The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language.
The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values.
In the vowels chart, a separate phonetic value is given for each major dialect, alongside the words used to name their corresponding lexical sets.
The diaphonemes for the lexical sets given here are based on RP and General American; they are not sufficient to express all of the distinctions found in other dialects, such as Australian English.
Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.