Re: Diving In...

> Date:         Thu, 1 Nov 2001 19:54:07 +0100
> From: Almaran Dungeonmaster <dungeonmaster@...>
>
> > A sample of SAMPAfication of Dutch phonemes is on this page:
> > http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/dutch.htm
> >
> > And for English English:
> > http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/english.htm
>
> According to these pages the /r/ in english "wrong" and the /r/ in dutch
> "rand" are the same, but to me, they sound vastly different.
>
> Is there something wrong with my ears, or am I misunderstanding something?
IPA is often used for phonemic (aka broad) transcription, where if
there's only one r-like phoneme in a language, you just use /r/.

That's the usage that SAMPA is designed for. It doesn't really cater
for close phonetic transcription (which is usually found in []) ---
that's more the role of X-SAMPA.

On this list we often try to describe the precise sound of a language,
so we want the fullest possible repertoire of mirrored, small caps,
inverted, accented, and hooked-above-and-below letter forms. That's
why you see lots of X-SAMPA fanciness around, but it's not needed if
you know the sounds of the language from another source.

> As a matter of fact, I have problems with all the r and l sounds in the
> phonetic alphabet... is there anyone who can explain what all of them sound
> like?
Someone just gave the URL to a page at SIL that will play sounds for
each IPA symbol.

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