Anthropos phonetic alphabet

Phonetic alphabet developed in the 1900s

The Anthropos phonetic alphabet is a phonetic transcription to be used in the journal Anthropos and published by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1907.^[1] Transcription is italic, without other delimiters. It shares similarities with Karl Richard Lepsius’ Standard Alphabet or some Americanist phonetic notations Edward Sapir and Franz Boas introduced to the United States.

Consonants

Palatalized consonants are written with an acute – t́ d́ ć j́ ś ź ĺ ń etc. Semivowels are i̯ u̯ ü̯ o̯ e̯ etc.

Vowels

Vowels are inconsistent between languages. ï ë etc. may be used for unrounded central vowels,^[3] and the ⟨a⟩-based letters are poorly defined, with height and rounding confounded.

There are actually three heights of low front and back vowels. ā is also seen for a low back vowel.

Reduced (obscure) vowels are i̥ e̥ ḁ etc. There are also extra-high vowels ị ụ etc.

References

1. P. W. Schmidt, P. G. Schmidt and P. J. Hermes, "Die Sprachlaute und ihre Darstellung in einem allgemeinen linguistischen Alphabet (Schluß) / Les sons du langage et leur représentation dans un alphabet linguistique général (Conclusion)", Anthropos, Bd. 2, H. 5. (1907), insert at page 1098
2. Although Anthropos specifies a bridge for lateral obstruents, it was more common at the time to use a tilde.
3. The central vowels shown here do not appear in the main vowel charts, but occur in various illustrations.