International Phonetic Alphabet

The International Phonetic Alphabet (commonly known as the IPA) is a set of symbols associated with speech sounds, designed for use in describing and comparing the pronunciations of all of the spoken languages of the world. It is produced by the International Phonetic Association (also abbreviated IPA).

The International Phonetic Alphabet was first published in 1887. The most recent revision was made in 2005. The alphabet is divided into sections:
 * Pulmonic consonants (organized by place and manner of articulation)
 * Non-pulmonic consonants (organized by airstream type and Place of articulation)
 * Vowels (organized by tongue height and backness, and by lip rounding)
 * Other symbols (consonants that do not easily fit in the other sections)
 * Diacritics (modifiers that can be placed above, below, or beside characters to adjust the intended articulation)
 * Suprasegmentals (characterizing aspects of articulation beyond the segmental level)
 * Tones and word accents

Link
Utrecht Lexicon of Linguistics The alphabet at the International Phonetic Association An example of the alphabet with accompanying audio illustrations