my-server
← Wiki

Sinological phonetic notation

Chinese linguists use a number of additional phonetic symbols that are not part of the standard International Phonetic Alphabet. These symbols are commonly encountered in introductory textbooks of Chinese phonetics and in introductory descriptive works of any Chinese "dialects". Many Western linguists who work in the field of Chinese linguistics also use these symbols, for instance, Loggins (2022) writes "[to] introduce the general reader to what they may encounter should they consult one of such publications, I am using the IPA-castaways [ʅ] and [ɿ]".

Letters

Vowels

The following vowel letters are used by those who want to specify more equally-spaced symbols in the IPA vowel space. They derive from the Americanist proposal by Bloch & Trager. In addition, and may differ slightly from their old IPA usage.

Apical vowels

The following letters derive from Karlgren, from the 'long i' and 'long y' of the Swedish Dialect Alphabet, with a terminal added to resemble a turned iota . While they are frequently called "apical vowels" (derivative from their name in Chinese tradition), they are typically analyzed as syllabic rhotic approximants or (lenited) syllabic fricatives in manner, and may be apical, subapical, laminal, or apicolaminal (simultaneously apical and laminal) in place, depending on the language. Some authors have also described them to exhibit vowel coloring. Note that the labialized examples below are somewhat simplified transcriptions for demonstrative purposes.

Alveolo-palatal consonants

The following consonant letters are featural derivatives of and , though which in the Sinological literature often stand for palato-alveolar and rather than alveolo-palatal and of the IPA. Aside from the aforementioned consonants, the others listed below are always intended to be alveolo-palatal.

Superscripts

Unicode supports modifier (superscript) variants of the IPA symbols and composite . For the remainder of the symbols listed above, support for modifier variants was approved in 2025 for inclusion in Unicode 18.

Tone diacritics

Sinologists tend to use superscript Chao tone numerals rather than the Chao tone letters of the IPA, even though the numerals conflict with their values in other parts of the world. The correspondence is 1 for low pitch and 5 for high; single digits indicating a level tone are frequently doubled to prevent confusion with tone numbers, though sometimes a single digit is used with a short vowel or in a checked syllable and a double digit with a long vowel or an open syllable.

Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China

The Universal Phonetic Symbol Set in China is a set of nationally recognized phonetic symbols based on the IPA. It consists of the following sets of symbols,

  • the full set of IPA consonant, vowel and tone letters, as well as a substantial fraction of historical and ext-IPA;
  • the Sinological letters listed above;
  • the affricate ligatures , plus analogous ligatures for , of which tθ dð are scheduled for Unicode 18;
  • Americanist notation noted in the IPA handbook such as č and ƛ; Greek letters commonly substituted for IPA such as γ and η; ψ of UPA, and þ
  • the IPA variants schwa with the hook of an r, gelded question mark, and baby gamma;
  • an ʅ-ʯ ligature, which is scheduled for Unicode 18, and what looks like an ι-ɕ ligature;
  • tone letters include both generic and tone-sandhi , and the various combinations they form; the neutral-tone letters and sandhi , and the traditional marks for the yin tones píng, shǎng, qù, ruʔ, and for the corresponding yang tones ;
  • the full set of IPA combining and spacing diacritics, including old IPA / Sinological for aspiration, as well as some historical and ext-IPA diacritics;
  • the Sinological dot ;
  • the arrows and the inverse of ↕ [two arrows facing each other vertically];
  • for inhalation and the null symbol .

, the non-coronal affricate ligatures, the ι-ɕ ligature, and the facing vertical arrows are not planned for Unicode.

See also

References