upside downtext generator
How does this tool work?
The Upside down text generator works by swapping the basic letters of the Roman Alphabet with similar characters from other languages and sets of symbols. This gives the impression of the letters being flipped 180 degrees.
Some of the characters don’t require flipping, such as ‘O’ and ‘X’. Some of them have an easy replacement in the Roman alphabet. e.g. ‘b’ can be swapped with ‘q’
The upside down and reversed text does the same thing, but also reverses the order of the letters.
Where do all the flipped letters come from?
Unicode, which is basically an agreement on which letters computers can use, has over 100,000 possible characters. This includes the letters from 1000s of languages, mathematical symbols, and most famously, emojis ☝️.
You can read a more in depth description of how unicode works here
Many of the symbols used in this tool come from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). An alphabet used to note all the possible sounds a human can create with their voice. There’s a lot of them.
Others have a more obscure origin, for more info, take a look at the table below.
Upside Down Character Table
Origin | ||
---|---|---|
a | ɐ | Flipped Latin ‘a’ – used as a symbol in the international phonetic alphabet (IPA) |
b | q | Just the normal letter ‘q’ |
c | ɔ | Latin Small Letter Open ‘O’ — Another symbol from the IPA |
d | p | Just the normal letter ‘p’ |
e | ǝ | An extension of the Latin alphabet used in the Pan-Nigerian Alphabet and African Reference Alphabet |
f | ɟ | Latin dotless ‘j’ with a stroke — from the IPA |
g | ƃ | Latin small letter ‘b’ with top bar. It seems to have only been used briefly in the Zhuang alphabet to represent a voiced bilabial implosive, before being replaced with ‘mb’ |
h | ɥ | Small Latin Turned ‘h’ — from the IPA |
i | ᴉ | Small Latin Turned ‘i’ — used in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet |
j | ɾ | Latin Small ‘r’ with Fishhook — another from the IPA |
k | ʞ | Latin Small Turned ‘k’ — IPA |
l | l | Just a lowercase l, in most fonts this works fine as a flipped version of itself. Some serif fonts it won’t work though, and all mono-space fonts have trouble |
m | ɯ | Latin Small Letter Turned M |
n | u | Just the regular letter ‘u’ |
o | o | ‘o’ no mystery here. |
p | d | Just the latin letter ‘d’ |
q | b | Just the latin letter ‘b’ |
r | ɹ | Latin small turned ‘r’ — IPA |
s | s | s reflects itself fine |
t | ʇ | Latin Small Turned ‘t’ — IPA |
u | n | Just the letter ‘n’ |
v | ʌ | Latin Small Turned ‘v’ — IPA |
w | ʍ | Latin Small Turned ‘w’ — IPA |
x | x | x is just ‘x’ |
y | ʎ | Latin Small Turned ‘y’ — IPA |
z | z | z is just ‘z’ |
A | ∀ | The logic symbol for Universal quantification. It basically means, ‘for every’ or ‘for all’. It’s also been used in the IPA to mean a ‘open backed rounded vowel.’ |
B | 𐐒 | Deseret Capital Letter ‘B’ — a phonetic alphabet developed by the Mormon Church under the eye of Brigham Young. |
C | Ɔ | Latin Capital Open ‘O’ — used as part of an extension to the Latin alphabet in the Yacatec Mayan Alphabet and the African Reference Alphabet |
D | ᗡ | Canadian Syllabics Carrier Tha — part of a set of characters for writing aboriginal Canadian languages like Inuktitut and Carrier |
E | Ǝ | Latin Capital Reversed ‘E’ — IPA |
F | Ⅎ | Turned Capital ‘F’ — introduced to the Roman Empire by Emperor Claudius, it denotes the sound a ‘W’ or ‘V’ means in English |
G | פ | Hebrew Letter Pe |
H | H | Stays the same |
I | I | Also stays the same |
J | ſ | Latin Small Long ‘s’ — apparently this was pretty popular until typesetters decided they didn’t need it. Sometimes it was used for the first character in a double ‘ss’ in words like ‘eſsay’ |
K | ꓘ | Lisu Letter Kha — Part of the Fraser Lisu alphabet invented by preacher Sara Ba Thaw, to write Lisu, a Tibeto-Burman language in roman letters. |
L | ˥ | Modifier Letter Extra-High Tone Bar — used in conjunction with the IPA to represent high pitched tone. |
M | W | Just the letter ‘W’ |
N | N | stays the same |
O | O | also stays the same |
P | Ԁ | Cyrillic Capital ‘Komi De’ |
Q | Ỏ | Couldn’t find anything out about this one |
R | ᴚ | Latin Small Capital Turned ‘R’ — IPA |
S | S | Stays the same |
T | ⊥ | An Up Tack. A mathematical symbol used to mean a constant, usually one that has faulty logic, an absurdum. |
U | ∩ | A mathematical symbol meaning intersection in set theory. e.g. the bit in the middle of a Venn diagram. |
V | Λ | Greek Capital Letter Lamda — this one also shows up in the vaporwave aesthetic text generator |
W | M | Just the letter ‘M’ |
X | X | Stays the same |
Y | ⅄ | Turned Sans-Serif Capital Y — Looks like this one is just for being an upside down Y. Which is refreshing. |
Z | Z | Stays the same |