We could all get an IPA font....I have one! I got it in a huge file that also allows me to type in Bengali if I so desire (among other things). Reading IPA isn't really that hard, for Western European languages, anyway. And there are "standards," sort of, for writing IPA characters with a regular keyboard, maybe people could use those. (Personally, though, I think they are much more difficult to understand than the regular IPA alphabet...) Adam Bishop >...There is a "solution," but to an extent it's as hard to put in > practice as any other solution. The International Phonetic Alphabet > can represent essentially any sound in almost any Western language. > Many of the symbols are standard keyboard characters, but there are > exceptions (for example, sounds like "ng," "aw," and the ubiqitous > schwa). Once you know the pronunciation of each of the symbols, any > word in any language which can be transcribed using IPA can be > pronounced once you write out the word in IPA. > However, this makes packet editing harder, because it places limits on > the systems which can be used to edit packets (you need a system > capable of printing the IPA symbols), and teaching someone to read IPA > is not a simple task. > > It *is* a solution, albeit an impractical one. > > --AEI, the proud owner of a 250-page manual on diction in French, > German, Italian, and Latin.
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