On Apr 3, 2004, at 18:55, Karl Eichwalder wrote:
fabiform <fabiform_wikipedian(a)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)