The Standard Alphabet is a Latin-script alphabet developed by Karl Richard Lepsius. Lepsius initially used it to transcribe Egyptian hieroglyphs and extended it to write African languages, published in 1854 and 1855, and in a revised edition in 1863. The alphabet was comprehensive but was not used much as it contained a lot of diacritic marks and was difficult to read and typeset at that time. It was, however, influential in later projects such as Ellis's Paleotype, and diacritics such as the acute accent for palatalization, under-dot for retroflex, underline for Arabic emphatics, and the click letters continue in modern use.
Vowels
Vowel length is indicated by a macron or a breve for long and short vowels, respectively. Open vowels are marked by a line under the letter, while a dot below the letter makes it a close vowel. Rounded front vowels are written with an umlaut, either on top or below, when the space above the letter is needed for vowel length marks. Unrounded back vowels are indicated by a corner below e or i. As in the, nasal vowels get a tilde. A small circle below a letter is used to mark both the schwa and syllabic consonants. Diphthongs do not receive any special marking, they are simply juxtaposed. A short sign can be used to distinguish which element of the diphthong is the on- or off-glide Vowels in hiatus can be indicated with a diaeresis when necessary. Other vowels are a with a subscript e for ; a with a subscript o for, and o̩ for or maybe. The English syllabic is ṙ̥. Word stress is marked with an acute accent on a long vowel and with a grave accent on a short vowel.
Consonants
The Lepsius letters without predictable diacritics are as follows: Other consonant sounds may be derived from these. For example, palatal and palatalized consonants are marked with an acute accent: ḱ, ǵ, ń, χ́, š́, γ́, ž́, ĺ, ‘ĺ, ı́, ṕ, etc. These can also be written ky, py etc. Labialized velars are written with an over-dot: ġ, n̈, etc. Retroflex consonants are marked with an under-dot: ṭ, ḍ, ṇ, ṣ̌, ẓ̌, ṛ, ḷ, and ı̣. The Semitic "emphatic" consonants are marked with an underline: ṯ, ḏ, s̱, ẕ, δ̱, ḻ. Aspiration is typically marked by h: kh, but a turned apostrophe is also used: k̒, ģ. Either convention may be used for voiceless sonorants: m̒, ‘l. Affricates are generally written as sequences, e.g. tš for. But the single letters č, ǰ, c̀, j̀, ț, and d̦ are also used. Implosives are written with a macron: b̄, d̄, j̄, ḡ. As with vowels, long consonants may also be written with a macron, so this transcription can be ambiguous. Lepsius typically characterized ejective consonants as tenuis, as they are completely unaspirated, and wrote them with the Greek spiritus lenis, which may be the source of the modern convention for ejectives in the IPA. However, when his sources made it clear that there was some activity in the throat, he transcribed them as emphatics. When transcribing consonant letters which are pronounced the same but are etymologically distinct, as in Armenian, diacritics from the original alphabet or roman transliteration may be carried over. Similarly, unique sounds such as Czech ř may be carried over into Lepsius transcription. Lepsius used a diacriticr under t᷊ and d᷊ for some poorly described sounds inDravidian languages. Standard capitalization is used. For example, when written in all caps, γ becomes Γ.
Tones
are marked with an acute and grave accents to the right and near the top or the bottom of the corresponding vowel. The diacritic may be underlined for a lower pitch, distinguishing in all eight possible tones. Tone is not written directly, but rather needs to be established separately for each language. For example, the acute accent may indicate a high tone, a rising tone, or, in the case of Chinese, any tone called "rising" for historical reasons.
S.A.
Level value
Contour value
ma´
ma
-
ma`
Low rising and falling tones can be distinguished from high rising and falling tones by underlining the accent mark: . The underline also transcribes the Chinese yin tones, under the mistaken impression that these tones are actually lower. Two additional tone marks, without any defined phonetic value, are used for Chinese: "level" maˏ and checked maˎ ; these may also be underlined.
