The alphabet of the International Phonetics Association. It is actually more useful in phonemic transcription, as opposed to phonetic, but serves well for either.

IPA symbols

Most of the IPA symbols are in Unicode. This likely as not means they won't display in your web browser. This won't stop us from trying. What follows is: IPA letter - Unicode name or description of letter for the technologically impaired - description of the sound the letter represents.

Plosives (Stops)

  • p - small letter P - voiceless bilabial
  • b - small letter B - voiced bilabial
  • t - small letter T - voiceless dental/alveolar/postalveolar
  • d - small letter D - voiced dent/alv/postalv
  • ʈ - small letter T with retroflex hook - voiceless retroflex
  • ɖ - small letter D with tail - voiced retroflex
  • c - small letter C - voiceless palatal
  • ɟ - small letter dotless J with stroke - voiced palatal
  • k - small letter K - voiceless velar
  • ɡ - small letter script G{*} - voiced velar
  • q - small letter Q - voiceless uvular
  • ɢ - small capital G - voiced uvular
  • ʔ - glottal stop (like a dotless question mark) - voiceless glottal
{*} "script" G meaning the handwritten kind that looks like an A with a tail, not the perverse typewriter-style G. The standard is in place for simplicity's sake.

Nasals (symbols are all for voiced nasals)

  • m - small letter M - bilabial
  • ɱ - small letter M with hook - labiodental
  • n - small letter N - dental/alveolar/postalveolar
  • ɳ - small letter N with retroflex hook - retroflex
  • ɲ - small letter N with left hook - palatal
  • ŋ - small letter Ŋ (like n with a left hook on the right) - velar
  • ɴ - small capital N - uvular

Trills (again, all voiced)

  • ʙ - small capital B - bilabial
  • r - small letter r - dental/alveolar/postalveolar
  • ʀ - small capital R - uvular

Taps or Flaps

  • ɾ - small letter R with fishhook (like an r without the upper-left serif) - dental/alveolar/postalveolar
  • ɽ - small letter R with tail - retroflex

Fricatives

  • φ - small Greek phi - voiceless bilabial
  • β - small Greek beta - voiced bilabial
  • f - small letter F - voiceless labiodental
  • v - small letter V - voiced labiodental
  • θ - small Greek theta - voiceless dental
  • ð - small eth (like d with a stroke) - voiced dental
  • s - small letter S - voiceless alveolar
  • z - small letter Z - voiced alveolar
  • ʃ - small letter esh (like the long fancy s's in old writing) - voiceless postalveolar
  • ʒ - small letter ezh (like a 3 with sharper edges, or a yogh if you know what that is) - voiced postalveolar
  • ʂ - small letter s with hook - voiceless retroflex
  • ʐ - small letter z with retroflex hook - voiced retroflex
  • ç - small letter c with cedilla - voiceless palatal
  • ʝ - small letter j with crossed tail - voiced palatal
  • x - small letter x - voiceless velar
  • ɣ - small letter gamma - voiced velar
  • χ - small Greek chi - voiceless uvular
  • ʁ - small capital inverted R - voiced uvular
  • ħ - small letter H with stroke - voiceless pharyngeal
  • ʕ - small letter pharyngeal voiced fricative (like a reversed glottal stop) - voiced pharyngeal (duh)
  • h - small letter h - voiceless glottal
  • ɦ - small letter H with hook - voiced glottal

Lateral fricatives

  • ɬ - small letter L with belt - voiceless dent/alv/p-alv
  • ɮ - small letter lezh (like an L-ezh ligature) - voiced dent/alv/p-alv

Approximants

  • ʋ - small letter V with hook (looks like minuscule Greek upsilon) - labiodental
  • ɹ - small turned R - dent/alv/p-alv
  • ɻ - small turned R with hook - retroflex
  • j - small letter J - palatal
  • ɰ - small turned M with long leg - velar

Lateral Approximants

  • l - small letter L - dent/alv/p-alv
  • ɭ - small letter L with retroflex hook - retroflex
  • ʎ - small turned Y - palatal
  • ʟ - small capital L - velar

Clicks

  • ʘ - bullseye - bilabial click
  • ǀ - solid "|" pipe - dental click
  • ǃ - exclamation mark - (post)alveolar click
  • ǂ - pipe | crossed with = equals - palatoalveolar click
  • ǁ - double || pipe - alveolar lateral click

Voiced Implosives

  • ɓ - small letter b with hook - bilabial
  • ɗ - small letter d with hook - dental/alveolar
  • ʄ - small letter turned dotless j with stroke and hook - palatal
  • ɠ - small letter g with hook - velar
  • ʛ - small capital G with hook - uvular

Other consonants

  • ʍ - small turned W - voiceless labiovelar fricative
  • w - small letter W - voiced labiovelar fricative
  • ɥ - small turned H - voiced labiopalatal approximant
  • ʜ - small capital H - voiceless epiglottal fricative
  • ʢ - small reversed glottal stop with stroke - voiced epiglottal fricative
  • ʡ - small glottal stop with stroke - epiglottal plosive
  • ɕ - small letter c with curl - voiceless alveopalatal fricative
  • ʑ - small letter z with curl - voiced alveopalatal fricative
  • ɺ - small turned R with long leg - alveolar lateral flap
  • ɧ - small letter heng with hook (like an eng with a tall curved left stroke) - simultaneous ʃ and x

Vowels

  • i - small letter I - close front unrounded
  • y - small letter Y - close front rounded
  • ɨ - small letter I with stroke - close central unrounded
  • ʉ - small letter U bar - close central rounded
  • ɯ - small turned M - close back unrounded
  • u - small letter U - close back rounded
  • ɪ - small capital I - near-close front unrounded
  • ʏ - small capital Y - near-close front rounded
  • ʊ - small upsilon (like an inverted horseshoe) - near-close back rounded
  • e - small letter e - close-mid front unrounded
  • ø - small letter o with slash - close-mid front rounded
  • ɘ - small reversed e - close-mid central unrounded
  • ɵ - small barred o - close-mid central rounded
  • ɤ - small ram's horn (like a tiny small gamma) - close-mid back unrounded
  • o - small letter o - close-mid back rounded
  • ə - small schwa - mid central unrounded
  • ɛ - small letter open e (like a reversed 3) - open-mid front unrounded
  • œ - small oe ligature - open-mid front rounded
  • ɜ - small reversed open e (like a small 3) - open-mid central unrounded
  • ɞ - small closed reversed open e (it's open, it's closed, it's like a heart turned on its side!) - open-mid central rounded
  • ʌ - small turned v - open-mid back unrounded
  • ɔ - small open o (like a turned c) - open-mid back rounded
  • æ - small ae ligature "ash" - near-open front unrounded
  • ɐ - small turned a - near-open central unrounded
  • a - small letter a (the typewriter kind) - open front unrounded
  • ɶ - small capital oe ligature - open front rounded
  • ɑ - small letter alpha ("script" a) - open back unrounded
  • ɒ - small turned alpha - open back rounded

Diacritics (placed on a sample letter which it may not make actual sense to apply the diacritic to)

  • e̥ - ring below - makes a sign voiceless
  • e̬ - caron below - ...voiced
  • e̹ - right half ring below - ...more rounded
  • e̜ - left half ring below - ...less rounded
  • e̟ - plus sign below - ...advanced
  • ĕ - breve above - ...extra short
  • e̠ - minus sign below - ...retracted
  • ë - diaeresis above - ...centralized
  • e̽ - x above - ...mid-centralized
  • e̩ - vertical line below - ...syllabic
  • e̯ - inverted breve below - ...non-syllabic
  • e˞ - rhotic hook - ...rhotic
  • e̤ - diaeresis below - ...breathy voiced
  • ḛ - tilde below - ...creaky voiced
  • e̼ - seagull below - ...linguolabial
  • e̪ - bridge below - ...dental
  • e̺ - inverted bridge below - ...apical
  • e̻ - square below - ...laminal
  • ẽ - tilde above - ...nasalized
  • l̴ - tilde through - ...velarized or pharyngealized
  • e̝ - up tack below - ...raised
  • e̞ - down tack below - ...lowered
  • e̘ - left tack below - ...Advanced Tongue Root
  • e̙ - right tack below - ...Retracted Tongue Root
  • e̋ - double acute - ...extra-high tone
  • é - acute - ...high tone
  • ē - macron - ...mid tone
  • è - grave - ...low tone
  • ȅ - double grave - ...extra-low tone

Other wacky marks

  • ˈ - vertical line - primary stress (stress marks go before the syllable to be stressed)
  • ˌ - low vertical line - secondary stress
  • ʼ - apostrophe - ejective modifier, marks symbol as glottalized/ejective (modifiers go after the symbol to be modified)
  • ː - triangular colon - length modifier, marks symbol as long
  • ˑ - half triangular colon - length modifier, marks symbol as half-long
  • . - period - syllable break
  • ǀ - solid pipe - "minor (foot) group" (whatever that means)
  • ǁ - double pipe - "major (intonation) group" (whatever that means)
  • (no Unicode) - low breve - "linking (absence of a break)"
  • ↑ - up arrow - (tonal) upstep
  • ↓ - down arrow - (tonal) downstep
  • ˥ - extra-high tone bar
  • ˦ - high tone bar
  • ˧ - mid tone bar
  • ˨ - low tone bar
  • ˩ - extra-low tone bar
  • (no Unicode) - contour marks (like the tone bars, but squiggly)
  • ↗ - northeast arrow - (contour) global rise
  • ↘ - southeast arrow - (contour) global fall
  • ʰ - superscript small H - aspiration
  • ʷ - superscript small W - labialization
  • ʲ - superscript small J - palatalization
  • ˠ - superscript small gamma - velarization
  • ˁ - superscript reversed glottal stop - pharyngealization
  • (no Unicode) - superscript small N - nasal release
  • ˡ - superscript small L - lateral release
  • ̚ - superscript left angle - no audible release

*whew*... That enough yet? It gets worse though--first, these aren't all the IPA symbols, and second, IPA (contrary to popular belief) actually doesn't have symbols for all the sounds used in human languages. Find an actual chart (it'll look better than this node) and notice the blank spots...

Because IPA is pretty much the evil flaming Hades to transmit over the web (you probably can't read it in your browser unless you have a big macho font like I have), imagine how bad it is over email. ASCII versions of IPA exist to solve just this problem, such as X-SAMPA and Kirshenbaum IPA.