Don,
The following works for me using a Mac, not sure if you can access the font
glyphs this way in other systems:
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\itshape
testing the \XeTeXglyph3\ and the \XeTeXglyph4
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What you want is \XeTeXglyph4, present in the italic font, but apparently there
is no Unicode point for it, and that is why we use \XeTeXglyph to access it.
Alternatively, more complicated and suboptimal, you can check the fontspec
manual for this kind of solution:
{\fontspec[FakeSlant=0.2]{Charis SIL} a}
I suppose the main issue here would be to take care of the nesting so that you
can keep the Roman shape inside an italicised context. Or maybe select the font
more specifically as Charis SIL-R. But the above solution is the best, as it
makes use of a character actually within Charis Italic.
Re fonts: I think Junicode also covers the IPA range.
All the best,
Juan
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