCII characters (., !, :, ', >, _ and `), and a number of sounds (non-pulmonic consonants, affricates) and symbols that are not included in the above tables. We suggest using some of the remaining ASCII characters as starting tokens of "escape sequences" to represent the remaining IPA symbols.

The following table suggests escape sequences (all starting with the ! symbol) for non-pulmonic consonants:

Non-pulmonic Consonants
Clicks Voiced Implosives Ejectives
ASCII sequence IPA symbol description ASCII sequence IPA symbol description ASCII sequence IPA symbol description
!0 bilabial !b bilabial !'  
!| dental !d dental/alveolar !p bilabial
!! (post)alveolar !f palatal !t dental/alveolar
!= palatoalveolar !g velar !k velar
!# alveolar lateral !G uvular !s alveolar/fricative

The following table suggests escape sequences (all starting with the . symbol) for the affricates, other double articulations, and other symbols:

Affricates Other symbols Other symbols Other symbols
ASCII sequence IPA symbols ASCII sequence IPA symbol description ASCII sequence IPA symbol description ASCII sequence IPA symbol description
.s .m voiceless labio-velar fricative .9 voiced epiglottal fricative .I alveolar lateral flap
.S .w voiced labio-velar approximant .? epiglottal plosive .X simultaneous and
.z .h voiced labio-palatal approximant .c alveolo- palatal fricative ' primary stress
.Z .H voiceless epiglottal fricative .7 alveolo- palatal fricative ` secondary stress

You may also want to take a look at this page, which describes various other conventions, considered more-or-less "standard".

A related page of mine is: Greek Sounds in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Back to the Index of Topics in Language