International Phonetic Alphabet
Ambiguous letters

As noted above, IPA letters are often used quite loosely in broad transcription if no ambiguity would arise in a particular language. Because of that, IPA letters have not generally been created for sounds that are not distinguished in individual languages. A distinction between voiced fricatives and approximants is only partially implemented by the IPA, for example. Even with the relatively recent addition of the palatal fricative ⟨ ʝ ⟩ and the velar approximant ⟨ ɰ ⟩ to the alphabet, other letters, though defined as fricatives, are often ambiguous between fricative and approximant. For forward places, ⟨ β ⟩ and ⟨ ð ⟩ can generally be assumed to be fricatives unless they carry a lowering diacritic. Rearward, however, ⟨ ʁ ⟩ and ⟨ ʕ ⟩ are perhaps more commonly intended to be approximants even without a lowering diacritic. ⟨ h ⟩ and ⟨ ɦ ⟩ are similarly either fricatives or approximants, depending on the language, or even glottal "transitions", without that often being specified in the transcription.

Another common ambiguity is among the letters for palatal consonants. ⟨ c ⟩ and ⟨ ɟ ⟩ are not uncommonly used as a typographic convenience for affricates, typically and, while ⟨ ɲ ⟩ and ⟨ ʎ ⟩ are commonly used for palatalized alveolar and. To some extent this may be an effect of analysis, but it is common to match up single IPA letters to the phonemes of a language, without overly worrying about phonetic precision.

It has been argued that the lower-pharyngeal (epiglottal) fricatives ⟨ ʜ ⟩ and ⟨ ʢ ⟩ are better characterized as trills, rather than as fricatives that have incidental trilling. This has the advantage of merging the upper-pharyngeal fricatives together with the epiglottal plosive and trills into a single pharyngeal column in the consonant chart. However, in Shilha Berber the epiglottal fricatives are not trilled. Although they might be transcribed ⟨ ħ̠ ʢ̠ ⟩ to indicate this, the far more common transcription is ⟨ ʜ ʢ ⟩, which is therefore ambiguous between languages.

Among vowels, ⟨ a ⟩ is officially a front vowel, but is more commonly treated as a central vowel. The difference, to the extent it is even possible, is not phonemic in any language.

For all phonetic notation, it is good practice for an author to specify exactly what they mean by the symbols that they use.
length_constraints:number_paragraphs[5]