Il sistema di trascrizione dell’Atlante Linguistico Mediterraneo tra principi teorico-metodologici e prassi trascrittorie

This contribution traces the history of the Atlante Linguistico Mediterraneo transcrip- tion system, from its first formulation to the subsequent modifications that needed to be made after the fieldwork campaigns. The theoretical-methodological choices made by the promoters of this enterprise are investigated, as well as the phonetic practices of the fieldworkers who often departed from the original prescriptions. In the context of the works for the recovery and publication of the Atlas, and in relation to the strategies of normalization and simplification of the transcriptions that we are planning, it is more than ever appropriate to mature an overview of the evolution of the ALM transcription system and of the theoretical-methodological principles on which this was grounded. Every intervention on the transcriptions must indeed be consistent with these principles, so as to ensure the philological correctness of the operations. The main differences with the IPA transcription system are also summarized. This comparison will help to clarify the specificities of the ALM transcription system, and to correctly evaluate the opportunity and the modalities of a procedure for converting the ALM transcriptions into the IPA system.