Comparison of Kirshenbaum with X-SAMPA
The system uses almost all lower-case letters to represent the directly corresponding IPA character, but unliker , , r<trl>
, -
, r\ , , r
, -
, near-open front unrounded vowel , , , , { , , &
, -
, Q , , A.
, -
, 3 , , V"
, -
, primary stress , , , , " , , '
, -
, % , , ,
Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels
''This chart is based on information provided in the Kirshenbaum specification. It may also be helpful to compare it to the SAMPA chart or X-SAMPA chart.''Consonant chart
{, class="wikitable" style="text-align: center" , + Kirshenbaum chart ofm
, M
, n n
, n.
,
, n^
, N
, n"
, n<lbv>
,
,
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Stop consonant, Stops
, p b
,
, t[ d[ t d
, t. d.
,
, c J
, k g
, q G
, t<lbv> d<lbv>
,
, ?
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Fricative consonant, Fricatives
, P B
, f v
, T D
, s z
, s. z.
, S Z
, C C<vcd>
, x Q
, X g"
, w<vls> w
, H H<vcd>
, h
, s z
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Approximants
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
,
, r<lbd>
, r[ r
, r.
,
, j
, j<vel>
, g"
, w
,
, h
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Lateral consonant, Laterals
,
,
, l[ l
, l.
,
, l^
, L
,
,
,
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Trill consonant, Trills
, b<trl>
,
,
, r<trl>
,
,
,
,
, r"
,
,
,
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Flaps
,
,
,
, * *. *<lat>
, p`
,
, t t`
,
,
, c`
, k`
, q`
,
,
,
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Implosive consonant, Implosives
, b`
,
, d`
, d`
,
,
, J`
, g`
, G`
,
,
,
,
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Click consonant, Clicks
, p!
,
, t!
, c!Kirshenbaum assigned to IPA , which it used indifferently for both alveolar and palatal clicks.
,
,
, c!
, k!
,
,
,
,
, l!
The IPA consonant chart, for comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:
Vowel chart
{, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
, -
, colspan=5 , Kirshenbaum simplified chart of vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...
s
''(the paired signs are unrounded/rounded vowels; symbols in parentheses designate vowels that exist in some oral language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
s, but do not have IPA signs)''
, -
!
! width=20% , Front
! width=20% , Central
! width=20% , Back
The human back, also called the dorsum, is the large posterior area of the human body, rising from the top of the buttocks to the back of the neck. It is the surface of the body opposite from the chest and the abdomen. The vertebral column runs ...
! width=20% , Rhotic
, -
, Close
Close may refer to:
Music
* ''Close'' (Kim Wilde album), 1988
* ''Close'' (Marvin Sapp album), 2017
* ''Close'' (Sean Bonniwell album), 1969
* "Close" (Sub Focus song), 2014
* "Close" (Nick Jonas song), 2016
* "Close" (Rae Sremmurd song), 201 ...
, i y
, i" u"
, u- u
,
, -
, Near-close
, I I.
,
, (U-) U
,
, -
, Close-mid
, e Y
, @<umd> @.
, o- o
, R<umd>
, -
, Mid
,
, @
,
, R
, -
, Open-mid
, E W
, V" O"
, V O
,
, -
, Near-open
, &
, &"
, ''(no symbols)''
,
, -
, Open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' ( ...
, a a.
, (a" A".)
, A A.
,
The IPA vowel chart, by comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:
Vowel modifiers and diacritics
Modifiers and diacritics follow the symbol they modify.
{, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
, -
! Modifier/diacritic
! Meaning
, -
, ~
, Nasalized
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
, -
, :
, Long
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
, -
, -
, Unrounded
In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a ''rounded'' vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and ''unrounded'' vowels are pro ...
, -
, .
, Rounded
, -
, "
, Centralized
, -
, <?>
, Murmured
, -
, <r>
, Rhoticized
Stress is indicated by ' for primary stress, and , for secondary stress, placed before the stressed syllable.
Background
The Kirshenbaum system started developing in August 1992 through a usenet
Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it wa ...
group, after "being fed up with describing the sound of words by using other words".
It should be usable for both phonemic and narrow phonetic transcription.
* It should be possible to represent all symbols and diacritics in the IPA.
* The previous guideline notwithstanding, it is expected that (as in the past) most use will be in transcribing English, so where tradeoffs are necessary, decisions should be made in favor of ease of representation of phonemes which are common in English.
* The representation should be readable.
* It should be possible to mechanically translate from the representation to a character set which includes IPA. The reverse would also be nice.
The developers decided to use the existing IPA alphabet, mapping each ''segment'' to a single keyboard character, and adding extra ASCII characters optionally for IPA ''diacritics''.
An early (1993), different set in ASCII was derived from the pronunciation guide in Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which uses straight letters to describe the sound.
Kirshenbaum's document, ''Representing IPA phonetics in ASCII'', is commonly used as an example of an "IPA ASCII" system.
The eSpeak
eSpeakNG is a free and open-source, cross-platform, compact, software speech synthesizer. It uses a formant synthesis method, providing many languages in a relatively small file size. Much of the programming for eSpeakNG's language support is ...
software speech synthesizer
Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...
uses the Kirshenbaum scheme to represent phonemes
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...
with ascii characters.
Encoding
IETF language tag
An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code or tag that is used to identify human languages in the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the s ...
s have registered as a variant subtag identifying text as transcribed in this convention.
Notes and references
Notes
References
External links
Kirshenbaum specification
( PDF file)
Tutorial and guide with sound samples
{{IPA navigation
Phonetic alphabets
ASCII
International Phonetic Alphabet