Naming conventions of the International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a special set of symbols used to show exactly how words are pronounced. Each symbol and mark in the IPA needs a clear name so people can talk about them easily. This helps because the same symbol might represent different sounds in different languages.

It is important to separate the name of a symbol from the actual sound it stands for, since one symbol can represent more than one sound depending on the language. The official names and descriptions for these symbols are found in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association.

In addition to these official names, there are also temporary names given in the Unicode standard, which is used for computer characters. Sometimes, these Unicode names are different from the IPA names. For example, the IPA calls the symbol ɛ “epsilon,” but Unicode calls it “small letter open E.”

Letters

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) has special names for its symbols. These names help us talk about the symbols without mixing them up with the sounds they represent.

Some symbols look like normal Latin or Greek letters, while others have special shapes. For example, there are small capital letters like ʀ and ɢ, which people often just call "capital" or "cap" letters. There are also letters that look like they are written in cursive handwriting.

Ligatures, which are two letters joined together, are called just that—ligatures. Unicode sometimes calls them "digraphs," but the correct term is ligatures. Examples include "œ," which can also be called ethel, and "æ," which can be called ash.

Many letters are turned or rotated 180 degrees. Examples are shown below.

Some letters are flipped sideways, and a few are flipped horizontally. For example, there is an inverted small capital R and an obsolete inverted glottal stop.

Letters can also have extra lines, curls, or serifs added to them. For example, adding a horizontal line creates a "crossbar," as in ħ barred h. Some letters have hooks or tails added to them, like ɓ hook-top b. Others have unique shapes, such as ɾ fish-hook r or ʃ esh.

The symbol ʔ is most often called by the sound it represents, glottal stop. If we need to talk about the symbol itself, it is sometimes called a gelded question mark, because it was originally a dotless question mark.

Main article: rotated letters

Diacritic marks

Diacritics are special marks added to letters to show different sounds. Some have traditional names like é acute, ē macron, and ë umlaut. Others have less common names such as d̼ called "seagull" and e˞ called "hook".

Sometimes, these marks are named based on what they do. For example, the bridge mark can be called the "dental sign", and the under-stroke mark can be called the "syllabicity sign".