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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear colleagues,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Does any of you know of an appropriate
transcription symbol for *un*aspirated consonants?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Background:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- We are trying to find some (quasi) standard
symbol to mark the unaspirated in (some of) the Nakh-Daghestanian languages,
where the aspirated stops and affricates are the unmarked option and very
frequent; on the contrary, the unaspirated are marked and rare. So we'd like to
put no additional symbol for aspiration, marking the unaspirated
instead.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- This is for a transcription system that is
an adaptation of the IPA to the tradition of Daghestanian studies, it
is not strictly IPA (the IPA transcription will be provided separately). We
don't want to invent something ad hoc but for the moment we don't see any widely
used symbol that would fit.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- The IPA charts (including 2005 revised
version) only have a symbol for the aspirated -- a superscript small
h.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- The Unicode standard lists a character "modifier
letter unaspirated" (U+02ED) which seems to be a superscript equals sign, but
we've never seen it used anywhere -- are any of you familiar with
it?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>-- The best option for us, typographically, would
be a symbol placed either below the main character or to the right of it.
We are thinking of, for example, a minus or equals sign below, or of the
famous triangular colon (which could, though, be somewhat
misleading).</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We will be grateful for any suggestions and
comments.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Best regards,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Alexandre Arkhipov,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>OTiPL at Moscow State University</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(Cross-posted to
LinguistList)</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>