Ranking the ENTIRE International Phonetic Alphabet Tier List

This is it, this is peak tier list performance. Every phoneme on Wikipedia's IPA chart, ranked from a conlanger's perspective.
Do your own ranking and compare your results to mine: tiermaker.com/...
(I don't know why the zoomed in resolution was low this time, new computer moment uWu)
Special thanks to Ætérnal for making the image files for this tier list!
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[@mrelephant2283]

if χ isn't S tier, I'ma immigrate to jan Misali permanently

[@AgmaSchwa]

👀

[@8-bitfox716]

It never was

[@corralestorofamily9945]

@@AgmaSchwa I almost only ones Conlanging videos from peacefully until I found your Rick roll song and then it from me to this video

[@vitriolicAmaranth]

@@corralestorofamily9945 in which conlang did you write this? seems cool

[@koduflower2000]

nevermind, i really hope the Q sound gets an A or an S.

[@joeyopenshaw]

Make a language only using sounds from each tier!

[@AgmaSchwa]

even better, make a language using only S tier AND F tier sounds

[@Sammeep02]

LOL! That would be interesting

[@itisALWAYSR.A.]

@@AgmaSchwa Came here to suggest one that only uses the S and A-tier sounds (Maybe calling it `æʃ` or `æʃɚ` ) buuut S-F sounds much more on par with this channel's whole blursed conlang vibe.

[@chillshobe8147]

R-colored vowels get the video R-rated

[@xeji4348]

ha.. haha.....HA! 😐

[@benjamin5679]

As a learner of Arabic, ʔ and ħ are two of my favorite phonemes.

[@jangamecuber]

tˤ is pretty cool too

[@fenghualiu2653]

you should really check out language simp

[@dragoness777]

Honestly part of the reason I wanted to learn Arabic is because of /q/ and /ʔ/

[@EchoLog]

I'm hard of hearing and ħ became my English h after learning Arabic. It's so much easier to hear and feel and know I'm being articulate enough for hearing people to not mishear me.

[@captainyulef5845]

Arabic has the coolest consonant inventory ^^

[@inspace9609]

[y] is one of the greatest vowel at all. You have it in the German word "süß".

[@LordComradeAnarchoCapitalus]

A BIT ßUßßY ISNT IT?

[@heotapgym-piggym2460]

Sus

[@jan_Masewin]

not sus at all

[@wtc5198]

ಡ ಡ

[@xX_wiLLiam_Xx]

wenn der Betrüger süß ist

[@JDWatkins-ws4jt]

Nguh: I hate retroflex consonants The entire country of India: Goes into extreme panic mode

[@David280GG]

Deez

[@WhizzKid2012]

And pakistan, bangladesh, nepal, sri lanka

[@Thindorama]

And Sicily, apparently.

[@jayasuryangoral-maanyan3901]

@@WhizzKid2012 INDIA

[@vitriolicAmaranth]

My biggest realisation upon learning the IPA was that in my manner of speech (not sure if it's my North Florida dialect or literally just me, but I noticed during the time I spent as a transcriber that most English speakers do NOT retroflex their d, which is obviously most evident when they whisper), d is always retroflex, and that this is most likely because making it retroflex makes it still sound like d relative to t when you whisper. It also made me realise that Nabokov had a really weird way of pronouncing "Lolita," since the opening of the story is about how saying "Lolita" involved the tongue tapping a line down the speaker's palate. That means Nabokov starts the name with a retroflex l, for some incomprehensible reason (actually, it's for a very comprehensible reason- because the sound, while absent in Nabokov's favoured languages, Russian and English, as well as Spanish, the language from which the name comes, is present in some accents of the main character Humbert's mother tongue of French- a really specific and very Nabokovian detail I doubt many other authors would have included or even known enough to include).

[@whizzerbrown1349]

Sometimes it’s hard to explain to my loved ones why I get excited when I see /n/ with a funny tail

[@SuqDrIPA]

Also, /ʄ/ is a voiced palatal implosive and /y/ is a close front rounded vowel

[@AgmaSchwa]

I figured, thus F tier for the voiced palatal implosive, B tier for /y/

[@inspace9609]

@@AgmaSchwa noice 😆

[@rhythmmandal3377]

Americans: Why are r, l not vowels????? Indians & bangladeshis: Why are r, l f***ing vowels????

[@12SPASTIC12]

r and l used to be vowels in Sanskrit (ऋ and ऌ or ঋ and ঌ)

[@rhythmmandal3377]

@@12SPASTIC12 They were not vowels per say the technical term is syllabic consonant i.e. they did the job of vowels while being consonants. But that is a moot point since both r or l are not syllabic consonant in either Hindi or Bengali.

[@conallia]

the retroflex and palatals have been hate crimed 😔

[@AgmaSchwa]

***rightly so***

[@miwiarts]

Oh god... He's gone further beyond... This has to be the limit... right? Right??

[@SuqDrIPA]

hehe

[@erslippers3805]

Extended IPA maybe one day...

[@felicvik9456]

сырылык

[@penfelyn]

left

[@kaw57_]

@@penfelyn center

[@TarkTheConlanger]

How can I justify that I have just watched a random guy ranking phonemes during almost one half of an hour?

[@AgmaSchwa]

just say its a part of your journey to become a *true linguist*, people wont get it, but they might be a little more impressed than disgusted

[@TarkTheConlanger]

@@AgmaSchwa linguistics are pretty niche indeed

[@WhizzKid2012]

Dont justify it. Its a good way to spend time.

[@wasserruebenvergilbungsvirus]

Why are retroflex consonants so underappreciated? They are unique, easy to pronounce and sound nice.

[@eier5472]

Retroflex consonants with R-colored vowels! Weird retroflex but okay

[@brtzz2388]

@@eier5472 OMG I LOVE U FOR THAR

[@xeji4348]

Retrofleex consonants sounds kindof disgusting to my American ears. They sound so like you're trying too hard to make the alveolar /t/ and /d/

[@8-bitfox716]

@@xeji4348 agree

[@lunamothwing]

Retroflex are my all time fave i love them so so much

[@stanislok.7106]

I guess even though the whole community uses IPA (which is a pretty universal instrument!) frequently, we all just have our individual regional versions of pronouncing it anyways 😆

[@fenghualiu2653]

I’m thinking how many people would just take the d and f tier phonemes exclusively for the gross conlang challenge 😂

[@AgmaSchwa]

oh god, hahaha

[@cumimjeokelishu5246]

Do Hanzi next.

[@AgmaSchwa]

👀👀👀

[@HoneydewBeach]

You swapped ʡ and ʢ. ʡ is the stop and ʢ is the trill

[@AgmaSchwa]

Oof, I blame the IPA for making so many mirror symbols, hahah

[@penfelyn]

a language channel full of cool videos and having less than 1M subs? nguh (like bruh but with ng)

[@malo3373]

Four sounds you put in the bottom of your tier list are sounds I really love and I commonly use in my conlang.😂

oh frick-ative! nice I loved it, glad ur back. Nguhhhh

[@conlanga3715]

"Bruh just makes me happy" -Agma Schwa

[@Kettvnen]

palatal nasal is S tier for me cuz nya~

[@kornsuwin]

strut is just /u/ with a schwa pfp

[@giemelregis7042]

When you placed θ to S, respect 👌🏻 Edit: 🤧🤧🤧 yes he also put ð to S!!

[@Just_A_Banana]

/θ/ and /ð/ definetly detherve eth tier

[@brillitheworldbuilder]

"/ç/ is ugly. D tier." Me: "How dare you!"

[@LordComradeAnarchoCapitalus]

Now, to make a conlang with only i, ə, þ and đ...

[@AgmaSchwa]

This would be the best decision of your life

[@nafismubashir2479]

Only 40 words though

[@AgmaSchwa]

not if you have three gemination contrasts, four tones on /i/ and a maximum of 8 syllables per word... just as an example

[@nafismubashir2479]

@@AgmaSchwa these could be the 40 words that are the base for all the other words in the language but you're right

[@AgmaSchwa]

hehe, yep thats right too, minilang of only supreme phonemes

[@girv98]

3:52 filthy foot-strut splitters not allowed #northerngang

[@glitchy9613]

I'm sad you didn't like /ʉ/... it literally appears in my variant of english!

[@glitchy9613]

ALSO 25:17 DUDE /ɟ/ IS THE BEST SOUND IN THE ENTIRE IPA >:(

[@AgmaSchwa]

Sorry, hahaha, unfortunately this is the way it must be😔

[@xeji4348]

You may be confused since it depends on which variant. For some like California English, it's actually a /ɯ̽/. Which is in-between /ʉ/ and /ɯ/. And for others it might even be as far forward as a retracted /y/ in certain context like when you really slurr the word "dude"

[@glitchy9613]

@@xeji4348 I'm Australian, Australian english definetly has /ʉ/ (and /əʉ/)

[@kakahass8845]

You think that's bad? He mispronunces the palatal nasal as an alveolo-palatal and then says he doesn't like it!

[@dragoness777]

Japanese cats when nguh disses /ɲ/: /iie ɲa ɲa/ Also I am saddened by how many velar and uvelar stuff you dislike, those are like half of my favorite sounds cross-lingustically

[@boi905]

If the American long R / rhotic schwa isn’t S tier we riot.

[@AgmaSchwa]

ə˞ supremacy

[@Zooiest]

I love r-colored vowels with a /bɝnɪŋ/ passion too!

[@drewbloss173]

ILOVE WHAT U DID THERE BRO ^^^ i too am an r coloured vowel enjoyer 🤌🤌

[@erslippers3805]

I like the velar approximant. I can annoy purists by romanising it

[@jacksonp2397]

Thats disgusting

[@jangamecuber]

i literraly jumped at that

[@Trolligi]

as a speaker of mandarin, ɥ is one of my favourite phonemes

[@imrukiitoaoffire1908]

3:50 I testify against this decision! As by all accounts /ʌ/ is just a more stable form of /ə/, the sound is extremely similar, and if it were to shift it would likely become something like /ɐ/ or /ɔ/ which are pretty solid sounds, more so the latter of the two though.

[@xeji4348]

How is /ʌ/ more stable than /ə/? I would assume schwa is more stable since it's articulation is in the literal center of your mouth and is probably the easiest sound to make after /a/.

[@kakahass8845]

ʌ is a disgrace.

[@StarGarnet03]

​@xeji4348 in my experience (australian english speaker), I find that /ʌ/ is easier for me to pronounce consciously than /ə/, although it may just be me

[@imrukiitoaoffire1908]

@@xeji4348 It is unstable because of its being unstressed tending towards either /ɛ/ or /ɪ/, and that even when stressed it has the tendency to lean unto /ɛ/ or unto /ɔ/ within at least my speech (USA East Coast here). Therefore, based on place of articulation of the tongue producing the vowel quality, in my view, and in my own work; /ʌ/ is the far more stable alternative as not to shift away or disappear so easily. /ʌ/ in my view is the more stable and most conservative variant away from /ə/, especially also in terms of proximity as produced in the mouth.

[@interbeamproductions]

/ɐ/ is arguably a better vowel

[@nelshmel]

Gotta be real, I think the voiced h is S tier. Breathiness can't be beat.

[@xeji4348]

Most people don't like strangers breathing on their face when they speak. I agree with them being viewed at poorly

[@johntp185]

It isn't even a voiced h though it's a breathy voice

[@DiesIstNichtEinstein]

/ɲ/ getting dunked on - Hispanophone (ñ) and Lusophone (nh) rage retroflexes getting dunked on - rage of the Indian subcontinent (ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ, r̩, ḷ) /ʕ/ getting dunked on - Semitic rage (*ayin*)

[@IntergalacticPotato]

i am offended you put ç and ɟ so low i love palatals

[@rammylive4081]

"i appreciate 'ø'", he says while pronouncing it 'ʏ'

[@maavet2351]

The entire phonetic alphabet can be found in the abkhaz language

[@user-is8dp3no8l]

1:53 You're welcome!

[@felicvik9456]

I always pronunced it [ˈæːtɚnəl]

[@user-is8dp3no8l]

@@felicvik9456 It's pronounced just like the English word ‘eternal’.

[@decorativewingdings]

STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM MY PALATAL OBSTRUENTS! i love them

[@abocwsg2328]

BRING BACK ÞORN!!!!!

[@MaxwellCatAlphonk]

Try to make 7 conlangs each dedicated to one of the tiers (including the one that was with accidental duplicates) If it is too painful to do you may skip the F, D and C tiers if you want (especially because of how the spike one is in F tier for a reason)

[@MaxwellCatAlphonk]

@joeyopenshaw please don't be angry I posted the comment then saw you had the exact same idea as me

[@h-hhh]

15:37 *_h_*

[@annaabrams8738]

H?

[@h-hhh]

@@annaabrams8738 h

[@quietizkept]

@@h-hhh *LE CONFUSEMENT*

[@illusionist1872]

7:20 everyone stop what you're doing, he's tapping in to his inner catboy

[@flyingduck91]

retroflexes are actually good, idk why y dont like them

[@Frahamen]

if it was even in the list, voiceless uvular trill would be a /s/ tier. Voiceless trills are spicy.

[@corralestorofamily9945]

when you produce the letter L sound, it creates a blockage kind of in your airway by if you were looking into dimensions, it would be kind of a blockage, so L is not a vowel, but sometimes W and even RR in the vowel category in fact, there was an entire video about our being a vowel

[@elfeiin]

How dare you compare and judge any one of our precious, beautiful, amazing human mouth sounds!

[@kori228]

our rankings are totally different lol. we agree on disliking retroflexes and pharyngeals though

[@flyingduck91]

why don't people like retroflexes, I can pronounce then & I think theyre cool

[@kori228]

@@flyingduck91 I find the retroflex articulation ugly to listen to

[@avaevathornton9851]

Absolutely blew my mind when I found out American English doesn't have /ʌ/ or /ɔ/. The prototypical U-for-umbrella and O-for-octopus sounds!

[@flyingduck91]

proof?

[@frogpastethedyke]

no shot you put the lick in your intro... how had I never found this channel before

[@ManhNguyen-sp5hg]

i ɑɡreed with your tier list.

[@user-sp4if8vc8t]

19:15 That's /ʄ/

[@Dolph1nVR]

Lol

[@PurpleCrystle]

12:19 Bro predicted it

[@kvanctok9234]

Hey everybody! Welcome back to… *nguh.* 0:11

[@dihydrogen]

0:02 i try to escape the licc but the licc always finds me :c

[@cysshorts1529]

As a person who's not a linguist, all I heard was "glottal dental fricitive stop vowel pallitil"

[@ytuberonyt]

ŋə

[@ashaler__]

extIPA all gets on s if youre making a language meant to be awful

[@katakana1]

8:11 Caillou uses it a lot, so immediate /F/ tier.

[@wyntyrr]

[ʄ] is a palatal implosive

[@lingonberryjam]

very sad as a catboy that ɲ got so low… catboy supremacy ‼️

[@David280GG]

Only a few will understand that joke

[@kirilvelinov7774]

Slovian IPA chart Vowel sounds:Aleph,Epsilon,Yod,Omicron,Waw,Ash Consonant sounds:Bet,Cee,Daleth,Eff,Gimel,Heta,Yogh,Kaph,Lamed,Mem,Nun,Peh,Resh,Sigma,Tau,Wynn,Zeta,Thorn

[@salumtheconlang2953]

ɧ is my favourite 😥😥

[@xeji4348]

Just because it's rare doesn't mean it's good. I see /ɧ/ as just a voiceless /xʷ/

[@johntp185]

If by "rare" you mean "doesn't occur in any language at all" then yes you're right. Also what the heck ar you talking about x is already voiceless.

[@JarkaKavraizhkiYoutube]

how dare you treat c͡ʎ̥˕ like that

[@-starrysunrise-2908]

6:23 the version I learned included W, I don’t know why most don’t

[@-starrysunrise-2908]

Wrong timestamp lol

[@tyw7205]

5:29 This has to be the cutest abc story ever 😂

[@hydrashade1851]

as a new conlanger, ʀ, and ǁ are some of my favorite phonemes(they're fun to pronounce). but i will always hate the rolled r and flipped r because i constantly choke on my tongue trying to fucking pronounce them because im so used to the guttural r. its hell

[@jacksonp2397]

Look up the phonology of Hixkaryana

[@AgmaSchwa]

should I be scared 😳

[@justcommenting8567]

how could you put the nya in d tier so carelessly?!

[@kornsuwin]

Final time saying manahœr before I make a decent conlang

[@isleofdre108]

im really good at making implosive sounds! i annoy my sister with the uvular implosive everyday XD

[@cdjensen94]

I did a pharyngeal and triggered my gag reflex

[@bowl1858]

pretty sure [ɧ] is just [ʍ] with a more 'f' like rounding despite what the ipa thinks

[@corralestorofamily9945]

θ is a Greek letter called theta or if you speak Icelandic Þeta

[@elrohirshouldercheaptrick9452]

Question: why is the IPA not a featural writing system? I mean, that would almost be a perfect application

[@David280GG]

It looks ugly for languages with rare phonemes and it would also represent alophones that arent distinguished

[@nameless4637]

your skewing my data while puting A tier because it's the first phoneme in his name

[@dilgeatakan9366]

F-looking thing is voiced palatal implosive y is rounded high front vowel

[@kornsuwin]

17:59

[@drdca8263]

What do you think of something similar to hangul in the way that the symbols are made of parts which reflect the sound in a consistent pattern, but for the symbols in IPA ? Are there just too many for that to work? Like, if you had one class of symbol-parts for places of articulation, another for manner of articulation, and like, for voiced vs unvoiced?

[@agiotasulista1738]

Well,I think it's possible to do it with the consonants,but it's very complicated to do it for the vowels,I speak for myself,as I tried to do a featural abugida for my conlang,the best I could do for the vowels was: Unrounded vowels appear either on the top or at the bottom of a letter Rounded vowels appear either on the left or on the right of a letter

[@dolphingoreeaccount7395]

So tengwar

[@drdca8263]

@@dolphingoreeaccount7395 Huh. I mean, I guess maybe? I was thinking something where the parts are more discrete and separate, and more “clearly deliberately designed more than than evolved” looking, but yeah that seems closer than I expected. Though apparently different languages which use Tengwar use it to represent different sounds with the same characters? At least for the diacritics? (Or so says Wikipedia anyway.)

[@thekathal]

what were those implosive pronunciations omg 😂

[@jamburga321]

Are you obsessed with the alphabet? lol!

[@NikodAnimations]

7:23 theright is patatal i think

[@coolguy4709]

me when my langs are centered around retroflex

[@maybeanonymous6846]

YOU DON'T LIKE THE PALATAL NASAL??

[@AgmaSchwa]

if it ain’t velar it ain’t mine, lolll

[@nevoven]

How dare you? ʂ is ɢoʌt

[@_yellow]

The voicec bilabial implosive is the coolest implosive, A tier

[@astal3204]

18:02 missed oppurtunity to say "that was a little bit too rhotic diacritic rated." or "that was a little bit too voiced uvular trill rated."

[@robdoghd]

retroflex consonants are cool and sexy consider this a proclamation of war!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@leviticus0]

Video recommendation, script tierlist.

[@SkyTheHusky]

Frick it do all of unicode

[@felicvik9456]

Ду сырылык.

[@glitchy9613]

@Rede Emitel Ай агри ўит ю

[@wtc5198]

Wtf, why the Ыs

[@zorphorias1523]

Nah, aint no way you rate retroflex sounds so low

[@pibi-tudu-kaga6991]

Man, now I need to make one

[@LucasLin-ql6fi]

aɪ-piː-eɪ ɪz ɡreɪt

[@SuqDrIPA]

I was planning on doing this lol

[@janalasali6912]

so if i want to make the perfect conlang i should use all of these???!!

[@eneaganh6319]

Isn't /y/ the Azorean "u" for all the fellow Portugueses around

[@katethekaiserin]

q is my favourite

[@felicvik9456]

/ʋ/ is the best, then /ʕ̞/ and then /ɵ/

[@katethekaiserin]

@@felicvik9456 false [q] is the 100% best

[@felicvik9456]

Itjs better than /v/

[@felicvik9456]

/v/ is the worst

[@glitchy9613]

agreed, [q] is one of the best sounds