Standard Alphabet By Lepsius Article Index for
Standard
Website Links For
Standard
 

Information About

Standard Alphabet By Lepsius





VOWELS

Vowel length is indicated by a Macron (''ā'') or a Brevis (''ă'') for long and short vowels, respectively. Open Vowel s are marked by a line under the letter (''e̱''), while a dot below the letter makes it a Close Vowel (''ẹ''). Central Vowel s are indicated by an Ogonek -like hook below (''į''). Rounded Vowel s, especially and are written with a Diaresis (''ö'' and ''ü''), either on top or below, when the space above the letter is needed for vowel length marks (as in ''ṳ̄'' or ''ṳ̆''). As in the International Phonetic Alphabet , nasal vowels get a Tilde (''ã''). A small circle below a letter is used to mark both the Schwa (''e̥'') and Syllabic Consonant s (''r̥'' or ''l̥'', for instance). Diphthong s do not receive any special marking, they are simply juxtaposed (''au'').


CONSONANTS


To mark Aspiration and Affricates , the corresponding letters are simply written next to each other, thus ''kh'' in Lepsius' Standard Alphabet would be in IPA and ''tš'' would be . For Palatalization , the character ʹ is used, so ''pʹ'' is in IPA. Ejective Consonant s are sometimes written as double letters, although this could be mixed up with Long Consonants .


TONES

Tone in tonal languages like Chinese Language is marked with accent-like characters written to the right of the corresponding syllable. The tone marks for the tones of Middle Chinese are as such:


SEE ALSO



REFERENCES

  • Lepsius, C. R. (1863): ''Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters'', 2nd rev. edn. John Benjamins, Amsterdam.

  • Faulmann, Carl (1880): ''Das Buch der Schrift enthaltend die Schriftzeichen und Alphabete aller Zeiten und aller Völker des Erdkreises'', 2nd rev. edn. Kaiserlich-königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Wien.