IPA  what   I read the main page of the article on IPA On the plus side it is clear On the minus side it makes no attempt to explain what the IPA is  context scope purpose etc Nice chart  Lots of data for people who probably have no need of it but virtually no general information My questions which werent answered  keep in mind Im a totally lay person An alphabet is used to   Communicate between a writer and a reader of the same language   Describe that communication unambigously  Right  Certain things are implied by its name but clearly one should define what the subject of the alphabet is are  I have no idea if it covers all indoeuropean languages not to mention Mandarin Chinese etc Does it attempt to cover all spoken languages Written  What about nonvocal languages finger snaps  all that stuff  Signlanguage  We now have some evidence that hand gestures are linked to language in the brainbut I digress  From a simplistic point of view language can be thought of as being three distinct context sensitive types of communication writtenread spokenheard and performedviewed  I suppose an alphabet cant cover the last but see how choreographers describe dance and obviously there are nonalphabetical languages pictographics heiroglyphic etc just as there are languages which make use of whistles clicks  SO what does the IPA do  It just occured to me that maybe the IPA is nowadays only used by eurocentric hobbyists and that would explain why there was no attention given to giving a serious explanation of what it is if you have to askthen you dont need to know