Transcription of Sounds and a Problem of the IPA

This paper examines the principles of the International Phonetic Association and its Alphabet to see if the International Phonetic Alphabet (the IPA, for short) is adequate for transcribing sounds of a language like Korean. Special attention is given to 'broad transcription' and it has been found that the IPA is inadequate in representing the phonemes: there is no way to correctly transcribe phonemically the sounds of Korean with the current alphabet. A suggestion is given to help solve this problem and extend the IPA to accommodate all the different languages of the world.