The Phonetic-Alphabet font is a serif font of the International Phonetic Alphabet (I.P.A.). If you don't understand that sentence, you don't need this font.

The following characters appear in the font just as they would appear in any font:

Punctuation: ! ' " : ( ) , - . em-dash en-dash ? slash backslash tilde -- open and close single and double quotes -- unstress (shift-option O or 249 ascii) and upside down exclamation point and question mark

lower-case letters: a b d e f g h i j k l m n o p r s t u v w x y z

Special phonetic codes on upper-case letters:

A - merged ae
E - schwa (upside-down lower-case e)
G - German 'g' sound (looks like v with a circle under it)
H - upside-down lower-case h (the wh sound)
I - shortened upper-case i, for use in diphthongs
N - symbol for ng sound
O - merged oe
S - sh sound, looks like an integral
T - voiced th sound, looks like a script lower-case d with a slash through it
U - shortened upper-case U, for use in diphthongs
Y - shortened upper-case Y, for diphthongs
Z - script lowercase z, zh sound

The following diacritical and other option or option-shift characters (Macintosh) are listed with their symbol and ascii equivalent (PC)

shift-option a (129) script a with macron over it (nasalized vowel)
option-a (140) script a, long a like father
option-e o (151) upside-down script a, as in odd (Eastern New England)
option-n o (155) nasalized 'aw' vowel
option-e u (156) upside-down v, the 'u' sound in rubber
option-i u (158) upside down e with a little tail, u in fur
option-u u (159) short 3 with a little tail, 'e' in feelER
option-t (160) unvoiced th sound
option-e option-e (171) backwards 3 with a macron over it, nasalized e sound
option-u option-u (172) short 3, u sound in further for r-less dialects
shift-option o (175) upside-down c, aw sound
option-o (191) o with a slash through it, German o-umlaut sound
shift-option e (228) short, backwards 3, German a-umlaut sound
shift-option n (246) little n with a tail in front, ny sound
option-h (250) looks like c-cedilla, German ch sound


The Phonetic-Alphabet font was created on a lark by David Rakowski. It's free, and there are no restrictions whatsoever on it distribution or use. If I've missed a character that you need (I compiled two lists of IPA characters from different textbooks and may not have gotten them all) or if you think one is misdrawn, contact me via one of the following electronic venues:

GEnie: RAKMAN
Compuserve: 73240,3060
INTERNET: rak@woof.columbia.edu

Insect-Bytes brings you this font, and there's nothing you can do about it.