Lietuvių tarmių transkripcija: tradicija ir IPA

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Tarmės (Dialektai); Transkripcija; Vokalizmas; Konsonantizmas; Prozodija; Lithuanian dialects; Transcription; International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA); Vocalism; Consonantism; Prosody.

ENThis paper discusses features of the traditional transcription of the Lithuanian dialects and suitability of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to mark sounds of the Lithuanian dialects. From the 20th to the 21st century texts of Lithuanian dialects are marked using transcription that was adapted by Georg Gerullis in 1930. It is distinctive transcription and differs from those applied for other languages. Due to this reason researchers are often confronted with problems of comparing the research results of several languages. Nowadays the quantitative measurements of language variance by computer programs requiring identical input data have become popular, but their use is interfered by differences in the transcription systems used. The research shows that the transcription varies in many publications printed in the period from the 20th to the 21st century, especially in the second half of the 20th century. The most important reasons for transcription variation have been the shortage of the necessary typographic letters/letterboxes, and different types of publications. The transcription became more uniform only in the publications at the beginning of the 21st century. In order to avoid transcription variation in the future the pilot study was performed transcribing the text of Western Aukštaitians of Kaunas subdialect using IPA symbols. After reviewing the relation of Palemonas characters traditionally used for transcription of the Lithuanian texts and IPA symbols, it can be concluded that in the IPA there are almost all the characters that are suitable to mark a variety of sounds found in the Lithuanian dialects. Only few sounds need to be marked with additional diacritics. When using the IPA symbols for transcription of the Lithuanian dialects the most problematic is marking of prosodic units. [From the publication]