Kirshenbaum

Kirshenbaum, sometimes called ASCII-IPA or erkIPA, is a system used to represent the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in ASCII. 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 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:—

Sound	IPA	X-SAMPA	Kirshenbaum
alveolar trill	r	r	r<trl>
alveolar approximant	ɹ	r\	r
near-open front unrounded vowel	æ	{	&
open back rounded vowel	ɒ	Q	A.
open-mid central unrounded vowel	ɜ	3	V"
primary stress	ˈ	"	'
secondary stress	ˌ	%	,

Contents 1 Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels 1.1 Consonant chart 1.2 Consonant chart 1.3 Vowel chart 1.3.1 Vowel modifiers and diacritics 2 See also 3 External links

Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels

This chart is based on information provided in the Kirshenbaum specification.[1], [2] It may also be helpful to compare it to the SAMPA chart or X-SAMPA chart.

Consonant chart

Consonant chart

Kirshenbaum chart of consonants (the paired signs are voiceless/voiced consonants)

Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal				Radical	Glottal	Alveolar laterals
	Bilabial	Labio‐ dental	Dental	Alveolar	Retro‐ flex	Palato‐ alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Labio‐ velar	Pharyn‐ geal
Manner of articulation ↓
Nasals	m	M	n[	n	n.		n^	N	n"	n<lbv>
Stops	p b		t[ d[	t d	t. d.		c J	k g	q G	t<lbv> d<lbv>		?
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<lat> z<lat>
Approximants		r<lbd>	r[	r	r.		j	j<vel>	g"	w		h
Laterals			l[	l	l.		l^	L
Trills	b<trl>			r<trl>					r"
Flaps				*	*.								*<lat>
Ejectives	p`		t[`	t`			c`	k`	q`
Implosives	b`		d`	d`			J`	g`	G`
Clicks	p!		t!	c!			c!	k!					l!

Vowel chart

Kirshenbaum simplified chart of vowels (the paired signs are unrounded/rounded vowels; symbols in parentheses designate vowels that exist in some spoken languages, but do not have IPA signs)
	Front	Central	Back	Rhotic
Close	i y	i" u"	u- u
Near-close	I I.		(U-) U
Close-mid	e Y	@<umd> @.	o- o	R<umd>
Mid		@		R
Open-mid	E W	V" O"	V O
Near-open	&	&"	(no symbols)
Open	a a.	(a" A".)	A A.

Vowel modifiers and diacritics

Modifiers and diacritics follow the symbol they modify.

Modifier/diacritic	Meaning
~	Nasalized
:	Long
-	Unrounded
.	Rounded
"	Centralized
<?>	Murmured
<r>	Rhoticized

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

See also

• International Phonetic Alphabet
• SAMPA
• X-SAMPA
• International Phonetic Alphabet for English
• IPA chart for English

External links

• Kirshenbaum specification (PDF file)
• Tutorial and guide with sound samples