X-SAMPA, the Extended Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet, is an ASCII-only mapping of the full IPA chart. It lets you write any IPA symbol using ordinary keyboard characters, which is useful in plain-text files and software.

Why convert IPA to X-SAMPA?

Many speech synthesis engines, phonetics databases and programming environments accept only ASCII. X-SAMPA encodes the same sounds without needing Unicode support, so the data stays portable.

How are multi-character symbols handled?

The converter matches the longest IPA token first, so tie bars, length marks and diacritics are recognised before single letters. This prevents a complex symbol from being split incorrectly.

What happens to plain ASCII letters?

Letters that are written the same in both systems, such as p, b, t, d, k, m, n, s and the basic vowels, pass through unchanged because X-SAMPA reuses those characters directly.

Is my text uploaded anywhere?

No. The conversion runs entirely in your browser using a built-in mapping table, so nothing is sent to a server.

IPA to X-SAMPA Converter

This tool converts Unicode IPA symbols into X-SAMPA, the ASCII encoding of the International Phonetic Alphabet. X-SAMPA was designed so that every IPA character has a keyboard-typeable equivalent, making phonetic data work in plain-text files, databases and speech-synthesis software that cannot handle Unicode.

How it works

The converter scans your input left to right and, at each position, tries to match the longest known IPA token first. This greedy match matters because IPA uses many multi-character sequences — tie bars, length marks like ː, and diacritics — that must be recognised before falling back to single letters. When a match is found, the IPA token is replaced by its X-SAMPA code; for example ʃ becomes S, ð becomes D, and ŋ becomes N.

Characters that are written identically in both alphabets — most plain consonants and the vowels a, e, i, o, u — are simply copied through. The stress mark ˈ maps to a double quote and ˌ maps to a percent sign, matching the standard X-SAMPA chart.

Example and notes

The IPA string həˈloʊ wɝld converts to:

h@"loU wr3`ld

Notice how the schwa ə becomes @, the diphthong oʊ becomes oU, and the r-coloured vowel ɝ becomes `3“ plus the surrounding letters. Because the mapping is one-to-one for these symbols, the X-SAMPA can be turned back into IPA with the companion converter. Everything runs offline in your browser.