Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
I have a hard time understanding this claim that using IPA improves communication. Surely a device intended to facilitate communication should make accessibility its first priority?
OK, its not about "communication" per se, its just a transcription system for phonetics, that we chose a few years ago to use for pronunciation keys.
I suppose forcing all the various projects to use English might make it easier for the people who understand English to read them all; but as it happens, there are quite a few people who don't read English comfortably and we've sacrificed rigid uniformity for actual usefulness.
Straw man. Your confusing English with "Roman alphabet" - the latter of which is just about universal at this point. The rest of your argument sort of got lost.. I don't understand what you are saying, except that you are misrepresenting my argument as one about "universality."
Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
I think the prospect of a nice machine synthesizer in the future (with the ability to provide real recordings, of course) is probably sufficient justification for continuing to use IPA all by itself.
Ah. The minimalist argument. :)
-Stevertigo