[XeTeX] selecting font variants

[Don Killian]

Hi!

I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to select a font variant 
with fontspec?

I'm a linguist using the IPA, so I need to make a difference with a and 
ɑ.  Unfortunately, with Charis SIL, the only font which fully supports 
the IPA with both bold and italics, the default for the font is that 
italicized a turns into ɑ.

In Openoffice, the solution to this is to pick the slant italics variant 
manually, e.g. the font name becomes: Charis SIL:1053=1, not just Charis 
SIL.  This appears to work in Xelatex as well, but then for some reason 
all my italics disappear.

Any suggestions?

Best,

Don
-- 
Don Killian
Researcher in African Linguistics
Department of Modern Languages
PL 24 (Unioninkatu 40)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
+358 (0)44 5016437