Re: Idea for a new ASCII-IPA scheme

Herman Miller wrote:
> Here's my latest attempt; it started out something like SAMPA, but ended up
> somewhat easier to use and more logical. In most cases, " indicates a
> modification of the basic letter, and * stands for a letter that is rotated
> 180 degrees.
That sounds very much like the CB system which uses
; for rotated, thus ;e = schwa
. for ligatures, thus .ae = ash
& for unstated modification, thus &c is "curly-tailed c", voiceless
alveo-palatal fric
| for extended leg, thus |B = beta
( for right-hook, thus (B = B-hook (bilabial implosive)
) for left-ward tail, thus m) = labiodental nasal
- for line thru the letter, thus -d = edh
^ for superscript
~ for tilde thru or over, thus ~l = l-with-tilde, ~a = a-with-tilde
< for right-tail, thus <d = retroflex d

It actually is very good because it *describes what the IPA symbols look
like*, rather than simply assigning fairly random letters, thus ;3 for
epsilon, since it looks like an rotated three.  E is listed as an
alternative, tho.

However, despite its superiority over SAMPA, I generally use SAMPA since
things like
[D@ dVm b&t] is more recognizable to most of us than
[-d;e d;vm b.aet], despite its advantages to someone who knew no
ASCII-IPA schemes but did know standard IPA, since its easy to convert,
-d is d-with-a-dash, which looks like edh
;e is rotated e
;v is rotated v
.ae is ae ligature

While D looks nothing like edh, V bares only a slight resemblance to
carat, @ has no resemblance to schwa, and & has no resemblance to ash -
in fact, the only reason I can see for that is that "and" has an ash, at
least in my dialect, and presumably that of the inventor.

--
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-- Benjamin Franklin
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