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Palaeotype alphabet
The Palaeotype alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by Alexander John Ellis to describe the pronunciation of English. It was based on the theory of Bell's Visible Speech, but set in roman script, and attempted to include the sounds conveyed by Lepsius's Standard Alphabet as well. It in turn inspired Henry Sweet's 1877 Romic alphabet, which itself served as the basis for the International Phonetic Alphabet.
It differs from previous phonetic alphabets, especially the English Phonotypic Alphabet of the same author, by maximal use of trivial changes to existing characters, including rotated letters (such as ⟨ə⟩, ⟨ɔ⟩), small capitals (such as ⟨ɪ⟩), rotated small capitals, and italic rather than roman typeface (such as ⟨𝑙⟩).
The alphabet and its diacritics were quite similar to early versions of Sweet's Romic alphabet.
All letters could be capitalized. In the case of small-capitals, capitalization was marked by a colon, so e.g. ⟨:R⟩ was a capital ⟨ʀ⟩. ⟨ɔ⟩ was a graphic substitution for small-capital o, so its capital was ⟨:O⟩. For some reason, turned-Q instead of turned-A was used as the capital of ⟨ɐ⟩.
(Parentheses) were used to set off phonetic transcription from regular text.
⟨i y e œ æ ə a a ɔ o u⟩ had basically the same values as in the IPA. Not all of the vowels seem to make sense when plotted on a modern chart, as below, either through jumbled graphic correspondence or according to the languages they were identified with, suggesting that the phonetic analysis was not sophisticated. For example, (a) is defined as unrounded (o), but (a) is identified as the 'a' of Italian matto and French chatte (that is, IPA [a]), whereas (o) is identified as the Italian 'open o' ("o aperto") and the 'o' of French homme (that is, IPA [ɔ]), and [a] is not unrounded [ɔ]. Nevertheless, all vowels are identified in their placement in the table through sets of definitions that lock in place each of nine tetrads (such as the four close front vowels i · ɪ · i · y).
⟨ɐ⟩ was used for the English reduced schwa, as the 'a' in 'real' or the 'o' in 'mention', ⟨ə⟩ for the vowel of 'but'.
Long vowels were doubled, as ⟨aa⟩ for long (a). A comma was used for hiatus (diaeresis), as ⟨a,a⟩ for two (a)s in sequence. (.,) was used for "strong hiatus" (beginning the following abruptly), and (, ) for a soft/inaudible onset to a vowel.
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Palaeotype alphabet AI simulator
(@Palaeotype alphabet_simulator)
Palaeotype alphabet
The Palaeotype alphabet is a phonetic alphabet used by Alexander John Ellis to describe the pronunciation of English. It was based on the theory of Bell's Visible Speech, but set in roman script, and attempted to include the sounds conveyed by Lepsius's Standard Alphabet as well. It in turn inspired Henry Sweet's 1877 Romic alphabet, which itself served as the basis for the International Phonetic Alphabet.
It differs from previous phonetic alphabets, especially the English Phonotypic Alphabet of the same author, by maximal use of trivial changes to existing characters, including rotated letters (such as ⟨ə⟩, ⟨ɔ⟩), small capitals (such as ⟨ɪ⟩), rotated small capitals, and italic rather than roman typeface (such as ⟨𝑙⟩).
The alphabet and its diacritics were quite similar to early versions of Sweet's Romic alphabet.
All letters could be capitalized. In the case of small-capitals, capitalization was marked by a colon, so e.g. ⟨:R⟩ was a capital ⟨ʀ⟩. ⟨ɔ⟩ was a graphic substitution for small-capital o, so its capital was ⟨:O⟩. For some reason, turned-Q instead of turned-A was used as the capital of ⟨ɐ⟩.
(Parentheses) were used to set off phonetic transcription from regular text.
⟨i y e œ æ ə a a ɔ o u⟩ had basically the same values as in the IPA. Not all of the vowels seem to make sense when plotted on a modern chart, as below, either through jumbled graphic correspondence or according to the languages they were identified with, suggesting that the phonetic analysis was not sophisticated. For example, (a) is defined as unrounded (o), but (a) is identified as the 'a' of Italian matto and French chatte (that is, IPA [a]), whereas (o) is identified as the Italian 'open o' ("o aperto") and the 'o' of French homme (that is, IPA [ɔ]), and [a] is not unrounded [ɔ]. Nevertheless, all vowels are identified in their placement in the table through sets of definitions that lock in place each of nine tetrads (such as the four close front vowels i · ɪ · i · y).
⟨ɐ⟩ was used for the English reduced schwa, as the 'a' in 'real' or the 'o' in 'mention', ⟨ə⟩ for the vowel of 'but'.
Long vowels were doubled, as ⟨aa⟩ for long (a). A comma was used for hiatus (diaeresis), as ⟨a,a⟩ for two (a)s in sequence. (.,) was used for "strong hiatus" (beginning the following abruptly), and (, ) for a soft/inaudible onset to a vowel.