The International Phonetic Alphabet

A brief history of the IPA

The chart below represents the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), a system of symbols created in the late 19th century by the French linguist Paul Passy to describe the sounds of spoken language.

Passy believed that relying on standard spelling often confused learners, since they naturally tried to pronounce new words according to the rules of their native language. To solve this problem, he proposed a universal system of symbols that could represent speech sounds clearly and consistently across different languages.

Each symbol in the IPA corresponds to a single, specific sound. This means that the same symbol always represents the same sound. The IPA is also organized by sound type: vowels are grouped together, and consonants are grouped separately.

The IPA is especially useful for learners of English. By using IPA symbols, learners can see exactly how a word is pronounced without ambiguity.