Kirshenbaum

For the surname (spelled with or without a "c"), see Kirschenbaum (surname).

Kirshenbaum /ˈkɜːrʃənbɔːm/, sometimes called ASCII-IPA or erkIPA, is a system used to represent the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in ASCII. This way it allows typewriting IPA-symbols by regular keyboard. 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.

Comparison of Kirshenbaum with X-SAMPA

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	%	,

Kirshenbaum charts of consonants and vowels

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

Consonant chart

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

Place of articulation →	Labial		Coronal				Dorsal				Laryngeal		Alveolar laterals
	Bilabial	Labio‐ dental	Dental	Alveolar	Retro‐ flex	Palato‐ alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Labio‐ velar	Pharyn‐ geal	Glottal
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!

The IPA consonant chart, for comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:

IPA: Pulmonic consonants
Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ̥ ʋ ɹ̥ ɹ ɻ̊ ɻ j̊ j ɰ̊ ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ɭ̊˔ ɭ˔ ʎ̝̊ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̥ l ɭ̊ ɭ ʎ̥ ʎ ʟ̥ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ ɭ̆ ʎ̆ ʟ̆

IPA: Non-pulmonic consonants
BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ ʈʂʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ cʎ̝̊ʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click Tenuis ʘ ǀ ǃ ‼ ǂ ʞ Voiced ʘ̬ ǀ̬ ǃ̬ ‼̬ ǂ̬ Nasal ʘ̃ ǀ̃ ǃ̃ ‼̃ ǂ̃ Tenuis lateral ǁ Voiced lateral ǁ̬ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̥ ʄ̥ ɠ̊ ʛ̥

Vowel chart

Kirshenbaum simplified chart of vowels (the paired signs are unrounded/rounded vowels; symbols in parentheses designate vowels that exist in some oral 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.

The IPA vowel chart, by comparison, uses many symbols that are less widely supported:

IPA: Vowels
Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ɨ̞ ʉ̞ ɯ̞ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɒ̈ ɑ ɒ
Paired vowels are: unrounded • rounded

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.

Background

The Kirshenbaum started developing in August 1992 through a usenet group, after "being fed up with describing the sound of words by using other words". It should be usable for both phonemic and narrow phonetic transcription.

• It should be possible to represent all symbols and diacritics in the IPA.
• The previous guideline notwithstanding, it is expected that (as in the past) most use will be in transcribing English, so where tradeoffs are necessary, decisions should be made in favor of ease of representation of phonemes which are common in English.
• The representation should be readable.
• It should be possible to mechanically translate from the representation to a character set which includes IPA. The reverse would also be nice.

The developers decided to use the existing IPA alphabet, mapping each segment to a single keyboard character, and adding extra ASCII characters optionally for IPA diacritics.

An early (1993), different set in ASCII was derived from the pronunciation guide in Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, which uses straight letters to describe the sound.

External links

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