LINGUIST List 4.376

Sun 16 May 1993

FYI: RP phonetics program, Languages of Scotland and Ulster

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. "J.J. Higgins", RP phonetics program
2. Caoimhin P. ODonnaile, Languages of Scotland and Ulster

A phonetic exercise generator

Linguists may be interested to hear of a facility I came across recently for
giving and creating simple exercises for transcribing RP phonetics. The
program is called PHONETICS and runs on any machine running MSDOS 3.3 or
later equipped with EGA or better. (There is also a version for the Amstrad
PCW.) It creates its phonetic display by redefining code page 850 and
replacing the default code page 437. At the end the program restores code
page 437, so nothing else is disturbed. At present this means that you have
to make sure that one relevant line is included in your CONFIG.SYS file,
though I gather a new version is being written which will not even entail
that much preparation. As it is the documentation makes it fairly
straightforward.
 The software reads in a file of word and transcription pairs, and
presents them in either direction. If you are being asked to transcribe into
phonetics, the screen displays a plan of all the exotic characters and their
keys. If you try to enter an illegal character (such as a capital) the
machine beeps at you. Feedback when you have finished the item is still
fairly crude: right, not quite right (=one or two errors), not right (=3 or
more errors), but the new version will probably do more to pinpoint errors
within the word. You get three shots before being told the right answer.
 There is a simple editor for creating new exercises and the full
paraphenalia of record-keeping and reporting. The program is not ambitious
but does what it sets out to do very competently.
 The author is Martin Sawers, who lives at 71a, Westbury Hill, Westbury-
on-Trym, Bristol BS9 3AD, tel 0272-629746. He is asking L.35 for the MSDOS
version and L.30 for the PCW version, but will send a demo disk for L.5. He is
not on the net, but I can pass on names and addresses if people want to reply
to me.

I am posting the following notice on behalf of the "Forum for Research
on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster". I have just received the first
newsletter - a booklet full of interesting material. Enquiries should be
sent to: Dr Caroline Macafee, Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra,
Holywood, BT18 0EU, Co. Down, Northern Ireland, UK.

 "The Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster exists
 to bring together researchers on the native languages (English, Scots,
 Irish and Scottish Gaelic), present or past, of these areas. This
 organisation is a revival of the former Universities Forum for Research
 on the Languages of Scotland. Our first Newsletter in our new
 incarnation has just appeared, and our first conference, on computer-
 assisted research, will be held in Glasgow, on 11 September 1993.
 Conference contact: Ann Karkalas, Department of Adult Education,
 University of Glasgow, G12 8LW, UK. Membership of the Forum costs
 #5.00 per calendar year, and is open to persons involved in relevant
 research."

 Kevin Donnelly