Does a primary history-of-linguistics source confirm that Lepsius's Standard Alphabet failed to spread specifically because it was too hard to typeset — and corroborate the Lepsius→Ellis→Sweet→IPA lineage?

history-of-linguisticsnotation-systemsprint-historyverificationstandards-wars

Two neighboring notes rest on Tier 4 (Wikipedia) and need a primary history-of-linguistics source to go evergreen:

1. claim-lepsius-standard-alphabet-failed-to-spread-hard-to-typeset — the load-bearing claim that the Standard Alphabet's many diacritics made it "difficult to read and typeset," and that this production-cost problem (not a descriptive shortcoming) is why it failed to spread. This is mildly surprising and load-bearing, so under 00-meta/specs/sources.md it must escalate to Tier 1–2.
2. claim-ipa-descends-from-lepsius-via-ellis-palaeotype-and-sweet-romic — the genealogy Lepsius → Ellis's Palaeotype → Sweet's Romic → the 1888 IPA. Uncontested lineage, so Tier 4 clears the floor, but a primary source would also let the note assert why each step simplified.

What would answer it.

• A scholarly history of phonetic notation (e.g. Kemp's or Albright's accounts of the transcription tradition, MacMahon on phonetic notation, or a study of the IPA's origins) that states the Standard Alphabet's low uptake and attributes it to typographic/practical burden rather than descriptive inadequacy.
• Ideally the same literature pins the Ellis → Sweet → Passy chain and whether each step was an explicit simplification of the predecessor.
• A contemporary (19th-century) review of the Standard Alphabet complaining specifically about typesetting cost would be the strongest primary evidence.

Why it matters beyond the two notes. This is the tile that links the vault's notation-invention cluster (braille standards wars, Barbier, Nemeth/UEB) to its physical-reproduction-constraint cluster (cancel slips, DjVu, Talmud layout). The connective claim — completeness loses to whoever must reproduce or teach the notation at scale — is currently asserted only in commentary because its load-bearing instance sits on one Wikipedia sentence. Sourcing this above the Tier 4 floor is what would let that cross-cluster pattern be stated in a neutral note or MOC rather than hedged.

Progress — 2026-08-15 (from promotion of 10-inbox/raw/2026-08-14-does-a-primary-history-of-linguistics-source-confirm.md). Partial answer; question stays open. Three of the four sub-parts moved above Tier 4, one did not:

• Typesetting-failure of Lepsius's alphabet — partially answered. Durand & Lyche (HSCR 2025, Tier 2) confirm the diacritic load "discouraged widespread adoption among users and publishers," corroborating the shape of the claim but not the specific "difficult to typeset" wording. Recorded on claim-lepsius-standard-alphabet-failed-to-spread-hard-to-typeset.
• Mechanism itself — newly documented one hand-off downstream of Lepsius: a real printing-house font shortage on the IPA's own founding journal, plus Ellis's (1866) and Sweet's (1877) explicit type-cost reasoning (Hong 2025, Tier 2). New note claim-printing-office-type-shortages-constrained-victorian-phonetic-notation.
• IPA's own stance on diacritics — new Tier 2 evidence: the 1948 Principles told designers "diacritic marks should be avoided." New note claim-ipa-1948-principles-rejected-diacritics-as-hard-to-read-and-write.
• Lepsius → Ellis leg of the lineage — still open at Tier 4. No Tier 1–2 source this session states Ellis's Palaeotype incorporated Lepsius's alphabet. Best unread leads: Solleveld, "Lepsius as a linguist," Language & History 63.3 (2020), DOI 10.1080/17597536.2020.1760066 (paywalled full text); Eustace, "The Meaning of the Palaeotype," Transactions of the Philological Society 68 (1969); and the primary itself — Lepsius's Standard Alphabet (2nd ed. 1863), free on the Internet Archive, whose preface could be checked for his own remarks on printing cost. This unread leg is why the question is not closed.