Re[2]: [tied] Re: how many vowels English language has?

At 3:50:58 AM on Monday, August 18, 2003, P&G wrote:

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

The Kirshenbaum system is the de facto standard in the
Usenet groups sci.lang and alt.usage.english, and I'm aware
of at least four other standards; they can be found at
<http://www.cs.brown.edu/~dpb/ascii-ipa.html>.

> Several attempts have been tried, but it's still hit and
> miss. Perhaps I should have explained what I was doing. I
> write unrounded front vowels, from high to low, as /i I e
> E A a/.

Kirshenbaum /i I e E & a/. (Kirsh. uses /@/ for schwa.)

> I have no way of distinguishing back /a/ from front /a/ as
> it's not usually necessary for what I do.

Kirsh.: /a/ 'lower-case-a', /A/ 'script-a', /A./
'turned-script-a'.

Brian