Trebor Jung wrote:

> Absolutely! I would really like to look at your transcription scheme

Well, first of all here's the consonants. I use more digraphs than
x-sampa does, and I use them a little more consistently, in order to
conserve letters.

This will be interspersed with a little commentary (two rows of stars
being used to deliminate commentary), and the sort of feedback I'm
expecting is not dissimilar to the sort of feedback you'd give to a
conlang. Best to take it in the same spirit, IYKWIM.

Adrian.

********************************************************************************
********************************************************************************

Working Title: "FITS - Frivolous IPA Transcription Scheme"

Consonants

  bil   lad    dap     ret     pal    vel     uv     pha    gl
+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------+-----+-------+------ +-----+
|   m |   M |     n |    n` |    N~ |   N |    N` |       |     | nas
| p b |     | t   d | t` d` | k~ g~ | k g | k` g` |       | ?   | plos
|  b* |     |    r* |       |       |     |    g* |       |     | tr
|     |     |    d* |   d`* |       |     |       |       |     | t/fl
| P B | f v |TsS DzZ| s` z` | K~ G~ | K G | K` G` | h~ H~ | h H | fric
|     |     | x   X |       |       |     |       |       |     | lat fric
|     |   V |     r |    r` |     j |   J |       |       |     | appr
|     |     |     l |    l` |    L~ |   L |       |       |     | lat appr
|  b} |     |    d} |       |   g~} |  g} |   g`} |       |     | vd implos
+-----+-----+-------+-------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+

[p!] bilabial click          [p^] bilabial ejective
[T!] dental click            [t^] dental/aveolar ejective
[t!] (post)alveolar click    [k^] velar ejective
[s!] palatoalveolar click    [s^] alveolar fricative ejective
[l!] alveolar lateral click

[W]  voiceless labial-velar fricative   [K$] voiceless epiglottal fricative
[w]  voiced labial-velar approximant    [G$] voiced epiglottal fricative
[w~] voiced labial-palatal approximant  [k$] epiglottal plosive
[l*] alveolar lateral flap              [s$] voiceless alveopalatal fricative
[#]  velarised /l/                      [z$] voiced alveopalatal fricative

[{]  begin double articulation or affricate (when necessary)

********************************************************************************
********************************************************************************

Now, as for the vowels, let us first note that people tend to use
x-sampa [3] for the vowel in "bird" regardless of whether it's really
[3], [8], [3`], [8`], or anything in that vicinity (for my part, I
still need rhoticity to be unambiguously explained to me, as it's
something I have unresolved questions about). In general, [3] gets
used to mean, "a roughly mid-central vowel, but with a different
quality from schwa". Since in practise people rarely bother with
higher resolution than that when discussing vowels in the mid central
region, I have not bothered to implement such resolution, and have
designated [R] to serve the above role (not wholly unlike Kirsch).

********************************************************************************
********************************************************************************

Vowel diagram

+---------------------------+
|                           |  also [R] to represent the vowel in 'heard'
| i y       i>  u<      | u |  i.e. roughly mid-central but distinct from schwa
|     I Y   I>  U<  = U     |
|                           |
|   e c               q o   |
|             @             |
|     E C           Q O     |
|                           |
|       &     %             |
|       a (       A )       |
|                           |
+---------------------------+

Diacritics and Suprasegmentals

[\T] dental                       [\<]  advanced
[\t] apical                       [\>]  retracted
[\s] laminal                      [\-]  raised
[\p] linguolabial                 [\+]  lowered
[\w] labialised                   [\%]  centralised
[\~] palatised                    [\@]  mid centralised
[\k] velarised                    [\o]  more rounded
[\H] pharangealised               [\e]  less rounded
[\K] velarised or pharangealised  [\G<] advanced tongue root
[\N] nasalised                    [\G>] retracted tongue root
[\R] rhoticity

[\f] voiceless           ["]  begin primary stress          [:]  long
[\v] voiced              [']  begin secondary stress        [;]  half long
[\F] breathy voiced      [,]  syllabic break                [.]  extra short
[\V] creaky voiced       [/]  minor (foot) group            [_]  syllabic
[\h] aspirated           [//] major (intonation) group      [\.] non syllabic
[\n] nasal release       [\\] linking (absence of a break)
[\l] lateral release
[\_] no audible release

Tones not implemented

Meta Comments

The following letters are not used in [\x] digraphs:  abcd  g ij  mn  qr  u  xyz
                                                      ABCDE   IJ LM  PQ  TU  XYZ

Numbers 0-9 are not used at all.
Numbers 0 and 1 should be avoided lest confusion arise with 0 and l.