Before we start discussing in earnest I'd
like to sort out some technical problems. There seems to be some some kind of
bug in my mail browser (MS Outlook Express 5) and in IE 5 as well. First, the
IPA "Latin alpha" symbol (the RP vowel in last) of Lucida
Sans Unicode isn't displayed; secondly, the colon-like length mark takes up way
too much space.
Does this
[lɑːst]
look like a transcription of
last to you? If the same problem appears in other browsers and
nobody knows a cure for it, I suggest that we use [a]
for any low back-to-central vowel, [æ] for any
low front vowel, and stoop to using the plain colon [:] as a length mark. The transcription would
therefore be
[la:st].
Other common symbols seem to
be displayed correctly. Apart from the alpha (the second item), the only one
that's invisible to me in the list below is a little-used g-like character
(red). Some (not very important) diacritics can't be seen either. Please report
any problems YOU have with regard to fonts, browsers etc.
ɐ ɑ ɒ ɓ ɔ ɕ ɖ ɗ ɘ ə ɚ
ɛ ɜ ɝ ɞ ɟ ɠ ɡ ɢ ɣ ɤ ɥ ɦ ɧ ɨ ɩ ɪ ɫ ɬ ɭ ɮ ɯ ɰ ɱ ɲ ɳ ɴ ɵ
ɶ
ɷ ɸ ɹ ɺ ɻ ɼ ɽ ɾ ɿ ʀ ʁ ʂ ʃ ʄ ʅ ʆ ʇ ʈ ʉ ʊ ʋ ʌ ʍ ʎ ʏ ʐ ʑ ʒ ʓ ʔ ʕ ʖ ʗ ʘ ʙ ʚ ʛ ʜ
ʝ ʞ ʟ
ʠ ʡ ʢ ʣ ʤ ʥ ʦ ʧ ʨ
Finally, I'd like to endorse Mark's
recommendation of SC UniPad. It's a great program and saves a lot of
time. The currently distributed version (0.93c) expires on June 30, but a
free update will be available by then.
Piotr