Kirshenbaum
Kirshenbaum/ˈkɜːrʃənbɔːm/,sometimes calledASCII-IPAorerkIPA,is a system used to represent theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA) inASCII.This way it allows typewriting IPA-symbols by regular keyboard. It was developed forUsenet,notably the newsgroupssci.langand alt.usage.english. It is named after Evan Kirshenbaum, who led the collaboration that created it. TheeSpeakopen sourcesoftwarespeech synthesizeruses the Kirshenbaum scheme.
Comparison of Kirshenbaum with X-SAMPA[edit]
The system uses almost all lower-case letters to represent the directly corresponding IPA character, but unlikeX-SAMPA,has the notable exception of the letter 'r'. A non-comprehensive list of sounds where the two systems use different characters:
| Sound | IPA | X-SAMPA | Kirshenbaum |
|---|---|---|---|
| alveolar trill | r | r |
r<trl>
|
| alveolar approximant | ɹ | r\ |
r
|
| near-open front unrounded vowel | æ | { |
&
|
| open back rounded vowel | ɒ | Q |
A.
|
| open-mid central unrounded vowel | ɜ | 3 |
V "
|
| primary stress | ˈ | " |
'
|
| secondary stress | ˌ | % |
,
|
Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels[edit]
This chart is based on information provided in the Kirshenbaum specification.[1][2]It may also be helpful to compare it to theSAMPA chartorX-SAMPA chart.
Consonant chart[edit]
| Place of articulation→ | Labial | Coronal | Dorsal | Laryngeal | Alveolarlaterals | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labio‐ dental |
Dental | Alveolar | Retro‐ flex |
Palato‐ alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Labio‐ velar |
Pharyn‐ geal |
Glottal | ||
| Manner of articulation↓ | |||||||||||||
| Nasals | m
|
M
|
n[
|
n
|
n.
|
n^
|
N
|
n "
|
n<lbv>
|
||||
| Stops | p b
|
t[ d[
|
t d
|
t. d.
|
c J
|
k g
|
q G
|
t<lbv> d<lbv>
|
?
|
||||
| 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<lat> z<lat>
|
| Approximants | r<lbd>
|
r[
|
r
|
r.
|
j
|
j<vel>
|
g "
|
w
|
h
|
||||
| Laterals | l[
|
l
|
l.
|
l^
|
L
|
||||||||
| Trills | b<trl>
|
r<trl>
|
r "
|
||||||||||
| Flaps | *
|
*.
|
*<lat>
| ||||||||||
| Ejectives | p`
|
t[`
|
t`
|
c`
|
k`
|
q`
|
|||||||
| Implosives | b`
|
d`
|
d`
|
J`
|
g`
|
G`
|
|||||||
| Clicks | p!
|
t!
|
c![Note 1]
|
c![Note 1]
|
k!
|
l!
| |||||||
The IPA consonant chart, for comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:
| IPA:Pulmonicconsonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| IPA:Non-pulmonicconsonants | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Vowel chart[edit]
| Kirshenbaum simplified chart ofvowels (the paired signs are unrounded/rounded vowels; symbols in parentheses designate vowels that exist in someoral languages,but do not have IPA signs) | ||||
| Front | Central | Back | Rhotic | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | 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 | a a.
|
(a "A".)
|
A A.
|
|
The IPA vowel chart, by comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:
| IPA:Vowels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Legend:unrounded•rounded |
Vowel modifiers and diacritics[edit]
Modifiers and diacritics follow the symbol they modify.
| Modifier/diacritic | Meaning |
|---|---|
~
|
Nasalized |
:
|
Long |
-
|
Unrounded |
.
|
Rounded |
"
|
Centralized |
<?>
|
Murmured |
<r>
|
Rhoticized |
Stress is indicated by'for primary stress, and,for secondary stress, placed before the stressed syllable.
Background[edit]
The Kirshenbaum system started developing in August 1992 through ausenetgroup,[3]after "being fed up with describing the sound of words by using other words".[4] 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.[1]
The developers decided to use the existing IPA Alpha bet, mapping eachsegmentto a single keyboard character, and adding extra ASCII characters optionally for IPAdiacritics.
An early (1993), different set in ASCII was derived from the pronunciation guide inMerriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary,which uses straight letters to describe the sound.[5]
Kirshenbaum's document,Representing IPA phonetics in ASCII,[1]is commonly used as an example of an "IPA ASCII" system.[6]
TheeSpeaksoftwarespeech synthesizeruses the Kirshenbaum scheme to representphonemeswith ascii characters.[7]
Encoding[edit]
IETF language tagshave registeredfonkirshas a variant subtag identifying text as transcribed in this convention.[8]
Notes and references[edit]
Notes[edit]
References[edit]
- ^abcKirshenbaum, Evan (2011-09-06)."Representing IPA phonetics in ASCII"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2016-04-19.
- ^Kirshenbaum, Evan."Hewlett Packard Labs".HP labs.Archived fromthe originalon 2004-02-19.Retrieved2005-09-20.
- ^Moran, Steve; Cysouw, Michael (2018).The Unicode Cookbook for Linguistics.Language Science Press. p. 46.doi:10.5281/zenodo.1296780.ISBN9783961100903.ISSN2364-8899.
- ^Kirshenbaum, Evan."Usenet IPA/ASCII transcription".Archived fromthe originalon 2011-09-26.
- ^Kirshenbaum, Evan."FAQ: Summary of IPA/ASCII transcription for English".Archived fromthe originalon 2011-08-08.
- ^Korpela, Jukka K. (28 June 2006).Unicode Explained.O'Reilly Media. p. 367.ISBN9780596101213.
- ^van Leussen, Jan-Wilem; Tromp, Maarten (26 July 2007),Latin to Speech,p. 6,CiteSeerX10.1.1.396.7811
- ^"Language Subtag Registry".IANA. 2021-03-05.Retrieved30 April2021.