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]), 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	glottal stop	ʔ	typewriter substitution
'	apostrophe	glottal stop	ʔ	typewriter substitution
q	q	glottal stop	ʔ	used in Maltese, Khmer and Malayo–Polynesian languages transcriptions.
φ	Greek phi	Voiceless bilabial fricative	ɸ	a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
ß	sharp s	Voiced bilabial fricative	β	a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
∫, ⌠ ⌡ or$\displaystyle \int$	integral symbol	Voiceless postalveolar fricative	ʃ	a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape
3	digit three	Voiced postalveolar fricative	ʒ	a mistake, typewriter substitution or similarity of shape; often confused with open-mid central unrounded vowel
ƍ	upside-down lowercase delta	Voiced labialized alveolar or dental fricative	ðʷ, zʷ, z͎	intended for the voiced whistled sibilant, ɀ, of Shona and related languages
σ	lowercase sigma	Voiceless labialized alveolar or dental fricative	θʷ, sʷ, s͎	intended for the voiceless whistled sibilant, ȿ, of Shona and related languages
ƺ	Ezh with tail	labialized voiced postalveolar fricative	ʒᶣ, ʑʷ	intended for w before front vowels in Twi; may also be used for the lightly rounded English /ʒ/.
ƪ	backwards esh with top loop	labialized voiceless postalveolar fricative	ʃᶣ, ɕʷ	intended for hw before front vowels in Twi; may also be used for the lightly rounded English /ʃ/.
ƻ	barred digit two	voiced alveolar affricate	d͡z	withdrawn 1976
ƾ or ʢ	upside-down voiced epiglottal trill	voiceless alveolar affricate	t͡s	withdrawn 1976
ƞ	lowercase eta	moraic nasal	m, n, ŋ, ɴ̩	Intended for the moraic nasal /N/ of Japanese. 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 cʲ 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	ɜ˞, ə˞ etc. or ɝ, ɚ	Superseded 1989; MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK (U+02DE) is now preferred
	Unstressed central rhotic vowel	r-colored vowel in American English	ɜ˞, ə˞ or ɝ, ɚ	Proposed in 1934, MODIFIER LETTER RHOTIC HOOK (U+02DE) is now preferred
ʃ ʒ t͡ʃ d͡ʒ			ɕ, ʑ, t͡ɕ, and d͡ʑ; respectively	broad transcription; especially Japanologists and Koreanists
a	a		any open vowel	Often a substitute for ɑ in printing when the distinction between a and ɑ is not needed.
ɑ	lowercase alpha		any open vowel	Often a substitute for ɑ in printing when the distinction between a and ɑ is not needed.
a	backwards a	near-open front unrounded vowel	æ	Proposed in 1989, rejected
c			t͡ʃ, t͡ɕ or sometimes t͡s.	broad transcription
	nv Ligature	Close front rounded vowel	y	proposed in 1989, rejected
ᵿ˞	barred horseshoe u with hook	back sulcal vowel		proposed in 1989, rejected
	w with left hook	voiced labial-velar fricative	ɣʷ	proposed in 1989, rejected
	letters with left-swinging top hook	dentals		proposed in 1989, rejected
	long-leg g	Voiced velar lateral approximant	ʟ	proposed in 1989, rejected
	hooktop ezh	Voiced velar fricative	ɣ	proposed in 1989, rejected
	double-loop g	Voiced velar fricative	ɣ	from 1895 to 1900, [q] represented that consonant before 1895, [ǥ] after 1900
	double-loop g	Voiced velar plosive	ɡ	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), but the distinction never caught on.
	double-loop g	Voiced postalveolar affricate	d͡ʒ	used in Arabic transcriptions
	single-loop g with stroke	Voiced velar fricative	ɣ	replaced double-loop g in 1900, then replaced by gamma [ɣ] around 1928-1930. the character ǥ may not have the single-loop shape in some fonts.
j			d͡ʒ, d͡ʑ or sometimes d͡z
ɟ			d͡ʒ or d͡ʑ
k̫ etc.	subscript w	Labialization	kʷ etc.	mark may appear above letters with descenders like [ɡ] or [ŋ]. removed 1989
ʆ	curly-tail esh	Voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative	ɕ	variant, also for Russian щ (now ⟨ɕ⟩). removed 1989
ʓ	curly-tail ezh	Voiced alveolo-palatal(ized) fricative	ʑ	variant, removed 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	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	syllabic alveolar trill	r̩	a mistake substitute
λ ()	lowercase lambda	Voiced palatal lateral approximant	ʎ	a mistake substitute
λ ()	lowercase lambda	Voiced alveolar lateral affricate	d͡ɮ	used by Americanists
ƛ	barred lowercase lambda	Voiceless alveolar lateral affricate	t͡ɬ	used by Americanists
ł	lowercase L with stroke	voiceless alveolar lateral fricative	ɬ	used by Americanists, also a typographic substitute
ł	lowercase L with stroke	voiced alveolar lateral approximant	ɫ	used by Baltic transcriptions
ᴫ	small-capital Cyrillic El	voiced uvular lateral approximant	ʟ̠
š č ž	s c z with caron	postalveolars	ʃ t͡ʃ ʒ; ʂ ʈ͡ʂ ʐ	used by Americanists, Uralicists, Semiticists, Slavicists
ǰ, ǧ, ǯ	j, g, ezh with caron	voiced postalveolar affricate	d͡ʒ; ɖ͡ʐ	used by Americanists, Slavicists
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	rho	Bilabial trill	ʙ	common 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 some English phoneticians, including the Oxford English Dictionary
ʚ	closed epsilon	open-mid front rounded vowel	œ	alternate symbol from 1904-1920s
ʚ	closed epsilon	open-mid central rounded vowel	ɞ	removed 1996
ɷ	closed omega	near-close near-back rounded vowel	ʊ	longstanding alternate symbol until 1989
ω	lowercase omega	near-close near-back unrounded vowel	ʊ̜ or ɯ̽	made from obsolete ɷ symbol. Also Bloch & Trager (1942) for [ɒ̝].
ɩ	small iota	near-close near-front unrounded vowel	ɪ	longstanding alternate symbol until 1989
ı	dotless small i	near-close near-front unrounded vowel	ɪ	a mistake or typographic substitute; or used by Americanists.
ȸ ȹ	lowercase DB and QP ligatures or lowercase footless phi and headless phi	voiced and voiceless labiodential plosives	p̪ b̪	Used by Africanists.
0, ∅ or Ø	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.
ƥ ƭ ƈ ƙ ʠ	hooktop P, T, C, K, Q	voiceless implosives	ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̊ or pʼ↓ tʼ↓ cʼ↓ kʼ↓ qʼ↓	brief additions to the IPA; removed 1993
ʇ	upside-down T	dental click	ǀ	removed 1989; see click letters
ʗ	stretched C	alveolar click	ǃ	removed 1989; see click letters
ʖ	upside-down pharyngeal fricative	alveolar lateral click	ǁ	removed 1989; see click letters
ʞ	upside-down K	velar click		proposed symbol but articulation was judged impossible. later reanalyzed and found paralinguistically. For several years used for a voiceless velodorsal stop in the extIPA.
𝼋 (⨎)	esh with two bars	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 common mistake
r			any rhotic sound (including r-colored vowels)	broad transcription
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).
ᴙ	Reversed small capital R or Cyrillic ya	voiced epiglottal trill	ʀ̠ or ʢ	rare
ɿ	reversed fishhook R	syllabic denti-alveolar approximant	ɹ̩, z̩, ◌͡ɯ	used by Sinologists, and by Japanologists specifically for the Miyako language
ʅ	ɿ with retroflex tail	syllabic retroflex approximant	ɻ̩, ʐ̩, ◌͡ɨ	used by Sinologists. See Chinese vowels
ʮ	turned h with fishhook	labialized syllabic denti-alveolar approximant	ɹ̩ʷ, z̩ʷ, ◌͡u	used by Sinologists
ʯ	turned h with fishhook and tail	labialized syllabic retroflex approximant	ɻ̩ʷ, ʐ̩ʷ, ◌͡ʉ	used by Sinologists
ᴀ	small capital A	open central vowel	ä, a̠, ɑ̈, ɑ̟, ɐ̞	used by Sinologists
ꬰ	alpha with stroke	open central vowel	ä, a̠, ɑ̈, ɑ̟, ɐ̞	used by Teuthonista
ᴇ	small capital E	mid front unrounded vowel	e̞, ɛ̝	Bloch & Trager (1942). Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists
ⱻ	small capital turned E	mid back unrounded vowel	ɤ̞, ʌ̝	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).
ꭥ	small capital omega	mid back rounded vowel	o̞, ɔ̝	Used by Sinologists and some Koreanists
ω, Ω	omega	mid back rounded vowel	o̞, ɔ̝	Bloch & Trager (1942).
ᴜ	small capital U	near-close near-back rounded vowel	ʊ, ʊ̹	Americanist notation
B G Ɠ H I L N Œ R Y	uppercase letters		ʙ ɢ ʛ ʜ ɪ 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.
ꞯ	small capital Q	sokuon		used by Japanologists.
Q	capital Q			used by Japanologists.
l	l	all coronal liquid consonants.		broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists.
ꞎ 𝼆 𝼄	belted letters	voiceless lateral fricatives (retroflex, palatal and velar)	ɭ̥˔ ʎ̥˔ ʟ̥˔	now in the extIPA
ʎ	upside-down y	alveolo-palatal lateral approximant	[ʎ̟] or [l̠ʲ]	broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists and Sinologists
ɲ	enye or n with left hook	alveolo-palatal nasal	[ɲ̟] or [n̠ʲ]	broad transcription, mainly Koreanologists, Sinologists, and Japanologists
ⱳ	w with hook	bilabial flap	ⱱ̟
𝼈	turned r with long leg and retroflex hook	retroflex lateral flap	ɭ̆
ɏ	barred Y	close central compressed vowel	ÿ
ʏ (ұ)	barred small capital Y	near-close central compressed vowel	ʏ̈
ұ	barred straight y (Cyrillic straight u)	near-close near-back unrounded vowel	[ʊ̜] or [ɯ̽]	used in Mande studies
ɑ̣ etc.	underdot	retroflex or r-colored vowels	ɑ˞ etc.
k', etc.		no audible release	k̚, etc.	removed
K P T etc.	uppercase letters (not small capitals)	fortis	k͈ p͈ t͈, etc.	used by some Koreanologists
ɔ̗ / ɔ̖ etc.		lower-pitched rising / falling tone contour		for languages that distinguish multiple rising or falling tones
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 acceptable variants
p′ etc.	prime	palatalization	pʲ etc.	traditional Irish phonology transcription
p’ etc. or p' etc.	right single quotation mark or apostrophe	palatalization	pʲ etc.	traditional Russian phonology transcription
*	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 diaeresis	open-mid front unrounded vowel or near-open front unrounded vowel	ɛ or æ	Uralicist notation
ö	o with diaeresis	close-mid front rounded vowel	ø	Americanist and Uralicist notation
ü	u with diaeresis	close front rounded vowel	y	Americanist and Uralicist notation
k’ etc.	right single quotation mark	Korean fortis	k͈ 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		breathy/ voiced aspiration	◌̤
◌ˀ		creaky voice/ glottalization	◌̰
ˉ◌, ˗◌, ˍ◌		high, mid and low-level tone or intonation		removed
˭◌, ₌◌		extra-high and extra-low level tone or intonation		removed
ˋ◌, ˴◌, ˎ◌		falling or high falling, mid falling and low-falling tone or intonation		removed
ˊ◌, [NA], ˏ◌		(high) rising and low rising tone or intonation		removed
ˇ◌, ˬ◌		(high) dipping and low dipping (falling-rising) tone or intonation		removed
ˆ◌, ꞈ◌		peaking (rising-falling) tone or intonation		removed
˜◌, ̰◌		"wavy" tone or intonation		removed
˙◌, ·◌, .◌		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 ([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.

See also

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