Re: CPA - An ASCII-based phonetic alphabet

> Date:         Fri, 16 Nov 2001 11:15:41 -0500
> From: Steve Kramer <scooter@...>
>
> With all of the various ideas being offered for ASCII-IPAs, is there
> a feeling among the list that X-SAMPA is inadequate for our needs
> here?
As far as I can tell, noone finds X-SAMPA inadequate. Non-mnemonic,
over-complicated, and ugly, perhaps, but not inadequate.

I don't find it particularly pretty myself, but at least it has the
qualities necessary to allow machine transcription into real IPA and
back, and knowing it can be useful outside the context of this list.

> I must admit to finding it counter-intuitive, but then, I'm a
> beginning student.
Part of the problem is that SAMPA, and after it X-SAMPA, is designed
to be as mnemonic as possible for people who already know the IPA
fairly well. And the IPA is only intuitive if you know Greek,
Sanskrit, Old English, and Old Norse.

> If so, perhaps we could all agree on modifications to CPA or the
> other standard advanced, and use it instead as our own list
> standard?
Let me explain my feelings with an analogy:

SAMPA and X-SAMPA are like English.

Kirschenbaum ASCII-IPA is like Esperanto.

The newer schemes are like Ido, Novial, Latine sine flexione,
Interlingua, Interlingua, Interlingue, and so on.

Note: This list uses English almost exclusively. So does AUXLANG, for
that matter.

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

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