WAZU JAPAN's Gallery of Unicode Fonts

International Phonetic Alphabet

[ font samples | what's new? | test page | related links | home | travel phrases ]

Introduction

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) was created by the International Phonetic Association in the 1880s to transcribe the sounds of all spoken languages. It is based (mostly) on Latin letters and uses a large number of diacritics.

There are specific handwritten forms of IPA-unique characters.

The alphabet is caseless even though some of its characters look like uppercase forms. Some IPA characters have been adopted into alphabets for specific languages, so uppercase forms have been created. For example the African language Hausa uses the hooked "b" (U+0253) so a non-IPA uppercase hooked "b" (U+0181) was created. (Hausa also uses a few other IPA characters.)

Font Samples

font sample *	font information
	ALPHABETUM Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (ALPHABETUM v.9.00.ttf) Note: Excellent font for linguistics and ancient languages. PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Shareware ($15) from Juan José Marcos. Stats: Version 9.0 Feb 2007 has 5,515 glyphs and 220 kerning pairs Support: Coptic, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Gothic, Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Glagolitic, Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Linear B (ideograms and syllabary), Ogham, Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Phoenician, Runic, Ugaritic, Private Use Area (Iberic & Celtiberic, additional Old Italic glyphs, Old & Medieval Latin)
	Arial Unicode MS    [ show all samples ]  (arialuni.ttf) Source: Comes with Microsoft's Office 2000, FrontPage 2000, Office XP and Publisher 2002. Stats: Version 1.00 has 50,377 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Arabic script (Arabic, Balochi, Persian, Shahmukhi, Urdu), Armenian, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Devanagari, Georgian (Mkhedruli and Asomtavruli), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Gurmukhi, Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji/Han Ideographs), Kannada, Korean (Hangul only), Latin, Tamil, Thai, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Arabic (default, Farsi, Urdu), Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Han Ideographic (default, Japanese, Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional), Kana (default, Japanese), Kannada, Korean, Tamil
	Berling Antiqua    [ show all samples ]  (berling.ttf, berlingb.ttf, berlingi.ttf, berlingz.ttf) Source: Part of the free Microsoft Reader product. Stats: Version 1.10 has 842 glyphs and 133 kerning pairs Support: Greek, IPA, Latin
	Cardo    [ show all samples ]  (Cardo98s.ttf from cardo98.zip) Note: Cardo is "designed for the needs of classicists, Biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists". PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Free download from the Fonts for Scholars site. Stats: Version .98 has 2,882 glyphs and 216 kerning pairs Support: Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters plus ancient Greek numbers and musical notation), Hebrew, IPA, Latin, Old Italic, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Greek, Hebrew, Latin
	Charis SIL    [ show all samples ]  (CharisSILR.ttf [regular], CharisSILB.ttf [bold], CharisSILI.ttf [italic], and CharisSILBI.ttf [bold italic] from CharisSILversion.zip) Note: Extensive coverage of Latin characters, phonetic extensions, and diacritics. Note: Supports contours by using OpenType tables as well as the Graphite package. See the contour notes on the IPA test page for details. Source: Free download from Charis SIL Font's Home. Stats: Version 4.002 has 3,084 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Cyrillic, Latin (Default, IPA, Romanian, Vietnamese, dflt)
	Chrysanthi Unicode (Chryſanþi Unicode)    [ show all samples ]  (chrysuni.ttf) PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Free download from EveryWitchWay's Chrysanthi Unicode page. Stats: Version 3.1 has 4,383 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Armenian, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including polytonic), Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Runic, Vietnamese
	Code2000    [ show all samples ]  (code2000.ttf) Source: Download this shareware font ($5) from James Kass's webpage. Stats: Version 1.16 has 61,864 glyphs and 239 kerning pairs Support: Arabic script (Arabic, Baluchi, Kirghiz, Persian, Shahmukhi, Sindhi, Uighur, Urdu, Uzbek), Armenian, Bengali, Braille, Canadian Syllabics (all syllabaries, all characters), Cherokee, Chinese (Bopomofo only, including Extended), Cirth, Coptic, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Devanagari, Ethiopic (including supplement and extended blocks), Ewellic, Georgian (Mkhedruli and Asomtavruli), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji/Han Ideographs including Extension A), Klingon, Korean (Hangul only), Lao, Latin, Limbu, Mongolian, N'Ko, Ogham, Phaistos, Runic, Syriac, Tamil, Telugu, Tengwar, Thaana, Thai, Tifinagh, Vietnamese, Yi OpenType Layout Tables: Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Buhid, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Han Ideographic, Hangul, Hangul Jamo, Hebrew, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latin, Malayalam, Mongolian, Myanmar, N'Ko, Tamil, Telugu, Thai
	DejaVu Sans    [ show all samples ]  (DejaVuSans.ttf, DejaVuSans-Bold, DejaVuSans-Oblique.ttf, and DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.ttf from dejavu-ttf-version.zip) Note: The "DejaVu Sans Condensed" font is also available. Source: Free download from DejaVu project on SourceForge. Stats: Version 2.10 has 3,932 glyphs and 2,558 kerning pairs Support: Arabic script (Arabic, Persian), Armenian, Braille, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: default, Arabic, Armenian, Cyrillic (default, Macedonian, Serbian), Greek, Hebrew, Lao, Latin (default, Dinka)
	DejaVu Serif    [ show all samples ]  (DejaVuSerif.ttf, DejaVuSerif-Bold, DejaVuSerif-Oblique.ttf, and DejaVuSerif-BoldOblique.ttf from dejavu-ttf-version.zip) Note: The "DejaVu Serif Condensed" font is also available. Source: Free download from DejaVu project on SourceForge. Stats: Version 2.10 has 1,843 glyphs and 1,300 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian plus other Slavic and non-Slavic languages), Greek (including polytonic), IPA, Latin OpenType Layout Tables: default, Cyrillic (default, Serbian), Greek, Latin
	Dialekt Uni    [ show all samples ]  (diauni.ttf [regular], diaunife.ttf [bold], and diauniku.ttf [italic] from diauni.zip) Note: includes characters and diacritics for the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian dialect alphabets as well as all Western and Central European characters. PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Free download from Lars Törnqvist's Phonetic fonts page. Stats: Version 3.002 2004 has 1,400 glyphs and 476 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian and other Slavic languages except Ukrainian), IPA, Latin
	Doulos SIL    [ show all samples ]  (Doulos SIL Regular.ttf) Note: See the font documentation for details on Private Use Area characters and advanced typographic capabilities. Note: Supports contours by using OpenType tables as well as the Graphite package. See the contour notes on the IPA test page for details. Source: Free download from SIL International's IPA font page. Stats: Version 4.014 has 3,083 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Cyrillic, Latin (default, IPA, Romanian, Vietnamese, dflt)
	Enigmatic Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (EnigmaU_2.TTF) Source: Free download from Darren Rigby's "Objets Dart" site. Stats: Version 2.0 has 1,096 glyphs and 2 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including Coptic characters), IPA, Latin
	Free Serif    [ show all samples ]  (FreeSerif.ttf, FreeSerifBold.ttf, FreeSerifItalic.ttf, and FreeSerifBoldItalic.ttf from freefont-ttf-20060126.tar.gz) Note: Bold and italic styles support fewer characters than the "regular" font. Source: Free download from Savannah. Stats: Version 1.52 has 3,914 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Bengali, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Ethiopic, Greek (including polytonic), Hebrew, IPA, Latin, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Malayalam, Tamil, Thaana, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: default, Bengali, Latin, Malayalam (traditional), Tamil
	Frutiger Linotype    [ show all samples ]  (frutiger.ttf, frutbd.ttf, frutit.ttf and frutz.ttf) Source: Part of the free Microsoft Reader product. Stats: Version 1.13 has 840 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Greek, IPA, Latin
	Gandhari Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (gur3.844.ttf [regular] and gui3.816.ttf [italic]) Note: Designed for the romanization of Sanskrit and Gandhari (Prakrit) languages. PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Source: Free download from Andrew Glass's webpage. Stats: Version 3.844 2005 has 2,062 glyphs and 105 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian plus other Slavic and non-Slavic languages), Greek (including polytonic), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese
	Gentium    [ show all samples ]  (GenR102.TTF [regular] and GenI102.TTF [italic] from Gentium102.zip) Source: Free download from SIL International. Stats: Version 1.02 2005 has 1,699 glyphs and 2,857 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian), Greek (including polytonic), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese
	GentiumAlt    [ show all samples ]  (GenAR102.TTF [regular] and GenAI102.TTF [italic] from Gentium102.zip) Note: GentiumAlt has flatter diacritics than Gentium to accommodate stacking diacritics used in languages such as Vietnamese. Note: The IPA range of this font is visually identical to "Gentium". Source: Free download from SIL International. Stats: Version 1.02 2005 has 1,699 glyphs and 2,857 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian), Greek (including polytonic), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese
	Hindsight Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (HindUnic.ttf and HindUnIt.ttf) Source: Free download from the History/Hindsight page of Darren Rigby's "Objets Dart" site. Stats: Version 1.00 January 2001 has 2,894 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Armenian, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Hebrew, IPA, Latin, Vietnamese
	IPA LS Uni    [ show all samples ]  (regular and bold) Platforms: Both Windows and Macintosh. Note: Typeface used for the Journal of the IPA Note: Some IPA "click" characters are located in the Unicode Private Use Area (PUA). Source: Professional font available for purchase from Linguist's Software. Support: IPA, Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Latin
	Junicode    [ show all samples ]  (Junicode-Regular.ttf, Junicode-Bold.ttf, Junicode-Italic.ttf, and Junicode-BoldItalic.ttf) Source: Free download from the University of Virginia. Stats: Version 0.6.3 has 1,435 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Latin, Private Use Area (Medieval Latin), Runic OpenType Layout Tables: default, Latin
	LeedsUni    [ show all samples ]  (leedsuni.ttf) Source: Free download from Alec McAllister's home page. Stats: Version 001.000 has 2,343 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), IPA, Latin (including many extended/additional letters and diacritics), Runic, Vietnamese, Private Use Area (Medieval Latin)
	Lucida Sans    [ show all samples ]  (LucidaSansRegular.ttf, LucidaSansDemiBold.ttf, and may be others depending on the source) Note: The LSANS.TTF version of this font supports Latin only. Source: Provided with various products including Sun's free Java Software Development Kit version 1.4.2. Stats: Version 1.20 has 2,929 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), Devanagari, Greek (including Coptic characters), Hebrew, IPA, Latin OpenType Layout Tables: Devanagari
	Lucida Sans Unicode    [ show all samples ]  (l_10646.ttf) Source: Comes with Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows 2000. Stats: Version 2.00 has 1,776 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian plus other Slavic and non-Slavic languages), Greek, Hebrew, IPA, Latin
	Microsoft Sans Serif    [ show all samples ]  (micross.ttf) Source: Supplied with Windows XP SP2 (service pack 2). Older versions were supplied with Windows XP and Windows 2000. Stats: Version 1.41 has 2,257 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Arabic script (Arabic, Ajami, Azeri, Balochi, Berber, Brahui, Kazakh, Kirghiz Kurdish, Lahnda, Jawi, Pashto, Persian, Shahmukhi, Sindhi, Uighur, Urdu, Uzbek), Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Hebrew, Latin (basic and beyond), Thai, Vietnamese Warning: IPA, Greek polytonic, Greek Coptic, and many Cyrillic characters were only added with version 1.41. OpenType Layout Tables: Arabic (default, MAR)
	PakType Naqsh    [ show all samples ]  (PakType Naqsh 2.2.ttf) Style is handwritten. Warning: Some characters used for IPA are missing including many diacritics. Also, some combining diacritics are spacing characters. Source: Free download from the Pakistani Typography (PakType) Project. Stats: Version 2.2 has 1,849 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Arabic script (Arabic, Ajami, Azeri, Balochi, Berber, Brahui, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Kirghiz Kurdish, Lahnda, Jawi, Parkari, Pashto, Persian, Shahmukhi, Sindhi, Uighur, Urdu, Uzbek), IPA, Latin, Vietnamese OpenType Layout Tables: Arabic
	SImPL    [ show all samples ]  (simpl.ttf from xsimpttf.zip) Source: Free download from Vector. Stats: Version 2000/Dec/14 has 1,995 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (Russian plus other Slavic and non-Slavic languages), Greek, Latin, Vietnamese
	Thryomanes    [ show all samples ]  (thryrg__.ttf, thryb___.ttf, thryi___.ttf and thrybi__.ttf from Thryomanes12.zip) Source: Free download from Herman Miller's language page. Stats: Version 1.2 (Macromedia Fontographer 4.1 9/15/2003) has 1,689 glyphs and 2 kerning pairs Support: Cyrillic (all or most of range), Greek, IPA, Latin, Vietnamese
	TITUS Cyberbit Basic    [ show all samples ]  (tituscbz.ttf) PLEASE volunteer to translate the home page of the Four Essential Travel Phrases for David McCreedy. Note: Private Use Area provides additional letter/diacritic combinations. Source: Free download (after submitting a form) from TITUS. Stats: Version 3.0 (2000) has 9,779 glyphs and no kerning pairs Support: Armenian, Cyrillic (all or most of range), Ethiopic, Georgian (Mkhedruli and Asomtavruli), Greek (including polytonic and Coptic characters), Hebrew, IPA, Japanese (Hiragana and Katakana only), Latin, Ogham, Runic, Thaana, Vietnamese

 

Additional Information About These Font Samples

What's New?

Find out about new fonts at the "What's New?" page.

Or use one of the RSS feeds to be informed automatically:

announcements of new fonts for the International Phonetic Alphabet
 

announcements of all new fonts for any writing system

Related Links

• The Unicode implementation of IPA is described in various sections within chapter 7 (European Alphabetic Scripts) of The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0.
• The Unicode character code charts are available at the organization's website.
• The International Phonetic Association provides the definitive IPA information.
• Names, images, properties and additional background/non-technical information about related Unicode blocks and their characters can be found on decodeunicode's Basic Latin, IPA Extensions, Latin-1 Supplement, Latin Extendeded-A, Latin Extendeded-B, Spacing Modifying Letters, Combining Diacritical Marks, Greek, General Punctuation, Superscripts & Subscripts, and Arrows pages (in English and German/Deutsch).
• The Linguistics Department at the University of Victoria has good IPA charts:
  • on-screen chart using images
  • on-screen chart using Unicode
  • on-screen chart in UTF8 of the complete set of IPA consonants
  • and printable PDF versions of both the standard IPA chart and the extended IPA symbols for disordered speech
• The Cambridge Dictionary site's "word lookup" has an option to show IPA, although it uses images instead of Unicode. The site also includes an IPA guide for English speakers.
• Writing system information at Wikipedia and Omniglot.

Contact