This book is a comprehensive guide to the International Phonetic Alphabet, widely used for over a century to transcribe the sounds of languages. The Handbook is in three parts: Part I contains an introduction to phonetic description and exemplification of the use of phonetic symbols; Part II consists of twenty-nine "Illustrations" of the application of the International Phonetic Alphabet to a range of languages; and Part III covers speech pathology, computer codings, and the history of the IPA. This is an essential reference work for phoneticians and linguists more generally.