SAMPA

SAMPA is a system for showing pronunciation using only basic characters and symbols. In the early days of the Web, this got round the problems with showing the special IPA characters on older computers, or those without the required fonts. (SAMPA is an intialism for Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet.)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAMPA_chart_for_English for a reference chart of SAMPA symbols.

Note to editors: This guide will be upgrading to IPA at some point. Much of Peter's original material uses SAMPA - or at least some stage of rtf-ing did it for him. Mark it thus in articles so it links to this page (for readers) and can be easily found when we come to replace it with IPA: {{SAMPA|bOI}}. This is making use of a template: for more on these see Project:Templates.

SAMPA is now (2013) discontinued in AWE.
If you come across a SAMPA transcription while editing, please replace it with an IPA equivalent.

Further notes for editors from Peter: My use of SAMPA was an accident, based on a misunderstanding (mine) of the UCL phonetics site (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/fonts.htm), as it is a fuller version of the IPA than the Wikipedia version, including some turned letters. I have to say that I don't like the SAMPA that we are using, partly because my age and habits don't lend themselves well to learning new languages/codes; but mainly because it is flawed as a transcription system for English; and it is hard to use practically (e.g. the = sign used to show syllabic consonants, as laid down in the Wikipedia chart) doesn't work in this Wiki: code containing it seems to revert to showing /{{{1}}}/ instead of the code). One long-term goal of the Project is to hire someone capable of writing in full IPA in the Mediawiki software (if necessary writing/coding it) and doing a fully competent IPA transcription throughout the knowledge bank.