History of the IPA
1886 - Dhi Fonètik Tîtcerz' Asóciécon (the FTA) is created.
1897 - Changed its name to
The International Phonetic
Association (the IPA)
First created by French and British teachers
Led by Paul Passy
First president of the IPA, 1886 - 1888
Purpose
Born out of the need for linguists to
Try to capture all the sounds in all the languages
Easily communicate to each
other what sounds they're talking about
First Alphabet
Romic Alphabet
Presidents of the IPA
There have been a total of 14 presidents
First non-european president
Suniti Kumar Chatterji (Indian, 1969 - 1977)
The first woman to be president of the IPA
Patricia Keating (2015 - 2019)
Current president
Michael Ashby (2019 - )
Among the symbols of the IPA
107 letters represent consonants and vowels
31 diacritics are used to modify these
19 additional signs indicate suprasegmental qualities such as length, tone, stress, and intonation.
Revisions
1888
Revision of the Romic alphabet
1930
Revisions
1932
Expansions
1989
Kiel Convention
1993
Addition of four letters
2005
Addition of a letter
General principle of the IPA
Provide one letter for each distinctive sound (speech segment).
The International Phonetic Alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet