X-SAMPA

Encyclopedia : X : XS : XSA : X-SAMPA

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The Extended SAM Phonetic Alphabet (X-SAMPA) is a variant of SAMPA developed in 1995 by John C. Wells, professor of phonetics at the University of London. It was designed to unify the individual language SAMPA alphabets, and extend SAMPA to cover the entire range of characters in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

The result is a SAMPA-inspired recasting of the IPA into 7-bit ASCII.

Summary

Notes

• The IPA symbols that are ordinary lower-case letters have the same value in X-SAMPA as they do in the IPA.
• X-SAMPA uses a following backslash as an escape character to create a new symbol. For example O is a distinct sound from O\, to which it bears no relation. (Note that it is a convention among some conlangers to use an asterisk (e.g., O*) instead of backslash).
• X-SAMPA diacritics follow the symbols they modify. Except for ~ for nasalization, = for syllabicity, and ` for retroflexion and rhotacization, diacritics are joined to the character with the underscore character _.
• The underscore character is also used to encode the IPA tiebar.
• The numbers _1 to _6 are reserved diacritics as shorthand for language-specific tone numbers.

Lowercase symbols

XS	IPA	IPA	Description	Examples
a			open front unrounded vowel	French dame [dam], Spanish padre ["paD4e]
b			voiced bilabial plosive	English bed [bEd], French bon [bO~]
b_<			voiced bilabial implosive
c			voiceless palatal plosive	Hungarian latyak ["lAcAk]
d			voiced alveolar plosive	English dig [dIg], French doigt [dwa]
d`			voiced retroflex plosive	Swedish hord [hu:d`]
d_<			voiced alveolar implosive
e			close-mid front unrounded vowel	French ses [se]
f			voiceless labiodental fricative	English five [faIv], French femme [fam]
g			voiced velar plosive	English game [geIm], French longue [lO~g]
g_<			voiced velar implosive
h			voiceless glottal fricative	English house [haUs]
h\			voiced glottal fricative
i			close front unrounded vowel	English be [bi:], French oui [wi], Spanish si [si]
j			palatal approximant	English yes [jEs], French yeux [j2]
j\			voiced palatal fricative	Greek γειά [ja]
k			voiceless velar plosive	English cat [k			close central rounded vowel	Swedish sju [x}:] AuE/NZE boot [b}:t]
1			close central unrounded vowel	Welsh tu [t1], American English rose's ["roUz1z]
2			close-mid front rounded vowel	Danish købe ["k2:b@], French deux [d2]
3			open-mid central unrounded vowel	English nurse [n3:s] (RP) or [n3`s] (Gen.Am.)
3\			open-mid central rounded vowel	Dutch munt [m3nt]
4			alveolar flap	Spanish pero ["pe4o], American English better ["bE4@`]
5			velarized alveolar lateral approximant; also see _e	English milk [mI5k]
6			near-open central vowel	German besser ["bEs6], Australian English mud [m6d]
7			close-mid back unrounded vowel	Estonian kõik [k7ik], Occurs in Vietnamese
8			close-mid central rounded vowel	Swedish buss [b8s]
9			open-mid front rounded vowel	French neuf [n9f], Danish drømme [dR9m@]
&			open front rounded vowel
?			glottal stop	Danish stød [sd2?], Cockney English bottle ["bQ?l]
?\			voiced pharyngeal fricative	Arabic ‘ayn
*			undefined escape character, SAMPA's "conjunctor", used by some conlangers instead of \
/			indeterminacy in French vowels
<			begin nonsegmental notation (e.g., SAMPROSA)
<\			voiced epiglottal fricative
>			end nonsegmental notation
>\			epiglottal plosive
^			upstep
!			downstep
!\			postalveolar click
>			minor (foot) group
>\			dental click
||			major (intonation) group
>\|\			lateral alveolar click
=\			palatal click
-\			linking mark

Diacritics

XS	IPA	IPA	Description
_"			centralized
_+			advanced
_-			retracted
_/			rising tone
_0			voiceless
_<			implosive (IPA uses separate symbols for implosives)
= (or _=)			syllabic
_>			ejective
_?\			pharyngealized
_\			falling tone
_^			non-syllabic
_}			no audible release
`			rhotacization in vowels, retroflexion in consonants (IPA uses separate symbols for consonants, see t` for an example)
~ (or _~)			nasalization
_A			advanced tongue root
_a			apical
_B			extra low tone
_B_L			low rising tone
_c			less rounded
_d			dental
_e			velarized or pharyngealized; also see 5
<F>			global fall
_F			falling tone
_G			velarized
_H			high tone
_H_T			high rising tone
_h			aspirated
_j (or ')			palatalized
_k			creaky voice
_L			low tone
_l			lateral release
_M			mid tone
_m			laminal
_N			linguolabial
_n			nasal release
_O			more rounded
_o			lowered
_q			retracted tongue root
<R>			global rise
_R			rising tone
_R_F			rising falling tone
_r			raised
_T			extra high tone
_t			breathy voice
_v			voiced
_w			labialized
_X			extra-short
_x			mid-centralized

See also

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
• International Phonetic Alphabet for English
• SAMPA, a language-specific predecessor of X-SAMPA.
• Z-SAMPA, an unofficial, futher extended version of X-SAMPA used for language construction
• SAMPA chart for English
• Kirshenbaum, a similar system.
• List of phonetics topics

External links

• [Computer-coding the IPA: A proposed extension of SAMPA]
• [X-SAMPA to IPA comparison chart]
• [Online converter between IPA and X-Sampa]

 

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