phonetic alphabet

n. A phonetic alphabet is a set of symbols used to transcribe the sounds of natural languages. One such system, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), was created in the late 1800s by a group of language instructors who founded the International Phonetic Association. The IPA categorizes its symbols – and, by extension, the sounds of natural languages – into vowel and consonant categories, distinguishing within these between place of articulation and other articulatory parameters. While the IPA is one of the most widely used systems for transcribing speech sounds, it is far from being the only system. The APA (American Phonetic Alphabet), for example, is used by many phoneticians who transcribe American English; it differs in the symbols and symbol sequences it uses to transcribe a handful of consonants and some of the vowels of the language. SAMPA (Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet) and its variant X-SAMPA (Extended SAM Phonetic Alphabet) are phonetic alphabets that use only seven-bit ASCII characters to transcribe speech; they were created to facilitate transcriptions in computer contexts where the extended characters required by alphabets like the IPA are not available.  – EMF

▶ See also ARTICULATION