Linguistics Notational Conventions

Univeral Conventions

italics indicate that the italicized text is being referred to, not used.
- Wombat is a noun.
‘single quotes’ enclose meanings of linguistic items.
- German Zimmer ‘room’ is cognate with English timber.
/slashes/ enclose phonemes or phonological transcriptions written in IPA.
- Wombat (/ˈwɑmˌbæt/) begins with the phoneme /w/.
[square brackets] enclose phones or phonetic transcriptions.
- American with the cot-caught merger pronounce water as [ˈwɑɾɚ].
⟨angle brackets⟩ enclose orthographic representations.
- ⟨sh⟩ represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative /ʃ/ in standard English orthography.
*an asterisk represents an ungrammatical or impossible form, or a reconsructed form.
- *She to the store went is ungrammatrical in standard English.
- English sheep comes from Proto-Germanic *skēpą.

	Bilabial	Labiodental	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Plosive	p d	• •	*	t d	*	ʈ ɖ	c ɟ	k g	q ɢ	• –	ʔ –
Nasal	• m	• ɱ	*	• n	*	• ɳ	• ɲ	• ŋ	• ɴ	– –	– –
Trill	• ʙ	• •	*	• r	*	• •	• •	– –	• ʀ	• •	– –
Tap or Flap	• •	• ⱱ	*	• ɾ	*	• ɽ	• •	– –	• •	• •	– –
Fricative	ɸ β	f v	θ ð	s z	ʃ ʒ	ʂ ʐ	ç ʝ	x ɣ	χ ʁ	ħ ʕ	h ɦ
Lateral fricative	– –	– –	*	ɬ ɮ	*	• •	• •	• •	• •	– –	– –
Approximant	• •	• ʋ	*	• ɹ	*	• ɻ	• j	• ɰ	• •	• •	– –
Lateral Approximant	– –	– –	*	• l	*	• ɭ	• ʎ	• ʟ	• •	– –	– –

voiceless sounds are placed to the left, voiced sounds to the right
A dot • represents a space with no designated IPA symbol
An en dash – represents articulations judged impossible
*: The “Alveolar” symbols for this manner of articulation are also used for Dental and Postalveolar sounds.

Clicks

Voiced Implosives

Ejectives: ʼ (e.g. pʼ tʼ kʼ sʼ)

Symbol(s)	Meaning
ʍ	Voiceless labial-velar fricative
w	Voiced labial-velar approximant
ɥ	Voiced labial-palatal approximant
ʜ	Voiceless epiglottal fricative
ʢ	Voiced epiglottal fricative
ʡ	Epiglottal plosive
ɕ ʑ	Alveolo-palatal fricatives
ɺ	Alveolar lateral flap
ɧ	Simultaneous ʃ and x

	Front	Near-front	Central	Near-back	Back
Close	i y	• •	ɨ ʉ	• •	ɯ u
Near-close	• •	ɪ ʏ	• •	• ʊ	• •
Close-mid	e ø	• •	ɘ ɵ	• •	ɤ o
Mid	• •	• •	ə •	• •	• •
Open-mid	ɛ œ	• •	ɜ ɞ	• •	ʌ ɔ
Near-open	æ •	• •	ɐ •	• •	• •
Open	a ɶ	• •	• •	• •	ɑ ɒ

Unrounded vowels are to the left, rounded vowels to the right
Spaces marked with • have no dedicated symbol, but may be denoted using diacritics