Geoffrey Thomas wrote:
I've seen IPA/SAMPA used in Wikipedia articles and didn't like it. The former uses too many non-ASCII characters to make it easy enough to use
Currently, that's true, but technology is evolving ... ;-)
and the latter uses weird ASCII signs that make the word [unreadable] and l33t-like for those who don't know the system.
I agree to that. ASCII is not suitable for phonetic representation.
The system used in practically every school dictionary I've seen [...] everything else is sĭm'pəl ēnəf' for us to use. (If those words came out garbled, either your mail client or mine doesn't support Unicode. That was 73 12D 6D 27 70 259 6C 20 113 6E 259 66 27 hex.)
You've sent HTML entities in a plain-text mail. ;-) No compliant mail/news client should interpret them.
Here's what you were trying to write: everything else is sĭm'pəl ēnəf' for us to use. Geoffrey Thomas / jěf'rē tä'məs / JEF-ree TAH-muhs
A Unicode-capable mail/news client should be able to display this correctly.
However, I'm not a great fan of this system either. It is not significantly easier to generate than IPA, and it is certainly less universal (I, for once, have never come across it; maybe it's Americentric).
(I-mi-TAY-shuns). If this latter system is formalized (FAR-muh-liyzd) it may be simpler than SAMPA for those who don't have the time to learn it.
I always thought this system looked really un-pro-FESH-un-al.
Greetings, Timwi