IPA Keyboard and X-Sampa Converter
X-Sampa Converter
Information
This tool allows you to type IPA characters! Click on either the IPA icons at the top of the page, or by typing in the X-SAMPA field. Enter base characters before diacritics.
- If you hover over the IPA icons, hovertext will tell you the name of the phoneme (not on mobile).
- You can select previously selected characters from a list that appears to the right of the 'Clear' button.
- This chart requires a Unicode font; for best results, use the Charis SIL, Doulos SIL, or Gentium Unicode fonts.
- Mobile users should be advised they can scroll the IPA table left and right. And that Apple and Android devices have access to an IPA keyboard in the keyboard settings of their device,
This tool has been directly inspired by the similar tools Westonruter's IPA Chart and Aevas's Xipa. You can also visit this site to hear audio clips of IPA and their phonemes.
Credit to Aevas & Co. April 2020 for the code for the IPA to X-SAMPA converter.
X-SAMPA notation
ANSX-SAMPA notation
To enable X-SAMPA users to convert to the IPA without limitations, or just to make some things easier, some additional notations that are not standard in X-SAMPA (ANSX-SAMPA) have been added:
ANSX-SAMPA | IPA | Description |
---|---|---|
b\ | ⱱ | voiced labiodental flap |
g\ | ɡ | opentail letter g |
!\!\ | ‼︎ | retroflex click "ad hoc digraph" |
_f | ◌͎ | whistled |
_i | ◌↓ | ingressive |
_s | ◌͍ | spread lips |
_u | ◌͈ | tenseness |
_w | ◌͉ | weak articulation |
_z | ◌͊ | denasalisation |
- A backslash
\
is used to move diacritics to a non-default position; e.g.m_0
givesm̥
whilem_0\
givesm̊
. - A backslash
\
is also used to turn tone diacritics into Chao letters; e.g.a_H
givesá
whilea_H\
givesa˦
. - A plus sign
+
is used to trigger superscript characters; e.g.b+h\
givesbʱ
. - The combination
_J
creates alveolo-palatal characters, e.g.t_J
givesȶ
. (With the exception ofɕ
andʑ
, alveolo-palatal characters are non-IPA.) - The combination
a_"
creating the open central unrounded vowel,ä
, is a single character instead ofa
plusU+0308
.
The following combinations exist in ANSX-SAMPA in addition to their standard notation in X-SAMPA:
ANSX-SAMPA | Standard | IPA | Description |
---|---|---|---|
c_! | =\ | ǂ | palatoalveolar click |
i\ | 1 | ɨ | close central unrounded vowel |
l_! | |\|\ | ǁ | alveolar lateral click |
p_! | O\ | ʘ | labial click |
t_! | |\ | ǀ | dental click |
t`_! | !\ | ! | (post)alveolar click |
u\ | } | ʉ | close central rounded vowel |
_ˋ | ˋ | ◌˞ | retroflexion & rhoticity |
Bugs
- Typing the X-Sampa retroflex marker
ˋ
after a letter that it doesn't merge with will bug the previous letter. To avoid this use_ˋ
instead; e.g.Aˋ
givesA˞
,A_ˋ
gives desiredɑ˞
.