IPA number

IPA numbers are a legacy system of coding the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. They were the organizational basis for XSAMPA and the IPA Extensions block of Unicode.

Following the Kiel Convention in 1989, most letters, diacritics and other symbols of the IPA were assigned a 3-digit numerical code, with updates through 2005. The purpose was to identify IPA symbols explicitly in an era of competing computer encodings, and thus to prevent confusion between similar characters (such as ⟨ɵ⟩ and ⟨θ⟩, ⟨ɤ⟩ and ⟨ɣ⟩, ⟨ʃ ⟩ and ⟨ʄ ⟩, ⟨ɫ⟩ and ⟨ɬ⟩ or ⟨ǁ⟩ and ⟨‖⟩) in such situations as the printing of manuscripts. The system never saw much if any use and is now defunct, having been superseded by Unicode.

The semantic and graphic categories of the symbols are assigned different ranges of numbers: The 100 series are IPA consonants, the 200s retired and non-IPA consonants, the 300s vowels, the 400s diacritics, the 500s suprasegmentals, the 600s extIPA, the 700s capital letters and the 900s delimiters. Some symbols have more than one code.

100: IPA consonants

Current IPA consonants, and those retired after the Kiel convention, are assigned numbers in the 100 range. The tie-bars used to create affricate consonants are assigned numbers in the 400 and 500 ranges.

Consonants (main chart)

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar			Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Plosive	p   b 101 102		t   d 103 104			ʈ   ɖ 105 106	c   ɟ 107 108	k   ɡ   g 109 110 210	q   ɢ 111 112	ʡ 173	ʔ 113
Nasal	m 114	ɱ 115	n 116			ɳ 117	ɲ 118	ŋ 119	ɴ 120
Trill	ʙ 121		r 122						ʀ 123	ʜ   ʢ 172 174
Tap or Flap		ⱱ 184	ɾ 124			ɽ 125
Fricative	ɸ   β 126 127	f   v 128 129	θ   ð 130 131	s   z 132 133	ʃ   ʒ 134 135	ʂ   ʐ 136 137	ç   ʝ 138 139	x   ɣ 140 141	χ   ʁ 142 143	ħ   ʕ 144 145	h   ɦ 146 147
Lateral fricative			ɬ   ɮ 148 149
Approximant		ʋ 150	ɹ 151			ɻ 152	j 153	ɰ 154
Lateral approximant			l 155			ɭ 156	ʎ 157	ʟ 158

Implosives	Clicks
ƥ   ɓ 159 160	ʘ 176
ƭ   ɗ 161 162	ǀ 177
ƈ   ʄ 163 164	ǃ 178
ƙ   ɠ 165 166	ǂ 179
ʠ   ʛ 167 168	ǁ 180
Other symbols
ʍ   w 169 170	ɧ 175
ɥ 171	ɺ 181
ɕ   ʑ 182 183	◌͡◌   ◌͜◌ 433 509

200: retired and non-IPA consonants

The 200 range is mostly retired IPA consonants, though it includes several letters of the Americanist Phonetic Alphabet that are sometimes used alongside the IPA. A few superscript IPA letters, including a single vowel, have also been assigned numbers in this range. Symbols official until retirement by Kiel in 1989 are numbered upwards from 201; those already retired, or not IPA at all, are numbered downwards from 299.

In addition, there is the pre-composed character ⟨ɫ⟩, the loop-tail ⟨g⟩ (see the main consonant chart above), and the implicit IPA letter ⟨ᶑ ⟩.

Old click letters	ʇ 201	ʗ 202	ʖ 203	ʞ 291
Superscript letters	ˢ 207	ᶿ 217	ᵊ 218	ˣ 292
Misc.	ɼ 206	ƞ 293	ɫ 209	ᶑ 219	ƻ 290	ƾ NA
Palatalized letters	ʆ 204	ʓ 205	ƫ 208	ᶁ NA	ᶅ NA	ᶇ NA
Ligature affricates	ʦ 211	ʣ 212	ʧ 213	ʤ 214	ʨ 215	ʥ 216
NAPA letters	ƛ 294	λ 295	ž 296	š 297	ǰ 298	č 299

300: IPA vowels

Vowel letters that were official after Kiel were numbered upward from 301. ⟨ı⟩, which was once needed to create ⟨i⟩ with a diacritic, two letters retired at Kiel, ⟨ɩ ɷ⟩, and the three non-rhotic vowels added in the 1993 and 1996 updates to the IPA, ⟨ɘ ɞ ʚ⟩, were numbered downward from 399. Pre-composed ⟨ɚ⟩, present at Kiel, was assigned a number, but later ⟨a˞⟩ and ⟨ɝ⟩ were not.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i   ı   y 301 394 309	ɨ   ʉ 317 318	ɯ   u 316 308
Near-close	ɪ   ɩ   ʏ 319 399 320		ʊ   ɷ 321 398
Mid-close	e   ø 302 310	ɘ   ɵ 397 323	ɤ   o 315 307
Mid		ə   ɚ 322 327
Mid-open	ɛ   œ 303 311	ɜ   ɝ    ɞ   ʚ 326 NA 395 396	ʌ   ɔ 314 306
Near-open	æ 325	ɐ 324
Open	a   ɶ 304 312		ɑ   ɒ 305 313

400: non-tone diacritics

Diacritics

◌ʼ 401	◌̥ 402A	◌̊ 402B	◌̬ 403
◌ʰ 404	◌ʱ NA	◌̤ 405	◌̰ 406
◌̼ 407	◌̪ 408	◌̺ 409	◌̻ 410
◌̹ 411	◌̜ 412	◌̟ 413	◌̠ 414
◌̈ 415	◌̽ 416	◌̘ 417	◌̙ 418
◌˞ 419	◌ʷ 420	◌ʲ 421	◌ᶣ NA
◌ˠ 422	◌ˤ 423	◌̃ 424	◌ⁿ 425
◌ˡ 426	◌̚ 427	◌̴ 428	ɫ 209
◌̝ 429	◌̞ 430	◌̩ 431	◌̯ 432
Retired and non-IPA
, 491	◌ʻ 492	◌̇ 493	◌˹ 490
◌˗ 494	◌˖ 495	◌ʸ 496	◌ʴ NA
◌̢ 489	◌̣ 497	◌̡ 498	◌̫ 499

500: suprasegmentals

Indicators of tone, stress, intonation and other elements of prosody. Combinations of tone diacritics or letters that were illustrated on the IPA Chart in 1999 are assigned individual numbers, leaving 3 tone diacritics and many, many compound tone letters without assigned numbers.

Prosody

ˈ◌ 501	ˌ◌ 502	◌.◌ 506	◌‿◌ 509
◌ː 503	◌ˑ 504	◌̆ 505	◌̑ 595
| 507	‖ 508	↗ 510	↘ 511

Tone and intonation

Level		Contour
◌̋ 512	˥ 519	◌̌ 524	˩˥ 529
◌́ 513	˦ 520	◌̂ 525	˥˩ 530
◌̄ 514	˧ 521	◌᷄ 526	˧˥ 531
◌̀ 515	˨ 522	◌᷅ 527	˩˧ 532
◌̏ 516	˩ 523	◌᷈ 528	˨˦˨ 533
		◌᷇ NA	˥˧ NA
ꜜ 517		◌᷆ NA	˧˩ NA
ꜛ 518		◌᷉ NA	˦˨˦ NA
Retired and non-IPA
ˇ◌ 596	ˆ◌ 597	◌̖ 598	◌̗ 599

600: extIPA

The symbols of the Extensions to the IPA were numbered sequentially to 683. Several are redundant with other ranges. (The capital Latin letters are not shown here; see the 700 range.) A few letters that were apparently added to extIPA after 1999, such as ⟨ʬ⟩, were not given numbers either, though they predate ⟨ⱱ⟩, which was added to the regular IPA in 2005 and did receive a number. The symbols added in the 2015 expansion of extIPA were apparently never assigned numbers either.

Letters	ʭ 601	ʩ 602	ʪ 603	ʫ 604	ʬ NA	¡ NA
	◯ 611	* 612	Œ 627	Θ 628	И NA	ꟿ NA
Connected speech	(.) 631	(‥) 632	(…) 633	1 640	2 641	3 643
	f 634	ff 635	p 636	pp 637	allegro 638	lento 639
Inline symbols	\ 659	↓ 661	↑ 662	◌‼ 672	◌! 679

Number 611 is the 'balloon' used to encircle unidentified segments.

Misc. diacritics	◌͆ 651	◌͍ 652	◌̪͆ 653	◌͊ 654	◌͋ 655	◌͌ 656	◌͈ 657	◌͉ 658	◌͎ 660
	◌ᶹ 673	◌͢◌ 674	◌͇ 675	◌ʶ 676	◌ꟸ 677	◌ꟹ 678	◌˭ 680	◌͔ 681	◌͕ 682
Voicing diacritics	◌̬᪽ 665	◌̬᫃ 666	◌̬᫄ 667		◌̥᪽ 668	◌̥᫃ 669	◌̥᫄ 670
	ˬ◌ 663 = 403		◌ˬ 664 = 403		◌˷ 683 = 406		ʰ◌ 671 = 404

700: capital letters

The capitals of the basic Latin alphabet, A–Z, are assigned the numbers 701 to 726 in order.

C 703, F 706, J 710, L 712, V 722 and W 723 are redundant with their extIPA numbers 624, 622, 626, 625, 621, 623, respectively.

900: transcription delimiters

Brackets and other punctuation that mark linguistic transcription

Delimitation characters

phonetic	[ ] 901 902
phonemic	/ 903
silent (mouthing) / indistinguishable	( ) 906 907
sound obscured	⸨ ⸩ 908 909
prosodic	{ } 910 911

External links

• IPA number chart – a chart of the numbers of most of the current symbols in the IPA proper, on the IPA website