On Apr 3, 2004, at 18:55, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
fabiform fabiform_wikipedian@yahoo.com writes:
I'm comfortable with using the IPA, but many people do find all the symbols off-putting. In fact, very few dictionaries use it, presumably for that reason. Perhaps SAMPA is a bit friendlier?
All printed dictionary I am own use the IPA. Maybe, online ditionaries are different? If yes, they might be different because editor don't know how to enter IPA symbols.
IPA seems to be fairly uncommon in monolingual English-language dictionaries, which tend to use their own idiosyncratic systems. My bilingual dictionaries are pretty much all IPA, though.
This SAMPA looks very ugly to me and I have never learnt it.
SAMPA is just an ASCIIfied IPA. It's a crutch for the ancient days of crappy uninternationalized computers which are coming to an end.
I can't say SAMPA is any friendlier to an unfamiliar reader than IPA, it's just easier to type.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)