Phonetics, Phonetic Symbols, Phonetic Keyboard

This page provides some information and resources in Phonetics and in the use of the International Phonetics Association alphabet of phonetic symbols for the transcription of speech using computers.


Phonetics

Unicode Phonetic Keyboard and SIL Fonts

The Unicode Phonetic Keyboard is an installable keyboard for Windows PCs that provides a convenient keyboard layout for the word-processing of phonetic transcription using Unicode fonts. The installation package comes complete with two Unicode fonts: Doulos and Charis that have been developed by SIL.

Guide to the use of Unicode Phonetic Symbols

John Wells has written a number of pages which give more information about the set of phonetic symbols available in Unicode, and about how these can be used in Microsoft Word and other applications:

IPA-SAM Phonetic Fonts

The IPA-SAM fonts are a set of TrueType fonts (not Unicode) suitable for Windows and MacOS that include all current IPA symbols. The keyboard layout is designed to be compatible with SAMPA.

Use of Phonetic Symbols

Choice of phonetic symbols for English - John Wells. This is the standard set of phonemic symbols recommended for English (RP and similar accents).

SAMPA is a phonetic transcription coding that uses normal ASCII characters as replacements for IPA symbols. It has been designed for phonemic/broad phonetic transcription of European languages.


Some other pages on our site you may enjoy:

WASP - Record & display speech signals

WASP is a simple program to record speech signals and to display a spectrogram and pitch track. More information.

RTSPECT - Real-time Waveform and Spectrum Display

RTSPECT is a free program for displaying a real-time waveform and spectrum display of an audio signal on Windows computers. More information.