Writing IPA

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RandyGibbons
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Writing IPA

Post by RandyGibbons »

Browsing recent Textkit posts has rekindled a question I have often had before, done some research on, and then quickly abandoned: Does anyone have recommendations or guidance on (1) IPA keyboards & fonts for Windows 10 (in my case) or Mac, and (2) writing IPA on the internet (e.g., in Textkit)?

(On Joel's recommendation, I have posted this topic on the Learning Greek forum, since indeed IPA would probably most often be useful in discussions of the evolution, dialects, and pronunciation of ancient Greek, but IPA could of course be occasionally useful on just about any Textkit forum.)

Randy Gibbons

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ἑκηβόλος
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

This is a list of vowels and consonants:
http://web.uvic.ca/ling/resources/ipa/c ... IPAlab.htm

Here is utility that you can click on that list to type:
http://westonruter.github.io/ipa-chart/keyboard/

Here is a page with the pronunciations of vowels:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA_vow ... with_audio
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

RandyGibbons
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by RandyGibbons »

Thanks, ἑηκβόλος. One of my stumbling blocks has been how to apply/type the IPA diacritics. For example, a "dot" (Unicode: COMBINING VERTICAL LINE BELOW; are there official IPA names for the diacritics?) sub-scripting a letter/symbol marks the letter/symbol as syllabic. I was just reading a scholarly article that mentioned that in an early (pre-Mycenaean/Linear B) stage of Greek r (printed in the article with a "dot" under it) existed as a syllabic vowel. I would like to reproduce that r-with-a-dot-under-it. On the westonruter web site, is there a way to do that?

(I may be betraying my profound ignorance of phonetics and the use of IPA.)

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Re: Writing IPA

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

In answer to your question ... Yes, it does. You can use the second link there that I listed. First type the consonant; r, l, or m, n, in the box at the bottom, then click on the small circle to the left of "Syllabic" near the bottom left of the page. That will give you r̩, l̩, m̩, n̩.

I'm not sure myself, how this overstrike combination relates to the single character ṛ Unicode Character 'LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH DOT BELOW' (U+1E5B) and related pre-combined characters though. Perhaps somebody else can share on that.
___________________
A side point (and probably preaching to the choir) on your topic of interest ... A single witness to a period of the language doesn't necessarily represent the whole stage of the language. It is like the difference between visiting a pioneer or settler village and saying, "That's the table your great-great grandparents ate at", rather than "that is a table from the period when your great-great-grandparents lived". That is to illustrate that how kr̩tos was pronounced is probably not only dependent on the period of the text, but also on which dialect family the word was used in at that period of the language in question. The historical dialects record κράτος (Ion.), κάρτος (Epic) and κρέτος (Les.Aeol.), but it was not the introduction of the alphabet that brought about the differentiation between pronunciations, however slight they may have been in practice. I remember uncritically buying the ancient period of the language theory when I was in University. Now, however, I take the view that the sonorant liquids or vocalic consonants are most probably an historical feature of the language, and I also recognise that the earlier periods of possible dialectical variation are perhaps at least hinted at later attested dialectical variation. I remember that after studying a little Sanskrit, I and my classmate were trying to read these eqivocally generic pre-Greek materials using what we believed were syllabic consonants. In my 20's I believed was very scientific and cutting edge, but now looking back I was was probably putting uncontrolled or non-discript vowels in. As an attempt at scholarship, and as a way to slow down and ponder, it was a valuable exercise within the context of that part of the dialects course.

Point being, that if you pronounce pre-Mycenaean Greek as a stage of constructed proto-Greek, you are not really reading the tablets, but rather applying scholarship to reading of the tablets. A great thing to do, but it is in origin a twi-step process.
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

RandyGibbons
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by RandyGibbons »

Ah, on the Weston Ruter site you linked me to, type (for example) r, then click the diacritic, and voilà: r̩ !! (Doesn't display real well in whatever font is being used here, but that's another matter.)

Thanks!

As to your side point, while, to be honest, I'm not 100% sure I get it (if you mean 'take the proffered pronunciation of reconstructed early stage languages with a grain of salt,' yes, I agree), I'd rather restrict this topic to just the mechanics of typing IPA.

Outside of Textkit, I have my own purposes for wanting to write IPA. But for Textkit purposes I wanted to be able to reproduce things like this statement by Martin West in his 1988 The Rise of the Greek Epic article:

"Certain words and phrases [in the Homeric texts as we have them in the manuscript tradition] are unmetrical as they stand, but would have been metrical at an earlier stage of Greek [pre-Mycenaean/Linear B, according to West] when r̩ existed as a syllabic vowel: when

Ἐνυαλίωι ἀνδρειφόντηι was *Enūwalíōi̬ anr̩qʷhóntāi ... ."

Again, I don't want to debate West's assertion in this topic, I just want to be able to convey it. That requires being able to type his IPA characters (I realize what he writes is not "pure" IPA - the vowel macrons, for example, are not IPA as far as I know. I used the Maori keyboard for those.).

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Re: Writing IPA

Post by ἑκηβόλος »

RandyGibbons wrote:if you mean 'take the proffered pronunciation of reconstructed early stage languages with a grain of salt,' yes, I agree),
Yes. And I was also beginning to discuss which particular grain to take it with.
τί δὲ ἀγαθὸν τῇ πομφόλυγι συνεστώσῃ ἢ κακὸν διαλυθείσῃ;

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opoudjis
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by opoudjis »

RandyGibbons wrote:Browsing recent Textkit posts has rekindled a question I have often had before, done some research on, and then quickly abandoned: Does anyone have recommendations or guidance on (1) IPA keyboards & fonts for Windows 10 (in my case) or Mac, and (2) writing IPA on the internet (e.g., in Textkit)
Mac: I've been using this for 20 years: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page ... l_keyboard . (In fact, I was using the pre-Unicode version before that.)

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opoudjis
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by opoudjis »

RandyGibbons wrote:Thanks, ἑηκβόλος. One of my stumbling blocks has been how to apply/type the IPA diacritics.
On Mac (again), I often just end up bringing up the Character Palette, and inserting the one-off diacritic I need from there. The SIL IPA keyboard, and the US Extended keyboard, are also your friend.

RandyGibbons
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Re: Writing IPA

Post by RandyGibbons »

ευχαριστώ πολύ, oroudjis. For general purposes, I use the 'insert Symbols/Special Characters' feature in Windows (I guess that's the equivalent of the Mac Character Palette) and the Windows US International Keyboard quite a lot, but I've had a hard time finding many of the IPA symbols, especially the diacritics. I don't know the IPA symbols and their Unicode values systematically, which I guess is part of my problem. My instinct has been that I'd be better off with a dedicated IPA keyboard, and based on your recommendation, I think I'm going to try out SIL's. (I had looked at their web site, but when I saw they had three "keyboarding options" for Windows, I got lazy and backed off.) Thanks again.

(Re my lack of systematic knowledge, I was actually going to take an Intro to Phonetics class from the nearby University of Pennsylvania's Linguistics department this spring, but fortunately or unfortunately, the professor is on sabbatical!)

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