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TheInternational Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) requires specific names for the symbols and diacritics used in the alphabet.

It is often desirable to distinguish an IPA symbol from the sound it is intended to represent, since there is not a one-to-one correspondence between symbol and sound in broad transcription. The symbol's names and phonetic descriptions are described in theHandbook of the International Phonetic Association. The symbols also have nonce names in theUnicode standard. In some cases, the Unicode names and the IPA names do not agree. For example, IPA callsɛ "epsilon", but Unicode calls it "small letter open E".

The traditional names of the Latin and Greek letters are used for unmodified symbols. In Unicode, some of the symbols of Greek origin have Latin forms for use in IPA^{[clarification needed]}; the others use the symbols from the Greek section.

Examples:

Note

The IPA standard includes some small capital letters, such asʀ andɢ, although it is common to refer to these symbols as simply "capital" or "cap" letters, because the IPA standard does not include any full-size capital letters.

A few letters have the forms of cursive or script letters. Examples:

Note

Ligatures are called precisely that, although Unicode often mistakenly calls them "digraphs". Examples:

Note that "œ" can alternatively be calledethel, and similarly "æ" can be calledash.

Many letters areturned, or rotated 180 degrees. Examples:

Notes

A few letters arereversed (flipped on a vertical axis):

Notes

A couple letters areinverted (flipped on a horizontal axis):ʁinverted small capital R and the obsoleteʖinverted glottal stop. (ʍ could also be called aninverted w, butturned w is more common.)

When a horizontal stroke is added, it is called acrossbar, as inħbarred h,ɵbarred o,ʢreversed barred glottal stop orbarred ayin, andɟbarred dotless j orbarred gelded j (apparently never 'turned f').

One letter instead has aslash through it:øslashed o.

The implosives havehook tops:ɓhook-top b,ɗhook-top d, etc., as doesɦhook-top h.

Such an extension at the bottom of a letter is called atail. It may be specified asleft orright depending on which direction it turns, as inɳright-tail n,ɻright-tail turned r,ɲleft-tail n,ʐtail z (or justretroflex z), etc. Note thatŋ is calledeng orengma,ɱmeng, andꜧheng.

When the tail loops over itself, it's calledcurly:ʝcurly-tail j,ɕcurly-tail c.

There are also a few unique modifications:ɬbelted l,ɞclosed reversed epsilon (there was once also aɷclosed omega),ɰright-leg turned m,ɺturned long-leg r (there was once also along-leg r),ǁdouble pipe, and the obsoleteʗstretched c.

Several non-English letters have traditional names:çccedilla,ðeth (also spellededh),ŋengma oreng,əschwa (also spelledshwa),ǃexclamation mark,ǀpipe.

Other symbols are unique to the IPA, and have developed their own quirky names:ɾfish-hook r,ɤram's horns,ʘbull's eye,ʃesh (apparently never 'stretched s'),ʒezh (sometimes confused withyogh),ɧhook-top heng.

Theʔ is usually called by the sound it represents,glottal stop. This is not normally a problem, because this symbol is seldom used to represent anything else. However, to specify the symbol itself, it is sometimes unofficially called agelded question mark. This latter name is derived from its original form as a dotless question mark in a fashion reminiscent ofgelding.

éacute,ēmacron,ègrave,êcircumflex,ěwedge orháček,ëdiaeresis orumlaut,ĕbreve,ẽ(superscript)tilde, plus variants such asḛsubscript tilde,ɫsuperimposed tilde, etc.

d̼seagull,e˞hook,e̽over-cross,d̚corner,d̪bridge,d̺inverted bridge,d̻square,e̥under-ring,e̊over-ring,e̜left half-ring,e̹right half-ring,e̟plus,e̠under-bar,e̯arch,d̬subscript wedge,e̝up tack,e̞down tack,e̘left tack,e̙right tack,d͡ztie bar,ẹunder-dot,n̩under-stroke.

Diacritics are alternately named after their function. This would mean that the bridge is called thedental sign, the under-stroke is thesyllabicity sign, and the up tack is theraising sign.

• Pullum, Geoffrey K., and William A. Ladusaw. 1996.Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

• Unicode-HTML codes for IPA symbols: Tables of symbol names and HTML codes atPennState.

• International Phonetic Alphabet
• Unicode
• Naming conventions

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