This template is used on many pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.
<span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA" lang="und-Latn-fonipa">{{{1}}}</span>
This means it specifies a class called "IPA" as a hook for CSS styling and DOM scripting. This allows for assigning specific fonts to display IPA characters. Registered Wikipedia users can specify their own fonts for IPA text by editing their user style sheet, e.g. Special:MyPage/common.css. Users can also edit their global stylesheet (meta:Special:MyPage/global.css), which works across all projects. MediaWiki:Common.css also ensures that links inside IPA transcriptions marked up with this template do not use underlines since these carry special semantics there. For instance, the following code would cause IPA to be displayed in the font Charis SIL:
This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template based on this TemplateData.
TemplateData for IPA
This template ensures proper display of transcriptions using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), especially in older operating systems and browsers. There are related specialized templates that also semi-automatically generate the transcription itself.
Template parameters
Parameter
Description
Type
Status
Transcription
1
including square brackets [...] for phonetic transcriptions or enclosing forward slashes /.../ for phonemic ones
String
required
Language code
lang
ISO 639 code of the language being transcribed, will be used in IETF language tag
These sets may look different if you have a custom font defined for IPA text.
Please place all IPA text into the template, even if it doesn't have any special IPA characters, like this: /mi/. This will allow users to format all examples of IPA text consistently, with their choice of fonts, colours, etc.
In general, IPA symbols on a page should be enclosed in the {{IPA}} template, which formats the text in an IPA-producing font. If a substantial portion of a page uses IPA, it is customary to post notice of that fact with {{Contains special characters|IPA}}, though each token still requires the {{IPA}} template for proper formatting.
If there are not enough occurrences to warrant a notice, then consider a template that links to an IPA key for the first instance of the IPA on a page or section.
For English words, in a broad, non-regional transcription, as when giving the pronunciation of a key word in an article, use {{IPAc-en}}, which links to Help:IPA/English, a chart of the subset of the IPA that is relevant to English, and automates the conversion to IPA, so that {{IPAc-en|'|w|3:r|d}} appears as /ˈwɜːrd/. This provides mouse-over links to the symbols, and is now the preferred template.
For a specific transcription in a regional variety, use {{IPA-endia}} or {{IPA-all}}.
For words that are not assimilated into English, regional pronunciations of English words, and non-standard English dialects, use templates linking to the more general Help:IPA chart, containing all major IPA symbols:
For specific languages, there may be dedicated IPA keys for standardized transcription. There are several options for their display. The first cell includes the ISO code of the language; the second is the transcription; the third keys an introductory phrase; and the fourth is space for a sound file. Using the French word eau[o] as an example, we have the default format:
Templates have been created for languages which do not yet have dedicated key pages. Transcriptions which use these templates will link to Help:IPA for the time being; when a language-specific key is created the templates will be linked accordingly. For example, you can use {{IPA-jv|word}} for Javanese, but for the moment it will link to Help:IPA, producing Javanese pronunciation: [word].
Languages and language extensions (IPA-xx) with links to Help:IPA
The template {{x2i}} takes X-SAMPA symbols (ASCII equivalents of IPA symbols) and converts them to IPA.
Other language-specific templates allow you to enter ordinary letters (or conventional ASCII equivalents) in place of IPA characters, and they will be automatically converted to the phonetic symbols that are used to transcribe the language. The templates that are currently available are shown below, with examples:
