History of the IPA | International Phonetic Association

The International Phonetic Association was founded in 1886 in Paris by Paul Passy and other linguists and language teachers associated with the Reform Movement, whose primary aim was to improve the teaching and learning of modern languages through the use of phonetics. The Association’s early work centred on pedagogical reform, and the first versions of what became the International Phonetic Alphabet were developed as practical tools to support clearer and more accurate pronunciation in language teaching. Following its origins in Paris, the Association increasingly benefited from the contributions of scholars based in London, particularly Daniel Jones of University College London, who played a central role in its activities during the early twentieth century. Over the following decades, the Association and its Alphabet evolved, reflecting advances in phonetic research and the growing international scope of the discipline. The Alphabet underwent a number of revisions as its use expanded beyond language teaching into linguistic description, speech science, and clinical practice. A major milestone was the 1989 Kiel Convention, which brought together phoneticians from around the world to review the Alphabet and led to a number of important revisions. The publication of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association in 1999, which provided a comprehensive account of the Association’s history, principles, and practices, further consolidated the Alphabet’s role as the international standard for phonetic transcription. In the following decades, the Illustrations of the IPA developed into an important resource for the documentation and description of the sound systems of individual languages, providing standardized phonetic descriptions and recordings for an increasingly wide range of languages. The incorporation of IPA characters into the Unicode Standard was another major development, providing a standardized digital encoding that allows IPA symbols to be represented, stored, searched, and exchanged reliably across digital platforms. Today, the International Phonetic Alphabet is used worldwide by linguists, speech scientists, language educators, clinicians, and students for the accurate representation and study of speech sounds.

Albright, R. W. (1958). The International Phonetic Alphabet: Its Backgrounds and Development. Publication Seven of the Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Also published as Part III of International Journal of American Linguistics, 24(1).

Ashby, M. & Ashby, P. (2021). Phonetic Teachers and the Reform Movement: Evidence from Records of the IPA. Language & History, 64(3), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1996085

Collins, B. & Mees, I. M. (1999). The Real Professor Higgins: The Life and Career of Daniel Jones. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110812367

The part played by Paul Passy, Daniel Jones and other phoneticians in the development of the Association is set out in detail in this publication.

Durand, J. & Lyche, C. S. (2026). Paul Passy, A Radical Linguist: Language Teaching, Spelling Reform, and the Creation of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198929871.001.0001

International Phonetic Association. (1949). Principles of the International Phonetic Association. London: Department of Phonetics, University College London. Reproduced in Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 40(3), 299–358 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025100311000089

International Phonetic Association. (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511807954

MacMahon, M. K. C. (1986). The International Phonetic Association: The First 100 Years. Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 16(1), 30–38. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002510030000308X

MacMahon, M. K. C. (1996). Phonetic Notation. In Daniels, P. T. & Bright, W. (eds), The World’s Writing Systems. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 821–846.

See this publication for reproductions of some earlier IPA charts, including the first one in 1888.

Journal of the International Phonetic Association. (2010). 40(3).

This issue includes articles on “The 40th Anniversary of JIPA,” “Joining the IPA - 100 Years Ago,” sample articles from Le Maître Phonétique, and “The Principles of the International Phonetic Association”.

Presidents of the IPA

2023-:	Katerina Nicolaidis
2019-23:	Michael Ashby
2015-19:	Patricia Keating
2011-15:	John Esling
2010-11:	none
2007-10:	Gösta Bruce (d. 2010)
2003-07:	John Wells
1999-03:	Klaus Kohler
1995-99:	John Ohala
1991-95:	John Laver
1985-91:	Peter Ladefoged
1984-85:	A. C. Gimson (d. 1985)
1977-83:	none listed in JIPA issues
1969-77:	S. K. (Suniti Kumar) Chatterji (d. May 1977)
1967-69:	none listed in Le Maître Phonétique (MF) issues
1950-67:	Daniel Jones
1940-50:	none listed in MF issues
1927-40:	Paul Passy (d. 1940)
1917-27:	none
(MF was not published 1915-22)
1888-1917:	Wilhelm Viëtor (d. 1917)
1888-1912:	Henry Sweet, Honorary President
January to April 1888:	E. Oswald Kenyon, President of the Phonetic Teachers' Association (FTA)
1886-88:	Paul Passy