Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet

Extended IPA Chart for Disordered Speech, as of 2025

Template:IPA notice The Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for Disordered Speech, commonly abbreviated extIPA /ɛkˈstaɪpə/, are a set of letters and diacritics devised by the 1989 Kiel Convention and later by the International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association (ICPLA) to augment the International Phonetic Alphabet for the phonetic transcription of disordered speech. Some of its symbols are also used to represent features of normal speech in IPA transcriptions, and are accepted for that purpose by the International Phonetic Association.

Many sounds found only in disordered speech are indicated with diacritics, though an increasing number of dedicated letters are used as well. Special letters are included to transcribe the speech of people with lisps and cleft palates. The extIPA repeats several traditional IPA diacritics that the ICPLA has found are unfamiliar to most speech pathologists but which transcribe features that are common in disordered speech. These include preaspiration Template:Angbr IPA, linguolabials Template:Angbr IPA, laminal fricatives , and Template:Angbr IPA for a sound (segment or feature) that has no available symbol (letter or diacritic). The novel transcription Template:Angbr IPA is used for an English molar-r, as opposed to Template:Angbr IPA for an apical r; these articulations are acoustically indistinguishable and so are rarely identified in non-disordered speech.

Sounds restricted to disordered speech include velopharyngeals, nasal fricatives (a.k.a. nareal fricatives) and some of the percussive consonants. Sounds sometimes found in the world's languages that do not have symbols in the basic IPA include denasals, the sublaminal percussive, palatal and velar lateral fricatives, and fricatives that are simultaneously lateral and sibilant.

There are two basic approaches to transcription in extIPA. One is to transcribe speech phonetically, without considering what the intended sounds are. For example, if a target sound is denasalized to , it is written Template:Angbr IPA. The other approach is to transcribe the target sound with diacritics to indicate how it is mispronounced. With this approach, denasalized is written Template:Angbr IPA, with the denasalization diacritic Template:Angbr IPA. This semi-phonemic approach is very common in the literature, but the ICPLA tries to discourage it. For this reason, in 2025 they specified the denasalization diacritic as meaning partially denasalized.

The extIPA was substantially revised and expanded in 2015; the new symbols were added to Unicode in 2021. Two diacritics were changed in 2024 to reduce ambiguity. (See History of the International Phonetic Alphabet § ExtIPA.)

Letters

The non-IPA letters found in the extIPA are listed in the following table. VoQS letters may also be used, as in Template:Angbr IPA for a buccal interdental trill (a raspberry), as VoQS started off as a subset of extIPA.

Several letters and superscript forms were added to Unicode 14 and 15. They are included in the free Gentium and Andika fonts.

Category	Letter	Superscript and example		Unicode	Description
Lateral				U+02AA, U+10799	Voiceless grooved lateral alveolar fricative, (a laterally lisped , with simultaneous airflow through the sibilant groove in the tongue and across the side of the tongue), intended for a lateral lisp
				U+02AB, U+1079A	Voiced grooved lateral alveolar fricative, (a laterally lisped )
				U+A78E, U+1079D	Voiceless retroflex lateral fricative, implicit in standard IPA.
				U+1DF05, U+1079F	Voiced retroflex lateral fricative, implicit in standard IPA.
				U+1DF06, U+107A1	Voiceless palatal lateral fricative. The voiced fricative may be Template:Angbr IPA or, in standard IPA, Template:Angbr IPA.
				U+1DF04, U+1079C	Voiceless velar lateral fricative. The voiced fricative may be Template:Angbr IPA or, in standard IPA, Template:Angbr IPA.
Velo­pharyngeal				U+02A9, U+10790	Voiceless velopharyngeal fricative (often occurs with a cleft palate). The voiced fricative is Template:Angbr IPA.
				U+1DF00, (U+10790+107AA)	Voiceless velopharyngeal trill or 'snort'. (Velopharyngeal fricative accompanied by uvular trill. may be equivalent to .)
Velo­dorsal		–		U+1DF03	Voiceless velodorsal plosive. (The old IPA letter for a velar click, Template:Angbr IPA, was provided for a voiceless velodorsal plosive from 2008 to 2015.)
		–		U+1DF01	Voiced velodorsal plosive
		–		U+1DF07	Velodorsal nasal
Pharyn­geal		–		U+A7AF	Voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive
		–		U+1DF02	Voiced upper-pharyngeal plosive
Percussive		( )		U+02AC	Bilabial percussive (for lips smacking together; cf. non-percussive for lips smacking apart)
		( )		U+02AD	Bidental percussive (gnashing teeth)
				U+00A1, U+A71E	Sublaminal lower-alveolar percussive (tongue slap). Used with letters for alveolar and palatal clicks to indicate clicks with percussive release, or "clucks", and .

Diacritics

The extIPA has explicitly endorsed some rarer uses of regular IPA diacritics, such as for pre-aspiration, and has added some new ones, such as for uvularization. Some of these extIPA diacritics are occasionally used for non-disordered speech, for example for the unusual airstream mechanisms of Damin.

One extension of regular IPA is the use of parentheses around diacritics to indicate partial application of that diacritic: a pair of parentheses around a diacritic indicates that the diacritic only partially applies (in degree or duration), while a single parenthesis at the left or right of the diacritic indicates that the segment is partially affected at its beginning or end. These conventions may be convenient for representing various voice onset times. Phonation diacritics may also be prefixed or suffixed to represent relative timing beyond the segment (pre- and post-voicing etc.). The following are examples; in principle, any IPA or extIPA diacritic may be parenthesized or displaced in this manner.

Partial application of diacritics (examples)
	partial/central voicing of		partial/central devoicing of	subscript: U+1ABD; superscript: 1ABB
	initial voicing		initial devoicing	subscript: U+1AC3; superscript: 1AC1
	final voicing		final devoicing	subscript: U+1AC4; superscript: 1AC2
	partial murmuring of		partial nasalization of
Displaced timing (examples)
	pre-voiced		post-voiced	U+02EC
	with a creaky offglide		with extended voicelessness	U+02F7 (˷), U+02F3 (˳)

The transcriptions for partial voicing and devoicing may be used in either the sense of degrees of voicing or in the sense that the voicing is discontinuous. For the former, both parentheses indicate the sound is mildly (partially) voiced throughout, and single parentheses mean a partial degree of voicing at the beginning or end of the sound. For the latter, both parentheses mean the sound is (de)voiced in the middle, while the single parentheses mean complete (de)voicing at the beginning or end of the sound. The implication is that such voicing or devoicing is atypical of the language being spoken. For example, Template:Angbr IPA would be used for the usual devoicing or partial devoicing of the language, while Template:Angbr IPA would indicate that the transcriber found the devoicing to be atypical, as in pathological speech. Similarly, Template:Angbr IPA would indicate atypical devoicing at the beginning of the segment. However, some authors use the parentheses for typical devoicing in close transcription. For example, the Bardi word aamba 'man', with the usual initial and final devoicing of that language, has been transcribed .

Altering the position of a diacritic relative to the letter indicates that the phonation begins before the consonant or vowel does or continues beyond it. The voiceless ring and other phonation diacritics can be used in the same way if needed. For example, Template:Angbr IPA indicates that voicelessness continues past the , more or less equivalent to Template:Angbr IPA.

Other extIPA diacritics are:

Airstream mechanism
	U+2193	(after a letter) ingressive airstream		U+2191	(after a letter) egressive airstream
		(in isolation) inhalation			(in isolation) exhalation
Phonation
	U+02ED	unaspirated		U+02B0	pre-aspiration
Nasalization
	U+033E	(on a nasal letter) nareal fricative		U+10790	velopharyngeal friction (especially noisy nasal airstream caused by turbulent airflow through the velopharyngeal port)
		(on an oral letter) nasal fricative escape (audible turbulent airflow through the nostrils, as with a nasal lisp)		U+034A	partially denasalized (as with a headcold; complements the nasal diacritic)
Articulatory strength
	U+0348	strong articulation (not necessarily fortis); Template:Angbr IPA may be used for a true glottal fricative		U+0349	weak articulation (not necessarily lenis)
Articulation
	U+0346	(on a labial letter) dentolabial		U+0346  +032A	(on a coronal letter) interdental
		(on a coronal letter) class-3 occlusion (tongue protrudes past upper teeth, as with a severe underbite)			(on a glottal letter) bidental
	U+0347	(on a coronal letter) alveolar		U+034D	labial spreading
		(on a labial letter) labioalveolar (class-2 occlusion, as with a severe overbite)			(complements the diacritics for rounding – see rounded vowel)
	U+034E	whistled		U+033B	laminal fricatives (including lowered tongue tip)
,	(as IPA)	bunched-r (molar-r) and apical-r, respectively	,	U+0355, U+0354	offset to the left and right, respectively
Timing
	U+0362	slurred/sliding articulation (a consonantal diphthong, moving from one articulation to another within the time of a single segment)		U+005C	stutter (reiterated articulation)

Diacritics may be placed within parentheses as the voicing diacritics are above. For example, Template:Angbr IPA indicates a partially denasalized .

The arrow for sliding articulation was first used for for 'watch' and for 'zipper'. It is most commonly observed in quick changes from the blade to the tip of the tongue (laminal to apical) in plosives and fricatives, such as and , or vice versa, but is not limited to that; the consonants may also be labial or dorsal, e.g. and .

The slit-grooved distinction of the channel shape of front fricatives may be handled with these diacritics, with for example Template:Angbr IPA for grooved (sibilant) dental fricatives, and Template:Angbr IPA for ungrooved (non-sibilant) alveolar fricatives. This is a common topic in speech pathology, though Template:Angbr IPA occur in non-pathological speech in some languages.

Any IPA letter may be used in superscript form as a diacritic, to indicate the onset, release or 'flavor' of another letter. In extIPA, this is provided specifically for the fricative release of a plosive. For example, Template:Angbr IPA is with a lateral-fricative release (similar to the velar lateral affricate , but with less frication); Template:Angbr IPA is with lateral-plus-central release. Combining diacritics can be added to superscript diacritics, such as Template:Angbr IPA for with bidental aspiration.

The VoQS (voice-quality symbols) take IPA and extIPA diacritics, as well as several additional diacritics that are potentially available for extIPA transcription. The subscript dot for 'whisper' is sometimes found in IPA transcription, though in IPA the diacritic has also been used for apical-retroflex articulation.

Prosodic notation and indeterminate sounds

The Extended IPA has adopted bracket notation from conventions transcribing discourse. Parentheses are used to indicate mouthing (silent articulation), as in the common silent sign to hush . Parentheses are also used to indicate silent pauses, for example (...); the length of the pause may be indicated, as in (2.3 sec). A very short (.) may be used to indicate an absence of co-articulation between adjacent segments, for instance rather than .

Double parentheses indicate that transcription is uncertain because of extraneous noise or speech, as when one person talks over another. As much detail as possible may be included, as in ⸨2 syll.⸩ or ⸨2σ⸩ for two obscured syllables. This is also IPA usage. Sometimes the obscuring noise will be indicated instead, as in ⸨cough⸩ or ⸨knock⸩, as in the illustrative transcription below; this notation may be used for extraneous noise that does not obscure speech, but which the transcriber nonetheless wishes to notate (e.g. because someone says 'excuse me' after coughing, or verbally responds to the knock on the door, and the noise is thus required to understand the speech).

In the extIPA, indistinguishable/unidentifiable sounds are circled rather than placed in single parentheses as in IPA. An empty circle, ◯, is used for an indeterminate segment, ◯ σ  an indeterminate syllable, Ⓒ a segment identifiable only as a consonant, etc. Full capital letters, such as C in Ⓒ, are used as wild-cards for certain categories of sounds, and may combine with IPA and extIPA diacritics. For example, ◯    indicates an undetermined or indeterminate voiceless plosive. Regular IPA and extIPA letters may also be circled to indicate that their identification is uncertain. For example, ⓚ indicates that the segment is judged to probably be . This is effectively a copy-edit mark, and may be elongated into an oval for longer strings of symbols. This was illustrated in the 1997 edition of the chart, where the circle was typeset as ( ̲̅) and longer strings as e.g. (a̲̅a̲̅a̲̅). There is no way to typeset this in Unicode that does not require spurious characters between the letters (as here), but for data storage it may be indicated with an unused set of brackets, such as ⦇aaa⦈ or ⸦aaa⸧.

Curly brackets with Italian musical terms are used for phonation and prosodic notation, such as and terms for the tempo and dynamics of connected speech. These are subscripted within a {curly brace} notation to indicate that they are comments on the intervening text. The VoQS conventions use similar notation for voice quality. These may be combined, for example with VoQS ⟨F⟩ for 'falsetto':

{_allegro I {F {_𝆏 didn't _𝆏} know that F} _allegro}

or

Silence
	silent articulation: a silent shhh!
	short pause		medium pause		long pause		1.2-second pause
Prosody
𝆑	loud speech ('forte')			𝆑𝆑	louder speech ('fortissimo')
𝆏	quiet speech ('piano')			𝆏𝆏	quieter speech ('pianissimo')
allegro	fast speech			lento	slow speech
crescendo, rallentando, and other musical terms may also be used.
Extraneous noise; speech obscured by extraneous noise
	two syllables obscured; a cough
Unidentified and partially identified sounds in recordings
◯	segment	Ⓒ	consonant	Ⓕ	fricative	Ⓖ	glide/approximant
Ⓚ	click	Ⓛ	liquid (or lateral)	Ⓝ	nasal	Ⓟ	plosive
Ⓡ	rhotic (or resonant)	Ⓢ	sibilant	Ⓣ	tone/accent/stress	Ⓥ	vowel

Chart

Three rows appear in the extIPA chart that do not occur in the IPA chart: "fricative lateral + median" (simultaneous grooved and lateral frication), "fricative nasal" (a.k.a. nareal fricative) and "percussive". An additional partial denasal row is added below. Several new columns appear as well, though the linguolabial column is produced by a diacritic from the traditional IPA. Dorso-velar and velo-dorsal articulations are combined in this chart.

Consonants not appearing on the standard IPA chart

	bi­labial	labio­dental	labio­alveolar	dento­labial	bi­dental	linguo­labial	inter­dental	lower alveolar	upper alveolar	retro­flex	pala­tal	velar (velo­dorsal)	velo­phary­ngeal	upper phary­ngeal
Plosive		p̪ b̪				t̼ d̼						()		ꞯ 𝼂
Partial denasal
Nasal						n̼						()
Fricative nasal
Trill						r̼							()
Median fricative					h̪͆	θ̼ ð̼
Lateral fricative										ꞎ 𝼅	𝼆 𝼆̬	𝼄 𝼄̬
Mediolateral fricative									ʪ ʫ
Lateral approximant
Percussive	ʬ							¡

Superscript variants

The customary use of superscript IPA letters is formalized in the extIPA, specifically for fricative releases of plosives, as can be seen with Template:Angbr IPA and Template:Angbr IPA in the lower-left of the full chart.

Speech pathologists often use superscripting to indicate that a target sound has not been reached – for example, for an instance of the word 'chicken' where the is incompletely articulated. However, due to the vague meaning of superscripting in the IPA, this is not a convention supported by the ICPLA. An unambiguous transcription would mark the consonant more specifically as weakened () or silent ().

Sample text

A sample transcription of a written text read aloud, using extIPA and Voice Quality Symbols:

Original text: "The World Cup Finals of 1982 are held in Spain this year. They will involve the top nations of the World in a tournament lasting over four weeks, held at fourteen different centers in Spain. All of the first-round games will be in the provincial towns with the semi-finals, and finals held in Barcelona and Madrid."

See also

• Voice Quality Symbols
• Sinological phonetic notation
• Phonetic symbols in Unicode

External links

• Chart of extended IPA symbols for disordered speech (PDF, revised to 2015), IPA
• Extensions to the IPA (ExtIPA) chart (revised to 2025), ICLPA
• Pronunciation videos of consonants in the main extIPA chart as of 2008