How do I make IPA symbols?

L

Lee

I do not find the IPA symbols for vowel sounds included in the special
character choices for any of the three fonts I wish to use. Examples are the
oo with the bar over it, as in the word "moon," the oo with the arc above it,
as in the word "look," and so forth.

I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.
 
R

Robert

I do not find the IPA symbols for vowel sounds included in the special
character choices for any of the three fonts I wish to use. Examples are the
oo with the bar over it, as in the word "moon," the oo with the arc above it,
as in the word "look," and so forth.

I'm using Microsoft Office Word 2003.

Hi,
Here is from
http://www.sil.org/computing/catalog/show_software_catalog.asp?by=sil&name=Supported:

"Doulos SIL Font
A Unicode font with a comprehensive set of characters needed for almost any
Roman- or Cyrillic-based writing system (including IPA), whether for
phonetic or orthographic needs.
Gentium
Supports a wide range of Latin-based alphabets and includes glyphs that
correspond to all the Latin ranges of Unicode."

These fonts are free.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Most fonts have only the schwa from the IPA Extensions character subset. If
you want more, you'll have to use another font, such as Arial Unicode MS,
that has the complete set. But the characters you describe are not, I think
IPA symbols (see http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronunc-soundsipa.htm). These
characters are, however, included in the AHD Symbol font (supplied with
American Heritage dictionary add-ins). It is available in both serif and
sans serif forms, and both bold and italic are available. You might want to
search online for free downloads of these fonts, though I haven't actually
found any that seem to contain these forms.
 
G

grammatim

Those are not "IPA" characters. Those are from the so-called "American
dictionary pronunciation key" symbols. I know of one font-seller who
made an "American dictionary" font (Times Roman), long before Unicode,
but you might have to do quite a bit of searching.

"IPA" refers to the International Phonetic Association and to the
International Phonetic Alphabet that it has been developing since
1888: it is a specific set of phonetic symbols intended to be able to
record every sound in every one of the world's languages, so long as
that sound makes a difference in at least one language between two
different words.

The IPA symbol for "oo with macron" [bar] is simply <u> (the letter
u), and the IPA symbol for "oo with breve" [arc] is a u-like letter
with two upper "serifs" pointing outward and no serif at the bottom
right. A small capital u used to be used for that sound (and you'll
still find it in some speech textbooks).

Sets of IPA characters are included in fonts like Tahoma that try to
provide full Unicode coverage. The font called Gentium (available as a
free download from the Summer Institute of Linguistics) was created
for use by linguists and includes the complete IPA character set.
 

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