SAMPA is a proposal for representing, in ASCII, the sounds which,
in the International Phonetic Alphabet, are represented by non-ASCII
characters. Capital letters and characters such as @ take the
place of IPA-specific characters. All characters (such as lower
case letters, e.g. [e])
which have the same form in SAMPA and IPA have the same value
as in IPA.
The modified form of SAMPA used on this website was created for
ease of database entry, and some characters - the diacritics in
particular - are not standard SAMPA. A more complete description
of SAMPA can be found at:
I have used vowel characters from the international character
set instead of SAMPA where they resemble the IPA equivalents (so
e.g. [ø] rather
than SAMPA .) For
consonants, however, I have retained the SAMPA representation
(e.g. [D] rather than
The diacritics I have used are not standard SAMPA. Again, I have
preferred international character set equivalents where available
- so, whereas I have used a following asterisk in place of IPA
superimposed dots where a suitable character with 'Umlaut' does
not exist in the international character set (e.g. [Q*]
for a centralised open back rounded vowel) I have preferred to
use superimposed dots - e.g. [ä]
- where available.
On this website, SAMPA is used in two different ways.
1. In my Shetlandic pronunciation script, which is used in the
website as a whole, the characters are essentially phonemic, with
the addition of diacritics (two superimposed dots) to indicate
the allophones which are owing to the phenomenon I have described
as 'soft mutation.' (It is important to distinguish this use of
the diacritic from its normal IPA indication of centralisation.)
In the website as a whole, this script is in square brackets (except
in certain tables) and in a green typeface.
2. In certain tables, and in some of the articles, modified SAMPA
is used for a representation which is more strictly phonetic.
For example, [a:] and
[ä] in the pronunciation
script would be represented as [A:]
and [æ] in the
more phonetic script. This notation is also in square brackets
and green typeface, but should be easily distinguished from the
pronunciation script by context, and by the different characters
used. The article Some Characteristics of the Shetlandic Vowel System -
which was originally written for publication - uses slightly different
conventions which are explained in the article.
(1) In standard SAMPA, [L]
represents the palatal lateral approximant (IPA turned y); the
velarised lateral is represented by [L\]
(1) Also IPA and SAMPA
(2) Where IPA uses a vertical stroke ['] for primary stress and a low vertical stroke for secondary stress, and SAMPA uses ["] for primary stress and [%] for secondary stress, I have used ['] for primary stress in words requiring only one stress mark, and ["] for primary stress and ['] for secondary stress in words requiring two stress marks.
(3) I have used superimposed dots (e.g. [ä])
where available in the international character set. In my pronunciation
script, this diacritic does not show centralisation, but the phenomenon
which I describe as 'soft mutation' - see: Some Characteristics of the Shetlandic Vowel System.