Human language is a fascinating phenomenon. Our brains are constantly processing a large amount of information revolving around communication and language. One specific area of this is in phonology/phonetics. This is the study of speech sounds in human language.

Have you ever thought about how crazy interaction through speech is? Our brains from muscle memory use things like the tongue, lips, teeth, and more to produce arbitrary noises that we hear and perceive as sounds, letters, words, sentences, and more.

Throughout all human languages, there are thousands of different sounds that are produced. People often try to represent these sounds through an alphabet. However, as we English speakers unfortunately know all too well, alphabets often fail to perfectly represent each individual sound. For example, one letter in the English alphabet may represent several different sounds; while one sound may be represented by multiple different letters.

To solve this problem, linguists developed the International Phonetic Alphabet. This alphabet is one in which linguists assign one specific symbol to one specific sound, or allophone. The goal is to map every known sound in human language and give it a corresponding symbol. These symbols are used to create an efficient alphabet that fits the sounds it describes, unlike the popular sentiment of the English alphabet. These symbols are used to transcribe sounds, words, and sentences in all languages.

Here on this site is a general walkthrough of the IPA, what it looks like in different languages, and how it works in real life.