Standard Alphabet by Lepsius - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Standard Alphabet by Lepsius is a Latin alphabet developed by Karl Richard Lepsius

Karl Richard Lepsius

Karl Richard Lepsius was a pioneering Prussian Egyptologist and linguist and pioneer of modern archaeology.-Background:...

to write African languages

African languages

There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...

. Published 1855 and in a revised edition (with many more languages added) in 1863, it was comprehensive but it was not used much as it contains a lot of diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

marks and therefore was difficult to read, write and typeset at that time.

Vowels

Vowel length is indicated by a macron

Macron

A macron, from the Greek , meaning "long", is a diacritic placed above a vowel . It was originally used to mark a long or heavy syllable in Greco-Roman metrics, but now marks a long vowel...

(ā) or a breve

Breve

A breve is a diacritical mark ˘, shaped like the bottom half of a circle. It resembles the caron , but is rounded, while the caron has a sharp tip...

(ă) for long and short vowels, respectively. Open vowel

Open vowel

An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...

s are marked by a line under the letter (e̱), while a dot below the letter makes it a close vowel

Close vowel

A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...

(ẹ). Central vowel

Central vowel

A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...

s are indicated by an ogonek

Ogonek

The ogonek is a diacritic hook placed under the lower right corner of a vowel in the Latin alphabet used in several European and Native American languages.-Use:...

-like hook below (į). Rounded

Roundedness

In phonetics, vowel roundedness refers to the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. That is, it is vocalic labialization. When pronouncing a rounded vowel, the lips form a circular opening, while unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed...

front vowel

Front vowel

A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...

s, especially [ø] and [y] are written with an umlaut

Umlaut (diacritic)

The diaeresis and the umlaut are diacritics that consist of two dots placed over a letter, most commonly a vowel. When that letter is an i or a j, the diacritic replaces the tittle: ï....

(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

Tilde

The tilde is a grapheme with several uses. The name of the character comes from Portuguese and Spanish, from the Latin titulus meaning "title" or "superscription", though the term "tilde" has evolved and now has a different meaning in linguistics....

(ã). A small circle below a letter is used to mark both the schwa

Schwa

In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...

(e̥) and syllabic consonant

Syllabic consonant

A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, ⟨⟩...

s (r̥ or l̥, for instance). Diphthong

Diphthong

A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

s do not receive any special marking, they are simply juxtaposed (au).

Consonants

S.A.	IPA	Name
ʾ	[ʔ]	glottal stop Glottal stop The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
³	[ʕ]	voiced pharyngeal fricative Voiced pharyngeal fricative The voiced pharyngeal approximant or fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents it is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ?\....
h	[h]	voiceless glottal fricative Voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a "fricative", is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant phonologically, but often lacks the usual phonetic characteristics of a consonant...
hʿ	[ħ]	voiceless pharyngeal fricative Voiceless pharyngeal fricative The voiceless pharyngeal fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is h-bar .-Features:Features of the voiceless pharyngeal fricative:...
q	[q]	voiceless uvular plosive
k	[k]	voiceless velar plosive Voiceless velar plosive The voiceless velar stop or voiceless velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is k....
g	[ɡ]	voiced velar plosive Voiced velar plosive The voiced velar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is g. Strictly, the IPA symbol is the so-called "opentail G" , though the "looptail G" is...
ṅ	[ŋ]	velar nasal Velar nasal The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....
χ	[x]	voiceless velar fricative Voiceless velar fricative The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....
γ	[ɣ]	voiced velar fricative Voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in various spoken languages. It is not found in English today, but did exist in Old English...
ṙ
kʹ	[c]	voiceless palatal plosive Voiceless palatal plosive The voiceless palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c....
gʹ	[ɟ]	voiced palatal plosive Voiced palatal plosive The voiced palatal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨⟩, a barred dotless ⟨j⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J\.The sound does not exist as a phoneme in English, but is...
ń	[ɲ]	palatal nasal Palatal nasal The palatal nasal is a type of consonant, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a lowercase letter n with a leftward-pointing tail protruding from the bottom of the left stem of the letter. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is J...
χ́	[ç]	voiceless palatal fricative Voiceless palatal fricative The voiceless palatal fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The symbol ç is the letter c with a cedilla, as used to spell French words such as façade...
š	[ʃ]	voiceless postalveolar fricative Voiceless postalveolar fricative The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...
š́	[ɕ]	voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative
γ́	[ʝ]	voiced palatal fricative
ž	[ʒ]	voiced postalveolar fricative Voiced postalveolar fricative The voiced palato-alveolar fricative or voiced domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is Z. An alternative symbol used in some...
ž́	[ʑ]	voiced alveolo-palatal fricative
y	[j]	palatal approximant Palatal approximant The palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is '...
lʹ	[ʎ]	palatal lateral approximant Palatal lateral approximant The palatal lateral approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a rotated lowercase letter ⟨y⟩ , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is L.-Features:Features of the palatal lateral...
ṭ	[ʈ]	voiceless retroflex plosive Voiceless retroflex plosive -External links:*...
ḍ	[ɖ]	voiced retroflex plosive Voiced retroflex plosive The voiced retroflex plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter d with a rightward-pointing tail protruding...
ṇ	[ɳ]	retroflex nasal
ṣ̌	[ʂ]	voiceless retroflex fricative
ẓ̌	[ʐ]	voiced retroflex fricative
ṛ	[ɽ]	retroflex flap
ḷ	[ɭ]	retroflex lateral approximant
ṯ	[tˤ]	pharyngealized Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... voiceless alveolar plosive Voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t...
ḏ	[dˤ]	pharyngealized Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... voiced alveolar plosive Voiced alveolar plosive The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d.-Features:Features of the voiced...
s̱	[sˤ]	pharyngealized Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... voiceless alveolar fricative Voiceless alveolar fricative The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in spoken languages. It is the sound in English words such as sea and pass, and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as . It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound...
ẕ	[zˤ]	pharyngealized Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... voiced alveolar fricative Voiced alveolar fricative The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described....
δ̱	[ðˤ]	pharyngealized Pharyngeal consonant A pharyngeal consonant is a type of consonant which is articulated with the root of the tongue against the pharynx.-Pharyngeal consonants in the IPA:Pharyngeal consonants in the International Phonetic Alphabet :... voiced dental fricative Voiced dental fricative The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, eth, is . The symbol was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced...
t	[t]	voiceless alveolar plosive Voiceless alveolar plosive The voiceless alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t...
d	[d]	voiced alveolar plosive Voiced alveolar plosive The voiced alveolar plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiced dental, alveolar, and postalveolar plosives is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d.-Features:Features of the voiced...
n	[n]	alveolar nasal Alveolar nasal The alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is n....
s	[s]	voiceless alveolar fricative Voiceless alveolar fricative The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in spoken languages. It is the sound in English words such as sea and pass, and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as . It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound...
z	[z]	voiced alveolar fricative Voiced alveolar fricative The voiced alveolar fricatives are consonantal sounds. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents these sounds depends on whether a sibilant or non-sibilant fricative is being described....
θ	[θ]	voiceless dental fricative Voiceless dental fricative The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is familiar to English speakers as the 'th' in thing. Though rather rare as a phoneme in the world's inventory of languages, it is encountered in some of the most widespread and influential...
δ	[ð]	voiced dental fricative Voiced dental fricative The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound, eth, is . The symbol was taken from the Old English letter eth, which could stand for either a voiced or unvoiced...
r	[r]	alveolar trill Alveolar trill The alveolar trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar trills is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r. It is commonly called the rolled R, rolling R, or trilled R...
l	[l]	alveolar lateral approximant Alveolar lateral approximant The alveolar lateral approximant, also known as clear l, is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral approximants is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is l.As a...
p	[p]	voiceless bilabial plosive Voiceless bilabial plosive The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p...
b	[b]	voiced bilabial plosive Voiced bilabial plosive The voiced bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is b. The voiced bilabial plosive occurs in English, and it is the sound denoted by the...
m	[m]	bilabial nasal Bilabial nasal The bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m...
f	[f]	voiceless bilabial fricative Voiceless bilabial fricative -See also:* List of phonetics topics...
v	[v]	voiced bilabial fricative Voiced bilabial fricative -See also:* List of phonetics topics...
w	[w]	labial-velar approximant
ʘ	[ʘ]	bilabial click Bilabial click The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants that sound something like a smack of the lips. They are found as phonemes only in the small Tuu language family, in the language of Botswana, and in the extinct Damin ritual jargon of Australia....
ǀ	[ǀ]	dental click Dental click Dental clicks are a family of click consonants found, as constituents of words, only in Africa and in the Damin ritual jargon of Australia. The tut-tut! or tsk! tsk! sound used to express disapproval or pity is a dental click, although it isn't a speech sound in that context.The symbol in the...
ǃ	[ǃ]	alveolar click
ǁ	[ǁ]	lateral click
ǂ	[ǂ]	palatal click Palatal click The palato-alveolar clicks are a family of click consonants found only in Africa. They are commonly called palatal clicks.The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the place of articulation of these sounds is , a pipe...

To mark aspiration

Aspiration (phonetics)

In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...

and affricates

Affricate consonant

Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...

, the corresponding letters are simply written next to each other, thus kh in Lepsius' Standard Alphabet would be [kʰ] in IPA and tš would be [t͡ʃ]. For palatalization

Palatalization

In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....

, the character ʹ is used, so pʹ is [pʲ] in IPA. Ejective consonant

Ejective consonant

In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants...

s are sometimes written as double letters, although this could be mixed up with long consonants

Gemination

In phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short consonant. Gemination is distinct from stress and may appear independently of it....

.

The symbols for the clicks were devised by Lepsius in 1855 and have since been used in Southern Africa. The IPA had different symbols for four of the click phonemes, but after a proposal by Köhler et al. adopted Lepsius' version in 1989.

Tones

Tone

Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

in tonal languages like Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

or some African languages is marked with accent-like characters written to the right of the corresponding syllable. The tone system employed in Lepsius' 1863 version is as follows (using the yin values of the Chinese tones

Four tones

The four tones of Chinese phonology are four traditional tone-classes of words derived from the four phonemic tones of Middle Chinese. They are even level , rising , going departing , and entering checked .-Names:In Middle Chinese, each of the tone names carries the tone it identifies: 平 even ,...

for reference):

S.A.	Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...	IPA	Name
maˏ	mā, má	ma˥, ma˧˥	level tone (平聲)
ma´	mǎ	ma˨˩˦	rising tone (上聲)
ma`	mà	ma˥˩	departing tone (去聲)
maˎ	—	—	entering tone Entering tone A checked tone, commonly known by its Chinese calque entering tone , is one of four syllable types in the phonology in Middle Chinese which are commonly translated as tone. However, it is not a tone in the phonetic sense, but rather describes a syllable that ends in a stop consonant, such as p, t,... (入聲)

Yang values are written with a small line under the accent mark. Tonal African languages written in this alphabet would use the acute accent to mark high tones, the grave accent to mark low tones and leave the mid tone unmarked.

Vowels

Consonants

Tones

See also