 The International Phonetic Association is the most representative organization for phoneticians founded by the French linguist Paul Passy. It was inaugurated by a small group of language teachers in Paris under the name of the Phonetic Teachers Association in 1886. They found the practice of phonetics useful for their research and teaching methods and wanted to create a journal containing material entirely produced in phonetic transcription. In 1887, the association changed its name to IPA, an acronym that represents both the association and the International Phonetic Alphabet. When the association was founded, its aim was to promote scientific studies of phonetics as well as notational standards for the phonetic representation of every language spoken in the world. The International Phonetic Alphabet, whose first version was published in 1888 as an idea of the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, provides phonetic representations of every spoken sound applicable to all languages. It was accompanied by a set of principles regarding its construction and use, for instance the existence of one separate letter for each distinctive sound, the use of the same sign for sounds to be found in several languages, the use of as many Roman characters as possible, and the avoidance of diacritics. The organization publishes their recent findings in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association, which is being released three times per year by Cambridge University Press.