Finding out the underlying working of TIPA - TeX

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Finding out the underlying working of TIPA

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निरंजन

Package TIPA is used for typing IPA characters. It uses T3 encoding. I want to know how it works. e.g. The command for printing the character `ɳ` in TIPA is `\textrtailn`, but like many of the TIPA commands it has a shorthand which is supposed to be enclosed in `\textipa{<shorthand>}` and it is `\textipa{\:n}`. In the following example I have renewed `\textrtailn` with Unicode character `ɳ`, used a Unicode font for IPA i.e. Charis SIL. I have italicized and emboldened the whole document text for the better visual understanding.

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tipa}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\colorlet{myblue}{blue!75!black}
\setmainfont[Color=myblue]{CharisSIL} % https://ctan.org/pkg/charissil
\renewcommand{\textrtailn}{ɳ}

\begin{document}
\bfseries\itshape

Hello world!

ɳ

\textrtailn

\textipa{\:n}
\end{document}
```

In the results I see the output of `\textrtailn` in the italic shaped, bold Unicode font Charis SIL. I can search it in the document, but the output of `\textipa{\:n}` is still in T3. It's not Charis; It's not Unicode; I can't search it in the PDF and of course it's not italic and bold. I tried looking up `tipa.sty`, but it didn't make much sense to me. The only command I could see for `\textrtailn` was -

```
\DeclareTextSymbolDefault\textrtailn{T3}
```

and the only command for a class of characters (retroflexes) which uses `\:` as the shorthand initial was -

```
\DeclareTextComposite{\:}{T3}{n}{239}
```

How to renew this with the Unicode character `ɳ`? Any ideas?

Top Answer

barbara beeton

This answer was kindly provided by Ulrike Fischer, who knows what she's talking about

```
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{fontspec}
\setmainfont{CharisSIL} % https://ctan.org/pkg/charissil
\newcommand{\textrtailn}{ɳ}
\DeclareTextComposite{\:}{TU}{n}{"0273}
\begin{document}
\bfseries\itshape
Hello world!
ɳ \:n \textrtailn
\end{document}

> If my approach turns out to be useful to you, I could write a full-fledged package/module for LuaLaTeX Your approach gives me the results that I want. So it is definitely helpful. Regarding the package I am already writing one for this, would you mind adding this code as a merge request to the current repository of the package? I would love to co-author the package with you. I am doing the long-commands part, you might add the short-commands part which I am unable to produce. What say?

As I said before, you could do some remappings in LuaTeX. Another alternative goes along the lines above (it could be done better and this is rather a toy example, but it works for exposition): ``` \documentclass{article} \usepackage{fontspec} \usepackage{luacode} \begin{luacode*} userdata = userdata or {} userdata.ipa = {} local fallback = function(t,k) return k end local callable = function(self,i) return self[i] end userdata.ipa.retroflexes = setmetatable( { ["d"] = "\u{256}", ["l"] = "\u{26D}", ["n"] = "\u{273}", ["r"] = "\u{27D}", ["R"] = "\u{27B}", ["s"] = "\u{282}", ["t"] = "\u{288}", ["z"] = "\u{290}" } , {__index = fallback, __call = callable} ) \end{luacode*} \newcommand\textipa[1]% {\begingroup \def\:##1% {\directlua {tex.sprint(userdata.ipa.retroflexes(\luastring{##1}))}}% #1% \endgroup} \setmainfont{CharisSIL} \begin{document} Hello world! \textipa{\:n\:r\:R\:x} \end{document} ```

Thanks Ulrike for [your answer](#a1924) and thanks @barbara for conveying it to me, but I am afraid that probably this is not what I want. ``` \documentclass{article} \usepackage{tipa} \usepackage{fontspec} \setmainfont{CharisSIL} % https://ctan.org/pkg/charissil \renewcommand{\textrtailn}{ɳ} \begin{document} \bfseries\itshape Hello world! ɳ \textrtailn\ % This works! \textipa{\:n} % This doesn't \end{document} ``` As can be seen here, I am trying to **renew** TIPA commands. The solution which is provided to me **defines** new commands. I have figured it out with `\renewcommand` for long commands like `\textrtailn`, but not yet for the short commands which are necessarily enclosed in `\textipa` command. e.g. `\textipa{\:n}`

Thanks both of you for your suggestions, I know about good Unicode fonts which handle IPA correctly. I have also used them for various purposes, but I want to remap TIPA shorthands to Unicode characters and as of now I have no idea how to proceed, so if you can suggest me a way to do that, it would be great.

You could remap TIPA symbols to Unicode characters (at least in LuaTeX, not sure if possible in XeTeX) but it looks like a complicated task. I'd recommend you to use a proper Unicode font and, as Barbara suggest, Charis SIL is quite well-designed.

TIPA is very old, designed for use with the original 128-character TeX fonts. The "shorthand" input will allow only characters from the ASCII set. Unicode will not work. I'm not an experienced user of TIPA, so I won't try to give a detailed answer. However, as you know, there are now good IPA fonts like Charis SIL, and these can be used directly with XeTeX or LuaTeX. That's a much better way to proceed for the future.

1 Answer