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Subject:Re: Origin of phonetic alphabet From:Sue Heim <SUE -at- RIS -dot- RISINC -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 5 Jun 1995 08:24:20 PST
> John Renish said:
> > It's the International Phonetic Alphabet, not just the U.S. military's.
To which Karen Kay replied:
> Are you sure that's what it's called??? I think of the IPA as being
> the symbols that linguists use to represent sounds, so you can
> transcribe a language you've never heard before and have no idea how
> to spell.
Checking out my handy dandy dictionary, turns out Karen is right. The
IPA is a "set of symbols and modifying signs devised by the
International Phonetic Association to provide a consistent and
universally understood system folr transcribing the speech sounds of
any language." It then referred me to the table under "phonetic
alphabet." All sorts of good info there, none of which even remotely
resembles "alpha, bravo... kay-bek(!)" and so on.
Source: Webster's College Dictionary, 1991
...sue
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Sue Heim
Research Information Systems
Email: Sue -at- ris -dot- risinc -dot- com
