41
votes
Accepted
Why was "zh" picked to represent /ʒ/, and where does it come from?
It's based on an analogy s : sh :: z : zh, where the first three graphemes already existed in English spelling. Since ⟨z⟩ represents the voiced counterpart to ⟨s⟩, at least some English speakers find ...
- 17.8k
13
votes
Problems with the adoption of the Latin script in English?
English was written in the Latin alphabet even in the Old English period. Latin letters were introduced in the OE period by Irish missionaries around the 7th-8th century. The Anglo-Saxons converted to ...
- 82.2k
13
votes
Accepted
What is "=" in transcriptions of Hittite
Your guess is correct; the equals sign/double hyphen separates clitics from the words they attach to.
For example, from the Ten-Year Annals (KBo 3.4 ii 65):
nu=us=si=kan widār arha dahhun
Then I ...
- 64.1k
11
votes
Why does Hebrew transcribe Akkadian š inconsistently?
Yes, some people think Akkadian š was pronounced [s].
For the sibilants, traditionally /š/ has been held to be postalveolar [ʃ], and /s/, /z/, /ṣ/ analyzed as fricatives; but attested ...
- 17.8k
10
votes
Why Korean transcriptions of Japanese words uses the letters ㄱ,ㄷ,ㅈ for initial /k/, /t/, /tɕ/ while using ㅋ,ㅌ,ㅊ for other languages?
As you may know, "single" stops in Korean are weakly aspirated in initial position only (audio example), so Japanese stops in the unvoiced series (such as た) correspond to Korean "...
- 5,065
10
votes
What is the difference between two symbols: /i/ and /ɪ/?
In Southern Standard British English, also know as RP, there are two highish, frontish unrounded vowels: the FLEECE and KIT vowels, /i:/ and /ɪ/. The former is the vowel heard in the word fleece, the ...
- 3,962
9
votes
What are the current hurdles to automatic audio to IPA transcription?
Dividing up the audio
As you mentioned, formant analysis can place vowels nicely on a chart. But first you have to cut the vowels from the surrounding sounds. Often their formants are changed by ...
- 64.1k
9
votes
Accepted
A Lesson in Transcribing Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Short answer: Gardiner's classification system. It's what Unicode (and every major dictionary I know of) uses, and is quite comprehensive; pretty much anything you come across in everyday Egyptology ...
- 64.1k
9
votes
What's the difference between a syllabic consonant and a schwa followed by a consonant?
There are two answers, one in phonology, the other in phonetics.
The phonology answer is at least initially mildly stupid: it says that [mr̩t] is a syllable with three segments, [r̩] being the peak ...
- 82.2k
9
votes
Proto-Indo-European transcription: <u̯, i̯> vs. <w, j> & <k̑> vs. <ḱ>, etc
Transcription schemes and their diacritic differences
There is no real standard for the diacritics in reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. There are lots and lots of different transcription schemes, and ...
- 3,962
8
votes
Accepted
Is there any International standard for representing phonemes?
IPA is neutral as to analysis: it is used to represent sound at any level, including underlying, intermediate form, phonemic transcription and surface realization.
- 82.2k
8
votes
Origin of the ا that ends the past tense of Arabic verbs for هُم?
In fact, alif ا does not mean anything particular and that differs it from the rest of the Arabic letters. It is a kind of a service letter, now it is a support for hamza, now it is written as a ...
- 17.7k
8
votes
Why was "zh" picked to represent /ʒ/, and where does it come from?
The practice was encouraged by the widespread use of C+h digraphs th,ph,ch and especially sh, allowing the analogy s:sh::z:zh. The modern spelling sh for [ʃ] derives from Old English sc, then sch or ...
- 82.2k
8
votes
What is the difference between two symbols: /i/ and /ɪ/?
There are three relevant lexical sets here: FLEECE, KIT, and HAPPY. (HAPPY is specifically the last vowel in the word "happy", not the first, since it doesn't appear in monosyllables.)
In ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
Should I use square brackets or slashes when transcribing an oral text in IPA?
Since your stated goal is to compare someone's actual pronunciation with some standard pronunciation, you should use square brackets, to indicate that you are talking about actually pronounced sounds. ...
- 769
7
votes
Differences between phonemic and phonetic transcriptions
Different linguists have different ideas about phonetic versus phonemic. Mine is one that I think is close to the original conception of Baudouin de Courtenay and his student Kruszewski (to whom we ...
- 12.4k
7
votes
Transform Chinese, Korean, Hebrew and Arabic to IPA
IPA is a representation of sound; therefore "transforming to IPA" implies converting text to sound. That task is harder than it seems, because writing systems are underdetermined – they don't include ...
- 4,960
7
votes
Accepted
Why does Hebrew transcribe Akkadian š inconsistently?
While Akkadian š is generally cognate with Hebrew š or ś, there's good reason to believe its pronunciation was quite different! The reason it's transcribed as š is mostly historical—Akkadian was first ...
- 64.1k
7
votes
Accepted
What does 6 represent in Medieval Welsh?
It is obvious that 6 stands for the modern letter w which in Welsh can be pronounced in some words as the consonant [w] and in other words as vowels [ʊ] or [uː]. In your example there is the word ...
- 17.7k
7
votes
Accepted
What symbol, if any, signifies an audible nasal emission in the IPA?
I think what you're calling an audible nasal emission is just a voiceless nasal e.g. /m̥/, /n̥/, /ɳ̥/, & /ŋ̥/ (the diacritic here is not always well-rendered, but is a ring below).
By definition, ...
- 6,993
6
votes
Accepted
Do Azeri people actually use Ə instead of A in names?
This is an interesting question. As always with transliteration, there are compromises.
Why do Azeris still transcribe their names if both the forms are written in Latin? I am aware that they used ...
- 7,531
6
votes
Are there any existing guidelines for romanizing Aynu Itak?
The de facto standard method for transcribing Ainu (both in Latin alphabet and in katakana) being used today is the one proposed in Akor Itak, a textbook published by the Hokkaido Utari Association (...
- 61
6
votes
What are the current hurdles to automatic audio to IPA transcription?
The most basic problem is that it is impossible (given any realistic i.e. non-Star Trek technology) to map waveforms to IPA letters for an arbitrary language. It is, however, possible for well-enough ...
- 82.2k
6
votes
Transform Chinese, Korean, Hebrew and Arabic to IPA
The English Wiktionary has some Lua infrastructure to do this:
Chinese languages: Module:zh-pron. Generates IPA from the
romanizations of the various languages (Mandarin pinyin, Cantonese
jyutping, ...
- 169
6
votes
Transform Chinese, Korean, Hebrew and Arabic to IPA
I'll deal with Korean writing. I don't know that there are any tools for directly converting the Korean writing system, hangeul, to IPA, but you can do it in several steps. You'll need some ...
- 1,485
6
votes
What is the phonetic transcription of the Lithuanian name Austėja?
I'd do it this way: [əʊ'stʲeja] (I like this variant more, but don't have any data to prove it) or [əʊs'tʲeja]. It is based on my knowledge of Lithuanian and this recording.
It is differ from ...
- 161
5
votes
Where to start with deciphering this language?
"How do you go about deciphering a language without any spoken basis, no native speakers to converse with, or another other leads to go on besides ones provided by context alone?"
You don't.
With ...
- 7,424
5
votes
To what extent can Japanese Kana be adapted to the Spanish language and be intelligible?
The phonology of Spanish might be vaguely similar to that of Japanese but the differences are also relevant. There are many consonantal clusters in Spanish and also word final consonants, and this ...
- 2,549
5
votes
Accepted
Are there any sources that provide accurate IPA transcriptions for Danish?
Don't panic, your sources are great.
The problem is that typically dictionaries use some sort of their own transcription, usually the one conventional for the given language. These transcriptions are ...
- 1,066
5
votes
Accepted
Should I use square brackets or slashes when transcribing an oral text in IPA?
Short answer: use slashes.
Slashes are used for phonemic transcriptions or for very approximate phonetic transcriptions, and brackets are used for phonetic transcriptions. A phonemic transcription ...
- 12.4k
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