Chinese linguists typically make use of a number of phonetic symbols that are not part of the official International Phonetic Alphabet [IPA] standard (International Phonetic Association 1999). These symbols are commonly encountered in introductory textbooks in phonetics, and are frequently used in works of descriptive linguistics. They are seldom explicitly acknowledged as non-IPA symbols, and it is unclear to what degree their non-official status is recognized within the Chinese linguistic comm…