Where can I download (free!) a good phonemic script font?

[phutty]

And, er, that's about the whole message really. Anyone got any ideas? I really need to use it. Please send any ideas (or fonts!) to my email address as well )
Cheers
phutty

[Lorikeet]

And, er, that's about the whole message really. Anyone got any ideas? I really need to use it. Please send any ideas (or fonts!) to my email address as well )
Cheers
phutty

There have been a couple threads about this. One was at

http://www.eslcafe.com/forums/teacher/v ... t=phonetic

I can't find the other right now. You can also try googling IPA fonts or something like that.

Lorikeet

[Pronunci]

I have created both IPA and APA fonts for my program Pronunciation Patterns. You can download the demo at http://www.PronunciationPatterns.com to get the font file. The file font will be installed in c:\windows\fonts directory after you install the demo.

If you need an interpret sheet for the font symbols, you just need to email me at [email protected] to let me know.

Xin Wang
MBA -- Class of 2005
Carnegie Mellon University

[Macavity]

Hello Phutty,
you can get a good font (which is also free to download) from www.JanMulder.co.uk
It's called Phonomap and is easy to use and understand.

BW
Macavity

[Anton]

SIL's fonts were a good option in times fonts were one-byte (256-character-) sized. Now I prefer to stick to an internatinal standard (Unicode) rather than use proprietary codepages (e.g. SIL). The advantage of Unicode fonts is that they are likely to last for a much longer time than any proprietary format. In addition, font designers are likely to create new typefaces in the Unicode format. If you intend to actually print your works, this is a strong argument. For example, you can try Lucida Sans Unicode, which is (I believe) shipped with Windows XP. The thing with this font is that at first sight you do not see the phonetic symbols. But they are there!

Where are the IPA symbols in Lucida? The Phonetic symbols of Unicode fonts (e.g. of Lucida Sans Unicode) can be found in the "Latin extended", the "Spacing Modifier Letters", and the "Combining diacritical marks" subsets of Unicode fonts. To view them, open the Windows Character Map, choose "Group by: Unicode subset" and choose the appropriate subset.

Pros and Cons of Lucida: Lucida covers most (but not all) IPA characters, although you will see it covers most languages, including all western European languages, Russian, Arabic, and many more.
A drawback for some languages is that some of the diacritical marks extending below the base line are not displayed properly in this font, but, at least, you have your characters in the right (Unicode-standard) place.


A good alternative to Keyman: Keyboard remappers like Keyman are fine, but it is a resident software that will take away some of your system's resources. It is better to use a native Windows Phonetic keyboard. And yes, now you can edit your own! Microsoft has (relatively recently) published a keyboard layout editor called Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (MSKLC.exe).
Download it from http://www.microsoft.com/


A final tip: Finally, I would like to suggest VTrain (Vocabulary Trainer), a flashcard-based program that includes several on-screen keyboards for Phonetic (IPA) symbols. These keyboards allow you to enter the phonetic characters by simple mouse clicks.
You will find it at http://www.vtrain.net/home.htm

Good luck!