Kirshenbaum , sometimes called ASCII-IPA or erkIPA, is a system used to represent the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic transcription, phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standa ...

(IPA) in ASCII. This way it allows typewriting IPA-symbols by regular keyboard. It was developed for Usenet, notably the newsgroups sci.lang and alt.usage.english. It is named after Evan Kirshenbaum, who led the collaboration that created it. The eSpeak

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software speech synthesizer uses the Kirshenbaum scheme.

Comparison of Kirshenbaum with X-SAMPA

The system uses almost all lower-case letters to represent the directly corresponding IPA character, but unlike X-SAMPA, has the notable exception of the letter 'r'. Examples where the two systems have a different mapping between characters and sounds are: {, class=wikitable ! Sound !! IPA !! X-SAMPA !! Kirshenbaum , - , alveolar trill , , , , r , , r<trl> , - , alveolar approximant , , , , r\ , , r , - ,

near-open front unrounded vowel The near-open front unrounded vowel, or near-low front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase of the ligature. Bot ...

, , , , { , , & , - , open back rounded vowel , , , , Q , , A. , - , open-mid central unrounded vowel , , , , 3 , , V" , - , primary stress , , , , " , , ' , - , secondary stress , , , , % , , ,

Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels

''This chart is based on information provided in the Kirshenbaum specification. It may also be helpful to compare it to the

SAMPA chart The following show the typical symbols for consonants and vowels used in SAMPA, an ASCII-based system based on the International Phonetic Alphabet. Note that SAMPA is not a universal system as it varies from language to language. Consonants ...

or X-SAMPA chart.''

Consonant chart

{, class="wikitable" style="text-align: center" , + Kirshenbaum chart of consonants (the paired signs are voiceless/voiced consonants) , - style="vertical-align: center; font-size: x-small; height: 2em" , rowspan=2 style="font-size: 90%;" , Place of articulation → ! colspan=2 ,

Labial The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...

! colspan=4 , Coronal ! colspan=4 , Dorsal ! colspan=2 , Laryngeal ! colspan=1 rowspan=3 style="width: 4em;" ,

Alveolar Alveolus (; pl. alveoli, adj. alveolar) is a general anatomical term for a concave cavity or pit. Uses in anatomy and zoology * Pulmonary alveolus, an air sac in the lungs ** Alveolar cell or pneumocyte ** Alveolar duct ** Alveolar macrophage * ...

laterals , - style="vertical-align: center; font-size: x-small; height: 3em" ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Bilabial ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Labio‐
dental ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Dental ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" ,

! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Retro‐
flex ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Palato‐
alveolar ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Palatal ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Velar ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Uvular ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Labio‐
velar ! rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Pharyn‐
geal ! colspan=1 rowspan=2 style="width: 4em;" , Glottal , - style="vertical-align: center; font-size: x-small; height: 3em" , style="font-size: 90%;" ,

Manner of articulation In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...

↓ , - !style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Nasals , m , M ,

n n
, n.
, 
, n^
, N
, n"
, n<lbv>
, 
, 
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Stop consonant, Stops
, p b
, 
, t[ d[
, t d
, t. d. 
, 
, c J
, k g
, q G
, t<lbv> d<lbv>
, 
, ?
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Fricative consonant, Fricatives
, P B
, f v
, T D
, s z
, s. z.
, S Z
, C C<vcd>
, x Q
, X g"
, w<vls> w
, H H<vcd>
, h
, s z
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center",  Approximants
, 
, r<lbd>
, r[
, r
, r.
, 
, j
, j<vel>
, g"
, w
, 
, h
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Lateral consonant, Laterals
, 
, 
, l[
, l
, l.
, 
, l^
, L
, 
, 
, 
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Trill consonant, Trills
, b<trl>
, 
, 
, r<trl>
, 
, 
, 
, 
, r"
, 
, 
, 
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center",  Flaps
, 
, 
, 
,   *
,   *.
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, 
, *<lat>
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center",  Ejectives
, p`
, 
, t t`
, 
, 
, c`
, k`
, q`
, 
, 
, 
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Implosive consonant, Implosives
, b`
, 
, d`
, d`
, 
, 
, J`
, g`
, G`
, 
, 
, 
, 
, -
!style="font-size:x-small;text-align:center", Click consonant, Clicks
, p!
, 
, t!
, c!Kirshenbaum assigned  to IPA , which it used indifferently for both alveolar  and palatal  clicks.
, 
, 
, c!
, k!
, 
, 
, 
, 
, l!


The IPA consonant chart, for comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:



 Vowel chart

{,  class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
, -
,  colspan=5 ,  Kirshenbaum simplified chart of  vowels 
''(the paired signs are unrounded/rounded vowels; symbols in parentheses designate vowels that exist in some  oral languages, but do not have IPA signs)''
, - 
!
! width=20% ,   Front
! width=20% ,  Central 

Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.

Central may also refer to:

 Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...

! width=20% ,   Back
! width=20% ,   Rhotic
, -
,   Close
,  i y
,  i" u"
,  u- u
, 
, -
,   Near-close
,  I I.
, 
,  (U-) U
, 
, -
,  Close-mid 



A close-mid vowel (also mid-close vowel, high-mid vowel, mid-high vowel or half-close vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one th ...

,  e Y
,  @<umd> @.
,  o- o
,  R<umd>
, -
,   Mid
, 
,  @
, 
,  R
, -
,  Open-mid 




An open-mid vowel (also mid-open vowel, low-mid vowel, mid-low vowel or half-open vowel) is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned one third ...

,  E W
,  V" O"
,  V O
, 
, -
,   Near-open
,  &
,  &"
,  ''(no symbols)''
, 
, -
,   Open
,  a a.
,  (a" A".)
,  A A.
, 


The IPA vowel chart, by comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:


 Vowel modifiers and diacritics

Modifiers and diacritics follow the symbol they modify.
{,  class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
, -
! Modifier/diacritic
! Meaning
, -
,  ~
,   Nasalized
, -
,  :
,   Long
, -
,  -
,   Unrounded
, -
,  .
,   Rounded
, -
,  "
,  Centralized 




Centralisation or centralization (see spelling differences) is the process by which the activities of an organisation, particularly those regarding planning and decision-making, framing strategy and policies become concentrated within a particu ...

, -
,  <?>
,  Murmured 





Breathy voice  (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a  phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

, -
,  <r>
,   Rhoticized


Stress is indicated by ' for primary stress, and , for secondary stress, placed before the stressed syllable.


 Background

The Kirshenbaum system started developing in August 1992 through a  usenet group, after "being fed up with describing the sound of words by using other words".
It should be usable for both phonemic and narrow phonetic transcription.
* It should be possible to represent all symbols and diacritics in the IPA.
* The previous guideline notwithstanding, it is expected that (as in the past) most use will be in transcribing English, so where tradeoffs are necessary, decisions should be made in favor of ease of representation of phonemes which are common in English.
* The representation should be readable.
* It should be possible to mechanically translate from the representation to a character set which includes IPA. The reverse would also be nice.

The developers decided to use the existing IPA alphabet, mapping each ''segment'' to a single keyboard character, and adding extra ASCII characters optionally for IPA ''diacritics''.

An early (1993), different set in ASCII was derived from the pronunciation guide in  Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which uses straight letters to describe the sound.

Kirshenbaum's document, ''Representing IPA phonetics in ASCII'', is commonly used as an example of an "IPA ASCII" system.

The  eSpeak software  speech synthesizer uses the Kirshenbaum scheme to represent  phonemes with ascii characters.

 Encoding

 IETF language tags have registered  as a variant subtag identifying text as transcribed in this convention.
 Notes and references


 Notes



 References



 External links


Kirshenbaum specification
(PDF 



Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software,  hardware, and operating systems. ...
 file)

Tutorial and guide with sound samples


{{IPA navigation

 Phonetic alphabets
 ASCII
 International Phonetic Alphabet