Yet another ASCII-IPA scheme...

Well, I have said why I don't like X-SAMPA, and that of course poses the
question of doing better.  And indeed I have cobbled together my own
encoding which I shall present here, even though it is still in a rather
preliminary state.  The consonant symbols are mostly based on Herman
Miller's KPA, with a few changes (I have switched alveolar and retroflex
flaps and trills, for example), and the escape characters (",*) are
preceding the letters rather than following them.  The vowel symbols are
of my own device, with the usage of ["e] and ["i] for mid and high back
unrounded vowels being inspired by Finno-Ugrist conventions.  The basic
principle, except in the open grade, is that " flips rounding and *
centralizes.  Suprasegmentals and diacritics follow KPA.

OK, here it is.  Share and enjoy!

-- snip --

Consonants

          blb lbd dnt alv all pav rfl plt vel uvl phr epg glt
vl.stop   p           t           t.  c   k   q      "?   ?
vd.stop   b           d           d.  J   g   Q
vd.nasal  m   M       n           n. "n   N  "N
vd.flap               r  *l       r.
vd.trill "B          "r          "r.         "R
vl.fric   P   f   T   s   L   S   s.  C   x   X   H  "H   h
vd.fric   B   v   D   z  "l   Z   z. "j   G   R   9  "9  "h
vd.appr      "v      *r   l      *r.  j  "w

click     p!      T!  t!  l!          c!
vd.impl   b`          d`              J`  g`  Q`
vl.ejec   p`          t`                  k`

(The palatal and velar laterals in the IPA chart are really
palatal_ized_ and velar_ized_ ones, if you ask me, and are thus
rendered [l_j] and [l_G], respectively.)

 W  voiceless labial-velar fricative
 w  voiced labial-velar approximant
"y  voiced labial-palatal approximant
 l. voiced retroflex lateral approximant
"c  voiceless alveo-palatal fricative
"z  voiced      "      "        "

{kp} double articulation
{ts} affricate

Vowels   Front     Central    Back

Close    i  y       *i *u    "i  u
              I  Y          U
Close-mid   e "o     *e *o   "e  o
                        @
Open-mid       E "O   *E *O  "E  O
                &       *a
Open              a "a        A *A

Suprasegmentals

'      primary stress
,      secondary stress
:      long
;      half-long
^(     extra-short
-      syllable break
|      minor (foot) group
||     major (intonation) group
=      linking (absence of a break)
5 ^"   extra high
4 ^'   high
3 ^-   mid
2 ^`   low
1 ^=   extra low
>      downstep
<      upstep
24 ^v  rising (optionally, [/])
42 ^^  falling (optionally, [\])
<<     global rise
>>     global fall
diacritics
_h     voiceless          _:     breathy voiced     _d     dental
_v     voiced             _~     creaky voiced      _a     apical
^h     aspirated          _m     linguolabial       _l     laminal
_)     more rounded       ^w     labialized         ~      nasalized
_(     less rounded       ^j     palatalized        ^n     nasal release
_+     advanced           ^G     velarized          ^l     lateral
release
_-     retracted          ^9     pharyngealized     ^7     no audible
                                                           release
^:     centralized        ^~     velarized or pharyngealized
^x     mid-centralized    _^     raised
_|     syllabic           _V     lowered
_^     non-syllabic       _<     advanced tongue root
^r     rhoticity          _>     retracted tongue root

Additional symbols not included in IPA:
(mainly from Ladefoged & Maddieson, _The Sounds of the World's
Languages_)
_M     labiodental (alternatively, [{qp}] and [{db}] for labiodental
stops)
_.     apical retroflex (if necessary to distinguish from sub-apical
       retroflex)
^m ^N  prenasalized (^mb ^nd ^"nJ ^Ng, etc.)
^^     closed post-alveolar (hissing-hushing) fricatives
^"h    alternative representation of breathy voice
^x ^G  affricate click release
^?     glottal click release
_=     strident vowels (double tilde below)
_w     simple labialization (not velarized)
7      velarized l (X-SAMPA [5])
*I *Y  central vowels slightly lower than [*i] and [*u] (X-SAMPA [I\],
[U\])
*i     U+027F reversed r with fishhook (resembles iota turned 180
degrees)
i.     U+0285 squat reversed esh (represents a retroflex vowel)
^s     sibilant fricative; no IPA equivalent
^o     whistled; no IPA equivalent
%      arbitrary phonetic symbol, e.g., the so-called "voiced glottal
stop"
^*     arbitrary diacritic, for example to represent stiff voice

-- snap --

Comments?

...brought to you by the Weeping Elf and the letter "ö"
  [b*rO:t t@ ju: baI D@ wi:piN El^Gf &nd D@ lEt@^r "o:]

Replies