Re[4]: [tied] Re: how many vowels English language has?

At 7:34:45 AM on Tuesday, August 19, 2003, P&G wrote:

>>> There is no standard way of typing IPA from an ordinary
>>> keyboard.

>> The Kirshenbaum system is the de facto standard ... and
>> I'm aware of at least four other standards;

> That makes five. So there is no standard, as I said.

I disagree. In practice there are two, Kirshenbaum and
that SAMPA monstrosity, mostly used by distinct communities;
the others are standards only in the sense that they have
been codified so that one can point to them.

Please note that I did not make the claim that you attribute
to me above: the elision substantially changes the sense of
what I wrote.

> I'm well aware of Kirschenbaum's sytem (and how seldom it
> is actually used!)

The guts of it are quite widely used in my experience.

>> Kirshenbaum uses /@/ for schwa.

> We used to do that on this list, until several members
> complained that their systems were treating @ as the email
> sign, so we changed it, by internal agreement, to &, which
> means we can no longer use & for the sound /æ/,

I know. I mentioned it only to explain to those memebers
who may *not* have been familiar with other systems why I
was using <&> in a way different from the one used here.

> so I use the symbol A because, in broad transcriptions of
> English, it is easy. The context means that most people
> don't take it as a phonetic symbol,

On a linguistics list?!

> they way you seem to have - but I apologise again if I
> have misled you.

No, I just found it extremely hard to interpret. My
expectation is that ad hoc phonetic symbols will be
explained. And yes, in this context it *was* being used as
a phonetic symbol, broad transcription or no.

Brian