Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 11

Archive 5

←

Archive 9

Archive 10

Archive 11

Archive 12

Archive 13

→

Archive 15

IPA help

Hi i am trying to create an IPA for my hometowns article page to aid in its pronunciation. Town in quetion is Tobermore. It's pronounced; Toe-brr-more. So far i've come up with this: /'tɵ'bər'mɔər/ - is this correct or along the right lines?? Mabuska ^(talk) 20:33, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it might be closer to /ˈtoʊbərˌmɔər/, but I'm not sure about the stress. Does the first syllable carry primary stress or the last syllable? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:12, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I originally had toʊ rather than tɵ funnily enough. The first syllable toʊ would be more stressed than the mɔər. Mabuska ^(talk) 22:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

All right, that's how I have it transcribed. It looks like you've got an IPA transcription for your hometown. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The 2ary stress is a convention mostly of US dictionaries. If the OED were doing it (but using our vowel conventions), it would be /ˈtoʊbərmɔər/. — kwami (talk) 06:07, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

So which would be more suitable then? /ˈtoʊbərˌmɔər/ or /ˈtoʊbərmɔər/. Thanks for the help by the way peeps :-) Mabuska ^(talk) 10:22, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The second. Our key explains that the 1st isn't really stress, but a convention for dictionaries that don't indicate reduced vowels. Since we do, the "stress" make is unnecessary (and also inaccurate). — kwami (talk) 13:07, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated :-) Mabuska ^(talk) 18:19, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

IPA for Rilo Kiley

Hi, could anyone provide an IPA transcription of Rilo Kiley? Respelling key: RYE-loh KYE-lee. Thanks, decltype (talk) 15:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure.

Folks, should we maybe add respellings and USdict to this key? That might help people who are comfortable with one of those. — kwami (talk) 20:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I can read them okay, but I'm no good at writing them :) decltype (talk) 20:08, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Another editor got there first. — kwami (talk)

Oh, I didn't realize! I just checked the article, noticed it was there, and assumed it was you who had added it. decltype (talk) 22:38, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Kwami, aren't real words more reliable guides than loose fragments? −Woodstone (talk) 20:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting we remove the words, only that we add the other transcriptions for comparison. Perhaps that would be too busy. Or we could make a separate table/page for those interested in comparison. — kwami (talk) 20:39, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought we had that comparison table somewhere already. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:30, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It's at Pronunciation respelling for English. −Woodstone (talk) 22:35, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I meant specifically the three systems used on WP: IPA for English, USdict, and the respelling key (which is in a bit of flux right now for the eye vowel). — kwami (talk) 23:00, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Wells on US dictionary transcriptions

Since complaints about the IPA come up occasionally, I thought I'd paste this excerpt from John Wells, from his June 7 blog. It even touches tangentially on using the IPA as a diaphonemic system.

Regrettably, Aschmann eschews IPA notation in favour of the impenetrable “respelling” system found in the American Heritage Dictionary (but not used by any phoneticians or dialectologists, unknown outside North America, and not even the same as the Trager-type notation used by Labov). In this day and age, what good reason can there be for writing “ä” instead of ɑ or “ô” instead of ɔ?

Aschmann is under the mistaken impression that IPA notation is phonetic rather than phonemic.

This pronunciation system has the advantage that it is phonemic, rather than phonetic (like the IPA), and thus allows different dialects to use the same pronunciation key and get the right result for each dialect.

IPA notation can, of course, be either or neither. By far its largest consumer group is learners of foreign languages and particularly of English, who use it virtually only as a phonemic system.

Personally, I think my system of lexical sets (blog, 1 Feb 2010) performs the function referred to more transparently and helpfully than any alphabetic notation.

I find it amusing that he would characterize the AHD as "impenetrable", when it's inherently easier for an English speaker than the IPA (it's closer to English orthography), but there you go. A RS that AHD leaves people outside the US bewildered. — kwami (talk) 09:50, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Any system can be "impenetrable" if it uses symbols in unfamiliar ways. I don't know the AHD system myself: it it uses ä for ɑ then it is using umlauted "a" in a way that does not correpond to the orthography of any language I know. If I didn't know either IPA or AHD I would find both confusing (with AHD even more confusing because it uses a symbol that I associate with a front vowel to represent a back vowel). BTW I think your US/non-US dichotomy is oversimplifying matters for reasons I have stated elsewhere. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

From his statement in Accents of English, Wells doesn't seem to favor diaphonemic transcription systems (with the IPA or no) that represent dialects with different phonotactics and/or phoneme counts. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:07, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Wells says that a diaphonemic representation is a "linguist's construct" that doesn't correspond to a psychological reality in the minds of speakers (except, perhaps, for speakers who have the ability to speak multiple dialects). I don't think Wells is necessarily opposed to diaphonemic representations per se (although he didn't choose to use them for the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary where they would have saved a lot of space). Perhaps we should ask him at his blog! Grover cleveland (talk) 05:01, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. He does seem to discourage it in AoE (e.g. vol. 1, p. 69). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:23, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all, for finally admitting to what I had pointed out a long time ago what Wells was saying.--Kudpung (talk) 05:50, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

We admitted that long ago. I don't think we ever opposed it: No-one (here at least) claims that diaphonemes actually exist in people's heads. They're merely a transcription shortcut, which are used perfectly well in US dictionaries. — kwami (talk) 06:17, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Understanding the key (potential revision)

I have a suspicion that part of the confusion that some users may have with our key is the way we explain it to them in the text that appears below "understanding the key." I understand it perfectly fine, but I'm a linguist and so I don't even perceive some of the conceptual hurdles that the average reader will encounter. As Kudpung has said, we can also expect speakers from different areas to have different needs; this includes how we go about explaining the system. Speakers from areas that commonly use the IPA, for example, are likely to be unfamiliar with the diaphonemic approach. Speakers from the US are more likely to be confused by the IPA itself, etc. How might we frame it better for our readers? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

The first sentence may sound a bit less scary if we change it from

The pronunciation of English words in Wikipedia is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using the following diaphonic transcription, which is not specific to any one dialect.

to

The pronunciation of English words in Wikipedia is given in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using the following transcription, which is not specific to any one dialect.

When people find themselves at a page on John Donne, for example, they are usually interested in learning about John Donne. People who find themselves at Wikipedia:IPA for English page, however, are usually not interested in WP's IPA for English scheme, so a minimum of unfamiliar terms is best. I would also make the "Understanding the key" box hidden by default -- it looks less daunting to have only two sentences before the key instead of a dozen. --Atemperman (talk) 18:04, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I like your point about avoiding jargon. As to changing the default of the box, we agreed (above) that we should have it defaulted at unhidden, otherwise people may miss it, which (IMHO) is worse than being intimidated by blocks of text. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:28, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I had originally had it hidden, but then people went straight to the table and said "I don't have an ar in that name!"

Perhaps we could collapse the box and add a line suggesting that people read it if they haven't been here before? — kwami (talk) 18:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

I think something to consider is that the other IPA for X keys are pretty straightforward and not nearly as abstract as this one. The large box of text gives a subtle indicator that something is different here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:40, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Or perhaps a summary of the box could be included in the opening paragraph, with the more detailed examples in the collapsed box? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be best to describe clearly in non-technical language exactly what is being done. It should make claer particular/special/Wikipedia version of the IPA is being used and that this version attempts to describe the sound in any English accent. That is far from clear to most people. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I would propose to remove the concept and instances of "lexical sets" from the article. They are jargon and are confusing because two kinds of examples are in the table without clear distinction and no added value for the general public. They clutter the table. −Woodstone (talk) 21:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Drafting

This is where drafting of revisions to the "understanding the key" box takes place. The changes should not be implemented until after clear consensus has been reached.

This transcription system accommodates standard pronunciations of the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Because these accents differ in the number of sounds they have, not all of the distinctions shown here will be relevant to your own pronunciation. If, for example, you pronounce cot /ˈkɒt/ and caught /ˈkɔːt/ the same, you can simply ignore the difference between the symbols /ɒ/ and /ɔː/, just as you ignore the distinction between the written vowels o and au when pronouncing them.

In many accents, /r/ occurs only before a vowel; if you speak this way, simply ignore /r/ in the pronunciation guides where you would not pronounce it, as in cart /ˈkɑrt/ and beer /ˈbɪər/. In other pronunciations, /j/ (a y sound) doesn't occur after /t/, /d/, /n/ etc. in the same syllable; if this is how you speak, ignore the /j/ in transcriptions for words like new /ˈnjuː/.

The system is designed with the distinctions of all these accents so that only one transcription is necessary and readers can simply ignore the distinctions they don't make. For example, New York is transcribed /njuː ˈjɔrk/. For most people from England, and some New Yorkers, the /r/ in /ˈjɔrk/ is not pronounced and can be ignored; for most people from the US, as for other New Yorkers, the /j/ in /njuː/ is not pronounced and can be ignored.

On the other hand, you might make some distinctions that this key does not encode, as they are seldom reflected in dictionaries used for Wikipedia articles. Examples include the difference between the vowels of fir, fur and fern in Scottish and Irish English, the vowels of bad and had in many parts of Australia and the Eastern United States, and the vowels of spider and spied her in some parts of Scotland and North America.

Other words may differ incidentally in their pronunciation. Bath, for example, may have either the /æ/ vowel of cat or the /ɑː/ vowel of father, even though cat and father are pronounced differently. Such words are transcribed twice, once for each pronunciation: /ˈbæθ, ˈbɑːθ/.

The changes I made:

paragraph 1

a) Changed "key" to "transcription system"

b) Changed the name of the accents to the place they're spoken (while keeping the links intact)

c) Linked to Phonological change#Merger without using the term "merger."

paragraph 2

d) Linked to Rhotic and non-rhotic accents#Mergers characteristic of non-rhotic accents to help illustrate the feature of r-lessness.

e) Added beer as an example (so there are examples for both preconsonantal and word-final /r/)

f) Linked to Phonological history of English consonant clusters#Yod-dropping to help illustrate that feature.

paragraph 3

g) Added "The system is designed with the distinctions of all these accents so that only one transcription is necessary and readers can simply ignore the distinctions they don't make." This is what the "for example" of paragraph 3 seems to be an example for.

paragraph 4

h) Linked to Help:IPA conventions for English

i) Changed "Other words may have different vowels depending on the speaker" to "Other words may differ incidentally in their pronunciation."

j) Removed the historical account

k) Added "even though cat and father are pronounced differently"

I also l) Search-and-replaced "dialect" with "pronunciation" or "accent" and m) took out the note about stress (which is really a move to the key itself)

1c is most appropriate if all the differences between the accents we encode are due to mergers and not splits (something I'm not 100% sure on). 2f may not be as helpful as it could be if we tidied up that section. 4h was motivated partly by this edit where an editor didn't seem to understand we were drawing from multiple dictionaries. I'm not sure if my reword in paragraph 4 is an improvement (Is "incidental" jargon?) or if m won't cause more confusion. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Most of the changes are good. I'd link the splits in par. 4 to their respective articles, just as you did with the mergers, and the same with the bath alternation.

"even though cat and father are pronounced differently" is not very clear: differently from what? Obviously from each other, but that's not obviously relevant to bath.

"incidentally" doesn't work for me.

I'd want to keep in the note about 2ary stress. People tend to copy whichever stress markings their dictionary uses, without realizing that the dictionaries differ in their conventions here just as they do with vowels. — kwami (talk) 21:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Comment on the first FAQ

I know it's not really an FAQ, but obviously I'm referring to the first comment/reply about the IPA being gibberish. I'm not an expert in linguistics by any stretch and am not looking to get into a super technical argument/discussion, and I'm basically speaking here as a reader more than an editor.

I've been meaning to comment on the IPA issue for years and am finally doing so now, for whatever reason, though I'm not trying to relitigate the decision to use IPA. However the "answer" to the "gibberish" complaint is completely inadequate in my view, and will only come across as highly off-putting to most readers (including myself) who have this complaint. The fact is, to many (indeed most) people reading en.wikipedia, the IPA is gibberish, but the reply above essentially says "too bad, get with the program, the other thing you might kinda know is worse." That's not really acceptable in my view, even if it is some sense "right." The answer also admits that there are other ways we at Wikipedia could do phonetic transcription which might be more familiar to many, but we don't really bother to. Why not? Another problem is that it's unclear, to me at least, what exactly the phrase "for foreign pronunciations" means. If it means "pronunciations by non-English speakers" (I'm guessing that's it) it will be unclear to many why that is prioritized in our phonetic transcription rather than trying to list out the top five or so conventions used in many English-speaking societies.

Put in other terms, would you guess that using IPA helps more people pronounce words in our articles than would be helped if we used the system from the American Heritage Dictionary (or whatever)? Certainly something nation-specific would be off-putting to many, but then again many others would be helped by it. How many readers would you estimate actually know (or take the time to learn) the IPA and are helped by it when they come here, and how many just get annoyed and have no idea what it means, viewing it as useless? I'd be curious to see a survey on that, but I'd have to assume the latter vastly, vastly outnumber the former. If the point of phonetic transcription is to help people who read the English language Wikipedia to pronounce things they don't know how to pronounce then I doubt IPA helps more people than other major transcription systems in English.

I don't know what the solution is, but if you're really going to answer the "what is this gibberish" question you should probably start by admitting that it is gibberish to many, explain how there is not a really good solution, and apologize for the fact that they way we do phonetic transcription here at en.wikipedia might be pretty useless to a huge percentage of readers. The other remedy would be to embark on a concerted project to tag articles that have especially tricky pronunciation issues and then work on listing out alternatives to the IPA (after the IPA version) for as many of them as possible, rather than saying "few of us bother with that." Or if that project is too difficult (and it might be) then say, again, "sorry, we'd like to do this but haven't been able to pull it off yet."

The current answer basically says, "you're wrong, and maybe even a little dumb" in response to an incredibly valid question (though it's mildly humorous that it includes the phrase "all other conventions have shortcomings" while ignoring the fact that basically anyone reading the above is doing so because they thought, "what it the hell is that", i.e. the IPA system also has a pretty severe shortcoming—most don't know a damn thing about it). I'm sure those writing the answer had the best of intentions, but frankly it's pretty tone deaf. Rant, fin. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 07:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think there's any transcription system which is understandable by more than 60% or so of the readers. Now, it might be that the American dictionary system is gibberish to pretty much everybody outside the US, and IPA is gibberish to pretty much everybody in the US, and that most readers are American; but these readers are native English speakers so they are likely to already know the pronunciations, and we had better use the system which is most understood by those readers who don't already know the pronunciations – namely, IPA. (Then I do use things as "pronounced /sɒl/ (rhyming with doll)" or "/ɡɪ/ (as in gig)" whenever practical.) A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 08:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

I think "for foreign pronunciations" means pronunciations of foreign-language words. Of course, one wouldn't really use WP:IPA_for_English for that anyway, so it may be a general point about using IPA. (I absolutely cringe at the thought of using AHD for, say, Irish). I suppose I should also point out that the alternatives are so unreliably inconsistent that a even reader familiar with them can't be sure in many cases what the intended pronunciation is, and will have to consult the relevant key anyway.

I tend to think of this issue as similar to the Metric versus "Imperial/Traditional/US" measurement debate, but it may be more analogous to the earlier situation where every country had its own (perhaps more than one) traditional set of units: there's nothing wrong with using your local traditional system and it says nothing about your intelligence, but when talking to "outsiders" it's inefficient to have to redefine each measurement in terms of what each conversant is used to, and more efficient to encourage everyone to agree to a "neutral" standard. — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 16:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Since we have someone with a non-specialist viewpoint willing to offer suggestions, I say we forego discussing the merits of the IPA and skip to drafting a revision of our reply in the "FAQ" before he/she gets frustrated with us. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 17:22, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Drafting

This is where drafting of revisions takes place to our stock reply to the question "The IPA is gibberish and I can't read it. Why doesn't Wikipedia use a normal pronunciation key?" The changes should not be implemented until after clear consensus has been reached.

Because the IPA is the international norm, and all other conventions have shortcomings. For foreign pronunciations, the IPA is the only widely understood choice. However, in the case of English, there are a range of conventions which may be used in addition to the IPA, though few editors bother with them. See WP:Manual of Style (pronunciation).

The IPA is the international and therefore the Wikipedia standard for phonetic transcription. In the case of English pronunciations, this key may be linked through the template {{IPA-en}}; there are also some alternatives. An editor can simply say "rhymes with X" or "sounds like Y". Another option is a respelling key, linked with the {{respell}} template. Note, however, that the result may be gibberish to many people. For example, 'vice' is respelled vyes, which people may read as 'vye-ess' or as 'vies' ('vize'). Yet a third option are the in-house conventions of dictionaries published in the USA, which are more familiar to American children than is the IPA. Since each dictionary has its own variation on this theme, Wikipedia has developed a compromise convention linked through the template {{USdict}}. However, for anyone who didn't grow up with US-published dictionaries, this system is as completely unintelligible as you find the IPA. It is also inadequate for other languages.

IPA for Stretham, Cambridgeshire

I sincerely hope this is the correct place for an answer to the query: "what is the proper IPA for Stretham"? (To defend myself, Template:Respell directed me to here). There is a duologue going on at Talk:Stretham#Phonetic transcription of Stretham. Taking into account that discussion, and after listening hard to local people speaking, I have transcribed Stretham as follows

• Stretham /ˈstrɛtæm/ (which I believe is the Received Pronunciation)
• in-line reference:

• Locally, the /t/ is a glottal stop as in Stre'am (locally /ˈstrɛʔəm/ or even locally /ˈstrɛʔm/)

--Senra (talk) 11:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

This is a perfectly fine place to raise such questions! In my experience, the townname sufix -ham is almost always an unstressed /əm/, thus giving /ˈstrɛtəm/. There may be some exceptions, but if you are correct that the locals use /ˈstrɛʔəm/, that suggests this is not one of them. No one uses /ˈstreɪtəm/, do they? Obviously, if you can find a source that would be good. Cheers! — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 17:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Examples

"feel" may be the same as "seed" in some foreign accents, such as Swedlish, but in US and UK, it's a diphthong and distinct from the sound in "seed". In fact, the vowel sound in "feel", same as in "real" is not covered in this key. Also, "seed" is an elongated vowel, whereas "fleece", like "feet" is much shorter in duration. This key makes no mention of this important distinction, which is often lost on ESL students. Dave Yost (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

That's because it's not important at the level of phonemes, which is all we can expect an IPA key to cover. Of course different accents have different allophones. Rothorpe (talk) 22:42, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. The sounds of the vowel aren't identical, but it's the following consonant that determines it, not the word: feel rhymes with we'll and seed rhymes with we'd, and here the word is the same... A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 14:12, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

"Seed" rhymes with "weed", not "we'd". 68.208.127.65 (talk) 20:13, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

ʉ

The IPA character ʉ is listed as corresponding to both beautiful and curriculum, but I am not aware of any dialect in which (if I may attempt a phonetic presentation) "beautiful" is pronounced as bj-oo-ti-fool, nor "curriculum" as ker-ik-ah-lum; ergo these contradict one another and so one or the other must be wrong (i.e. the other "u" than that indicated must be intended in one of these two words), yet it is far from obvious which it is. It would be helpful if this could be corrected. 94.171.240.69 (talk) 23:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

In this transcription system /ʉ/ means that you can pronounce the word indifferently with either /ʊ/ or /ə/; it turns out that you use /ʊ/ for beautiful and /ə/ for curriculum, but other speakers can do otherwise. A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 00:13, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

All of the "reduced vowels" (except, arguably, /ə/) have that sort of variation. Should we put an explanatory note? I doubt the above anonymous user is the first to be confused by this convention. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Is it OK now? A. di M. (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I like it, but isn't the product of happy tensing a short [i]? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:49, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

It depends on the dialect; there are speakers for whom Andy's and Andes are homophones (see the archive of this talk page). Anyway, it might say "(either I or i: or something in between)", and the same for all the others... A. di M. (talk) 08:20, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Messy archives

In the last months many threads have been archived to Wikipedia talk:IPA for English/Archive 1, ..., Wikipedia talk:IPA for English/Archive 4, despite Help talk:Pronunciation/Archive 1 and Help talk:Pronunciation/Archive 2 and Wikipedia talk:IPA for English/Archive 3, ..., Wikipedia talk:IPA for English/Archive 8 already existing. As a result, /Archive 3 and /Archive 4 contain threads both from 2008 and from 2010. A. di M. (talk) 23:26, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Why don't IPA links play through my sound system?

Title says it all. I can't find any such thing here, and I wonder why it doesn't exist or isn't prominent on the page. Is there no software that can do that?

The first time I saw a word's pronunciation given on WP, after the word, in parentheses, and in some unfamiliar funny-lookin' characters that were obviously a kind of pronunciation code with which I was (and remain) unfamiliar, I turned on my speakers before clicking on it. I certainly didn't expect a link to a page about how to interpret the code.

I'm just a naive WP user. You Wikipedians must have discussed this possibility but I sure can't find any trace of it.

/jim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.101.206 (talk) 20:31, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

We don't generally use sound files primarily because that's a lot of work, and many people don't consider it necessary. (Most dictionaries don't include sound files, and do just fine.) — kwami (talk) 07:01, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Lexical set INTO??

Where does this come from? It's not in Accents of English. Grover cleveland (talk) 19:17, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Removed. Grover cleveland (talk) 01:56, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

BBC respelling key

Thought this was interesting, and perhaps relevant if old criticisms come back. The BBC has a respelling key in which they transcribe diaphonemic /r/. — kwami (talk) 00:47, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

"Our respellings acknowledge word-final or pre-consonantal R, as in words like party and hair, which is pronounced in some accents of English (rhotic) and not in others (non-rhotic). Therefore Parker is transcribed as PAAR-kuhr, not PAA-kuh, and the rs will be pronounced or not according to the speaker's accent."[1]

/ʍ/ and /hw/

Phoneticially the phoneme /ʍ/ is not at all the same thing as the sequence of phonemes /hw/. Phonetically the one is [ʍ] and the other might be [hw] or [hʷ]; Indeed that sequence is typologically rare and tends to [xw]. [ʍ] is more akin to [ɸ] than to [h] or [hw] or [hʷ]. It is s voiceless [w], like blowing out a candle, not a labialized [h] or a sequence. In IPA for English I suggest that only /ʍ/ should be given, and not /hw/ at all. The Concise Oxford typically writes only /w/ for words in wh-, and while the OED has used /hw/, it notes:

In OE. the pronunciation symbolized by hw was probably in the earliest periods a voiced bilabial consonant preceded by a breath. This was developed in two different directions: (1) it was reduced to a simple voiced consonant (w); (2) by the influence of the accompanying breath, the voiced (w) became unvoiced. The first of these pronunciations (w) probably became current first in southern ME. under the influence of French speakers, whence it spread northwards (but ME. orthography gives no reliable evidence on this point). It is now universal in English dialect speech except in the four northernmost counties and north Yorkshire, and is the prevailing pronunciation among educated speakers. The second pronunciation, denoted in this Dictionary by the conventional symbol (hw), and otherwise variously denoted by phoneticians, (wh), (w), (ẉ), (ʍ), is general in Scotland, Ireland, and America, and is used by a large proportion of educated speakers in England, either from social or educational tradition, or from a preference for what is considered a careful or correct pronunciation.

Note: the OED says that the OE sequence /hw/ was either reduced to /w/ or devoiced to /ʍ/. It is a mistake for IPA for English to write a velar/labial sequence /hw/ in contexts other than Old English. I propose that the policy (for Kwami says it is a policy) be changed and that /ʍ/ be used, as this accurately describes the pronunciation of wh- in the dialects which have it, and /hw/ does not. -- Evertype•✆ 09:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

I never said it was policy, I said it was a consensual convention.

I wouldn't use the OED for an argument in phonetics; in any case, you're confusing phonetics and phonology.

The /hw/ analysis is a common one. Treating it as a separate phoneme /ʍ/ is also common. I doubt either can be proven: it's a theoretical issue.

So that we don't repeat ourselves, the discussion to switch to <hw> was here. — kwami (talk) 09:55, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the analysis of [ʍ]=/hw/ being common (though I don't know how common), it is also easier for the target audience to read. I understand Evertype's argument that it's less phonetically precise, but this isn't a transcription convention known for its phonetic precision. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

The previous discussion seems to have had a brief mention of the 3rd option, /w̥/, which went over without much comment. However, this has the advantage of both visual similarity to plain /w/, and phonetical accuracy. Unlike /ʍ/, it also adheres to the regular IPA method of representing voiceless sonorants. It won't do any better against the "but is it really a single phoneme?" arguments (anyway, isn't that a topic for English phonology, not this key?), but I don't see anything that puts this at a disadvantage against /ʍ/. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:33, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

/w̥/ is too easily confused with /w/. There is absolutely nothing wrong with /hw/ as a phonemic analysis: it's used all over the place in reliable sources. Indeed, even the use of /h/ for words like hit is arguably phonetically inaccurate, since most English speakers do not have a glottal constriction in such words: phonetically they are more like [ɪ̥ɪt]. Grover cleveland (talk) 01:03, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't say I've ever seen [w̥] used for English, certainly not in phonemic (or diaphonemic) representations. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:35, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

It's used in The Sounds of the World's Languages as a phonetic analysis. Grover cleveland (talk) 01:41, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Phoneticially the phoneme /ʍ/ is not at all the same thing as the sequence of phonemes /hw/. Minimal pair, please? (Or, at least, an example of each.) The [ç] in human is transcribed as /hj/ and no-one objects to that; how is this different? A. di M. (talk) 10:47, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes: I think Evertype must have intended to say "the phone [ʍ] is not at all the same thing as the sequence of phones [hw]", which is true, of course, but irrelevant. Grover cleveland (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so: he was careful in distinguishing slashes from brackets and went on to describe what the possible realizations of each were. Now, by /ʍ/ he means the one in white, which etc., but I can't tell what he means by the "typologically rare" sequence /hw/ which "might be [hw] or [hʷ]" and "tends to [xw]". If he can provide an example of the latter in English (preferably but not necessarily a minimal pair with /ʍ/), his argument is valid; but I don't think there's one. A. di M. (talk) 10:24, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps Evertype is thinking of Spanish borrowings like Juan? For me they're identical (when spoken as Spanish loanwords in English) to the native /hw/ words like what, but perhaps there are some speakers for whom they are somehow different. Obviously the best thing would be for Evertype to come back and clarify... Grover cleveland (talk) 17:04, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Allophones

If the point of using IPA in Wik is to help non-native-speakers, then I think there are deficiencies in either the IPA or the version used. Some-one coming from a language where aspiration is a phonemic rather than allophonic distinction is likely to be confused by some-thing like this: b buy, cab. (It's equivalent to saying F life live for some-one who speaks a language (like English) in which voicing is a phonemic distinguisher: s/he will be at a loss on how to pronounce the word -- even though to a person of a language with-out that distinction mightn't even notice a difference.)

So it seems to me that the IPA as used here is frustrating to many Americans because it's too foreign and complicated and frustrating to many speakers of other languages because it lumps "diverse" sounds together. Kdammers (talk) 06:34, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

IPA for English is intended for speakers, either native or good enough to know what the sounds of English are. You're correct: if you do not know how to speak English, this key will not help you much. Of course, you'd first have to decide which dialect you wish to use, and that is not encoded here at all. I don't think changing this would work. How would we ever agree on which allophonic differences are salient enough to include, and would good or native speakers even remember that "lull" has two different consonants, or that the stop in spy is a different consonant than the stop in pie?

As for it being too difficult for Americans, I'm sorry, but we can't dumb down everything for Americans because of their insular educational system. (And I say that as an American raised on that system.) We don't give astronomical distances in miles, for example, nor the mass of the Moon in pounds. Now, some editors, in order to make WP more accessible to them, go around adding conversions to more American-friendly units like pounds and miles; likewise, some editors go around adding more American-friendly pronunciation guides as outlined at {{respelled}} or {{USdict}}. However, that's a lot of work, and most people don't bother. — kwami (talk) 06:53, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your reasoned response. I don't think we have to get into the dialect issue (IPA and the Wik advocates of it do a fair job of adjusting for and explaining that), but I still think the allophone issue should be better addressed. someone can be well enough versed in a language to read it and understand Wik entries yet still not comprehend that what s/he views as two totally different "letters" (phonemes) are not perceived as different by the average native-speaker of English ESPECIALLY when the examples given support this, to the out-sider, confusion.

On the second point: In the IPA discussion page, a solution has been proposed: a mouse-over gives examples using common English words. Kdammers (talk) 00:59, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

The logic expressed above seems to make no sense whatsoever... IPA is used so it can be read by non-English speakers, but then use a pronunciation guide that cannot be used by non-English speakers. Meanwhile, there seems to be wide agreement, including the note at the top of this page, that IPA is not useful for English speakers and is being included for non-English use. Wow. Maury Markowitz (talk) 23:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

That's a bit like saying that we use the metric system for non-English speakers, but then write the articles in English, so that they're not useful for either. The IPA is just the phonetic equivalent of metric. Americans complain about it for the same reason that they complain about the metric system: their insular education leaves them unprepared to work internationally. — kwami (talk) 00:02, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Who says the IPA is used so it can be read by non-English speakers? Neither Kwami nor the post at top say as much so I'm not sure where you're getting that, Maury. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:05, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I think Maury is confusing America with the rest of the vastly greater English speaking world. Common enough in Kwamis land of 'insular education' . --Kudpung (talk) 01:34, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I suspect as much, too. But perhaps we should let Maury speak for himself. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 01:48, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

This is much more interesting than I thought possible. All of you appear to be perfectly happy to throw around culturally predugicial comments attacking other users, without a shred of backing evidence. Didn't anyone think of going to my personal page before attacking me for being a cultural imperialist?

For the record, my comment above is based on the statement "someone can be well enough versed in a language to read it and understand Wik entries yet still not comprehend that what s/he views as two totally different "letters". This is the complaint that everyone coming here has, and it appears the common response is to call the person an imperialist. Wow.

Surely the group of people that created the world's largest and best encyclopedia in a few short years can do better? What I see here is institutionalized laziness. This is a technical issue, there are many obvious technical solutions. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

One user, Kdammers, has asserted that we use IPA to help non-native speakers of English. We don't, and this is what Kwami has said in response. When you say "The logic expressed above seems to make no sense whatsoever" it seems as though you're reading the exchange as being made by one person. You'll have to excuse me if I come off as culturally prejudicial in implying that you make sure you comprehend things as they are intended before responding.

It is possible to put allophones in a diaphonemic transcription scheme, but why would we do that? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:24, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

So, IPA is not for non-natives and it's not for Americans. According to one source (http://the_english_dept.tripod.com/esc.html), there are 375 million native speakers, the same number of second-language English speakers, and 3/4 million foreign-language English speakers. If there are, say, 250 million native speakers in America, then that sure leaves the non-American native speakers as a (compartaively) small body that we are apparently catering to according to this thinking.Kdammers (talk) 02:55, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Okay, do you have a better suggestion? — kwami (talk) 05:39, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Notice

A discussion relevant to this project is underway on WP:VPR#Change /r/ in English IPA transcriptions to /ɹ/.—Emil J. 12:39, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

There was a discussion, but I, the starter of it, have accepted that my idea was bad. So the discussion is over now. Skrodl (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

For future reference, this discussion, entitled Change /r/ in English IPA transcriptions to /ɹ/, has now been archived. Grover cleveland (talk) 04:26, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Why no links to sounds?

Hi. IPA articles for all other languages have links to sound articles (where sensible). Why is English the only exception? People mostly come here to translate unknown symbols into sounds. 220.210.180.29 (talk) 01:45, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

The quick answer is that this transcription system doesn't necessarily indicate sounds but classes of corresponding sounds. /æ/ isn't just an open front unrounded vowel, it's the vowel of cat. Because dialects differ in the phonetic features of their vowels, this could be [æ], but it could also be [a], [ɛ], [ɪə], etc.

That said, perhaps we could construct sound files of speakers of various dialects pronouncing our example words. RP and GA would be a must, but other dialects are certainly possible. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

My question remains. Why is English the only exception?

Your reasoning does not apply to most consonants, which are shared. I would add the links myself, but the page is protected for some reason.

In any case, even where there is regional variation, I think we should either link to the various sounds in the notes or, as you say, expand the table to show the dialects, which is already happening for Czech/Slovak, Dutch/Afrikaans, Swedish/Norwegian etc. 220.100.125.198 (talk) 23:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Er... I've heard the second consonant in getting realized at least in half a dozen different ways. A. di M. (talk) 09:31, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

You may want to improve the article then, because I don't see any mention of this fact. What you are highlighting is a shortcoming of the current version, largely independent from the point I raised. 220.100.125.198 (talk) 11:34, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

A. di M.'s point highlights the problem with linking with most of the sounds, including consonants. Because of allophony, phonetic particularities, or dialectal variation (which, by the way, aren't under the scope here; that would be at English phonology and IPA chart for English dialects, as well as the numerous articles discussing English's historical phonology) we'd only be able to link to /f s ʃ m n j/ and maybe /w/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:36, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

In IPA chart for English dialects I cannot see variations for b, dʒ, ɡ, f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, x, m, n, ŋ, w, j and ʔ. Even where there is variation, I can't see what stops this article from mentioning the various sounds (with links) either inline in the table, or in footnotes. That's what articles for all other languages are helpfully doing.

Assuming that at least some of the variations in "getting"'s rendering do not affect the rendering of a /t/ at the start of a word, I still think that A. di M.'s point does highlight an issue with the current article. 220.100.125.198 (talk) 13:20, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Take a look at fortis and lenis, which shows some allophony for /t/and /d/ in American English. And that's just one dialect. The problem compounds until there's too much information. Heck, WP:IPA for Catalan encodes just two dialects and it's a mess.

If the point of this key (it's not an article, which may be an important point) were to describe English pronunciation, then we would indeed want to exhibit greater phonetic description. However, the point is to show how English pronunciation (which our readers are expected to know) is rendered in IPA. That, on top of its abstract character, means detailed phonetics and linking to sound files articles wouldn't be called for here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the fundamental difference with Catalan is that the reader cannot be expected to know what it sounds like. We do not treat the native language of our site the same as foreign languages. (We can safely assume that nearly every reader here knows English; we must assume that every other language is alien to them.) — kwami (talk) 00:39, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like a broader debate about the purpose of this key, and the assumptions we are making, is needed.

If I write

The word ''adobe'' ({{pron-en|əˈdoʊbiː}}) blah blah

I get

"The word adobe ({{pron-en|əˈdoʊbiː}}) blah blah"

which points to this page, where I expect readers to be able to actually work out how they are supposed to pronounce the thing. They should ideally get an answer without being further redirected to other geeky phonetics pages that they are not necessarily interested in. All the reader wants to know when they come here through that link is how to pronounce that IPA string. I really don't see how adding links to sounds would get in the way.

As you can see, in all this no assumption about English proficiency of the reader was necessary or relevant. 205.228.108.57 (talk) 03:45, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I can't tell if that's supposed to be a pro or a con. They come to this page, and they see how the word is pronounced. That's exactly what a pronunciation key is supposed to do, the way they work in every dictionary. They aren't redirected anywhere else for that info. Why would further debate be needed? — kwami (talk) 04:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Because the question in the title of this section has not been answered. On what grounds would you not introduce links to sounds where appropriate and unambiguous? How would they harm exactly? Make examples please. 205.228.108.58 (talk) 05:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

It would be odd to have sound files for /b/ but not for /t/. People would complain that the key is incomplete. (That's assuming they don't object to us not covering their dialect.) If we do include /t/, and give it, say, the pronunciation it has in "top", and link to that from "bottle", a reader might rightfully complain that when they pronounce the /t/ in "bottle" like the soundfile we provide them from "top", they are criticized for their poor pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 05:35, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

I never said we should link /t/ (although I do think we should link [t]). You simply don't how many people will complain until those links are introduced. As far as I can see, incomplete coverage for other languages has not been a problem so far. 205.228.108.58 (talk) 05:47, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

And again we are forgetting the template {{IPAc-en}}, which codes:

The word ''adobe'' {{IPAc-en|ə|ˈ|d|oʊ|b|iː}} blah blah

to get:

The word adobe /əˈdoʊbiː/ blah blah,

where mousovers give pop-ups indicating how to pronounce all the symbols.

−Woodstone (talk) 06:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

That has the same problem. If I see "great ape /ɡreɪteɪp/" and pronounce the "'t' as in 'tie'" as the tooltip suggests, people would be likely to understand grey tape. A better idea would be having a tooltip at least for each onset and each rime, and if practical for greater units (e.g. "Betelgeuse {{pron-en|ˈ{{abbr|biːtəl|/biːtəl/ as 'beetle'}}{{abbr|dʒuːz|/dʒuːz/ as 'juice'}}}}". A. di M. (talk) 10:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

A much simpler solution would be syllable markers /ɡreɪt.eɪp/ vs /ɡreɪ.teɪp/.

As I said above, linking to phone articles wouldn't be appropriate, nor would bringing information from "geeky phonetics [sic] pages" but linking to sound files that we create for this article would be nothing but helpful as long as we have sound files for at least RP and GA. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 13:20, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

"As I said above, linking to phone articles wouldn't be appropriate" - sorry I must have missed that, and the rationale behind it, too. Could you please repeat it? One thing you did say above is that "linking to sound files wouldn't be called for here", which seems in contradiction with your latest comment. 58.138.21.63 (talk) 14:24, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Also I think your "much simpler solution" is missing A. di M.'s point. /ɡreɪt.eɪp/ still says "t as in tie", which I believe A. di M. is disputing as incorrect. Anyway, as I said this is a shortcoming of the current state which has little to do with the proposal to add links. 58.138.21.63 (talk) 14:37, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

There may be a little bit of muddling of two issues (I goofed when I said "linking to sound files wouldn't be appropriate", I meant "sound articles"). The original proposal is to link the IPA characters to phone articles like voiceless alveolar plosive and close front unrounded vowel. This is untenable for several reasons:

1. The sounds of English often don't correlate with the sounds indicated in such phone articles
   1. /b/ is often devoiced or unvoiced
   2. /iː/ is more of a diphthong [iɪ]
2. Many of English's vowels simply don't have articles because they're diphthongs
   1. e.g. /eɪ/ /oʊ/ /ɔɪ/ /aɪ/ /ɪər/ etc
3. The sounds of English often have contextual variants that make linking to one phone article oversimplistic (i.e. wrong).
   1. /t/ can be [tʰ], [t], [ɾ], [ʔ], or [ʔt], etc. depending on context.
   2. /l/ can have secondary velar constriction at the end of a syllable.
4. This key encodes for multiple dialects, making representations indicative of different phones depending on dialect
   1. /ð/ is a dental plosive in certain dialects, a dental fricative in others, and may even be a dental affricate for some speakers.
   2. /r/ can be an alveolar approximant, a retroflex approximant, a labiodental approximant, or an alveolar tap.
   3. /ɨ/ can be [ə] for some speakers and a near-close central unrounded vowel for others.

That said, the helpful feature of these phone articles is the sound file that allows readers to hear the sound in question. Although the problems outlined above prevent us from linking to phone articles, there's nothing stopping us from (and this is a separate solution) making sound files that feature the dialectal pronunciations of these sounds and linking to them in this key. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:34, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

We got it already. What part of "where sensible" and "Your reasoning does not apply to [16] consonants, which are shared" did you not understand? Points 1-4 are all moot.

Anyway, I accept that pointing to sound files could be better than pointing to articles. Personally, I would prefer pointing to both, with something like this: {{IPAblink|β}}{{IPAsound|β|30}}

IPAsound currently renders in a separate line, which I'd like to see fixed. We can come up with a variation of that template that features a simple icon and a link, like . But then the sounds would not be inline any more, it would jump to a different page.

I don't think new sound files are called for, at least in a first cut. The ones we have in the phone articles are good enough.

Once again, all this also applies to all other languages, not just English. 220.210.182.238 (talk) 23:23, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, apologies, your point 1 does introduce new information, in that /b/ would not be part of the shared set. This however again highlights a shortcoming of the status quo, rather than an argument against the proposal. 205.228.108.185 (talk) 01:44, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you're getting the number 16 from. At most, I count 8 (several of which need no explanation) that have no dialectal or significant allophonic variation. Either way, it's considerably less than 24, not to mention the lack of vowel links. So we should instead concentrate on the sound file option.

Keep in mind that the example words could be linked instead. For each sound, we have three options (as I see it):

• Create a file for each sound rendered in a particular dialect (e.g. RP /iː/, GA /iː/, AusE /iː/, etc)
• Create a file for each sound rendered in multiple dialects (e.g., RP, GA, AusE /uː/; RP, GA, AusE /eɪ/, etc
• Create a file that renders all the sounds for each dialect (e.g. all the sounds in RP, all the sounds in GA, etc).

Another thing to keep in mind is that the vowels are the most important to distinguish between dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

The number 16 comes from this comment above:

In IPA chart for English dialects I cannot see variations for b, dʒ, ɡ, f, v, s, z, ʃ, ʒ, x, m, n, ŋ, w, j and ʔ. Even where there is variation, I can't see what stops this article from mentioning the various sounds (with links) either inline in the table, or in footnotes. That's what articles for all other languages are helpfully doing.

In some dialects /j/ is merged with /ʃ/ after /t/ and with /ʒ/ after /d/; in others it is dropped after /t/, /d/, and /n/ in the same syllable; for some speakers it has much more constriction in yeast than in yard, etc. A. di M. (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

You pointed out that /b/ has variations, so that would bring it down to 15. 205.228.108.185 (talk) 06:16, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

My vote would go for "Create a file for each sound rendered in a particular dialect", except I would not create any files, I would just link to the files we already have. From this conversation it's becoming clear to me that there are worse approximations in the current key to worry about. 205.228.108.185 (talk) 06:21, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

/v/ has variations, as certain dialects merge it with /w/, /x/ and /ʔ/ vary in whether they're even present in a dialect, while /dʒ/ and /ɡ/ have the same problems as /b/.

If we're going to concentrate on vowels, we will definitely have to create sound files. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:58, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Why < r > for / ɹ /?

It makes no sense to me that Wikipedia uses < r > to represent the English / ɹ /, and I don't think it represents a global perspective, or factual accuracy. Using < r > made sense in the era of typewriters, but it's absurd in the era of Unicode. Here are a few thoughts:

1. Although people untrained in IPA would certainly have no way of interpreting < ɹ >, using < r > can create even more confusion.

2. There are plenty of situations on Wikipedia in which an actual alveolar trill needs to be represented, even in English (Scots).

3. The whole point of IPA, and of phonetic transcription in general, is crosslinguistic consistency and universality.

4. It's not difficult to learn IPA--not at all. Especially for people who already use the Roman alphabet. And memorizing one additional oddity isn't going to make it significantly more difficult for those who have trouble with it.

If Wikipedia only dealt with topics in the non-Scots English-speaking world, and nothing else, it wouldn't matter. But Wikipedia deals with everything! I know I'm not going to convince enough people that the symbol should be changed, but oh well; it still should be. --N-k (talk) 02:05, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

This has come up before. You may want to check the discussion at this link (you may have to scroll down a bit -- search for "IPA"). The basic reason is that the IPA transcription for English is a broad, not a narrow, IPA transcription. Grover cleveland (talk) 04:25, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and as I just mentioned in the section above, it's not always (and usually isn't) [ɹ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:54, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

/r/ is not broad transcription of /ɹ/. That is a misuse of the term broad transcription. --N-k (talk) 22:32, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with N-k. It's infuriating to see so many people misusing IPA. While we may sometimes use things such as "N" to represent a nasal, as far as I know, there is no broad way to express the general rhotic of a particular dialect of English. I would suggest using R to represent a general rhotic, but this falls apart for two reasons. 1. It may be confused with the uvular trill /ʀ/. 2. What if more than one rhotic is present in a particular dialect? Still, it would be a far better solution than misusing another IPA symbol. On Wiktionary, we simply include narrow transcriptions and list in which dialect they are relevant. It's quite easy. /r/ and /ɹ/ are not the same and one should not be substituted for the other in terms of IPA transcriptions. If you're going to do something like that, you might as well skip transcriptions altogether and only use general spelling. -- ThePhonetician on Wiktionary. 70.33.84.175 (talk) 15:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Something must be said of the many many linguists who use /r/ for English. Particularly when it comes to non-phonetic linguistic literature, r is used much more than ɹ by experts in the field. You can make a case that the more phonetically accurate symbol should be used in those cases just as you can here, but if the field allows its use then it really isn't a "misuse." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:28, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Trap-bath

One thing that's always bothered me about the transcription here is that words resulting from the trap-bath split must be transcribed twice, with both /æ/ and /ɑː/. Has it ever been proposed to use something like /a/, /aː/, or /æː/ to cover the BATH lexical set? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

I once proposed that, but I wasn't entirely serious. (Someone had proposed to add a symbol for an even rarer diaphoneme and I answered "If we really need to have more symbols, let's add symbols for BATH and for CLOTH which would be more useful.") That said, I wouldn't oppose that. A. di M. (talk) 02:08, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe Wells, in arguing against using diaphonemic systems, made the case that it was necessary in constructing such a system; AFAIK, the contrast is present in dictionaries and the logic is the same for /ɨ ɵ ʉ/ but others have argued against extending this to representing the trap-bath split for reasons that I've forgotten. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]}

FWIW, American Theater Standard uses /a/ for BATH (which is supposed to be pronounced differently from both PALM and TRAP). Grover cleveland (talk) 21:07, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

BTW, this says 'but if you use in "ask" a vowel distinct both from the one in "cat" and the one in "father", then [a] is what it is', though I think most of the people who use three different vowels for them are those Americans who have /æ ɑ eə/. A. di M. (talk) 02:06, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Any connection between the two? — kwami (talk) 15:54, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I don't think so, at least no obvious connection. The original trap-bath split and the later selective lengthening/raising of TRAP-BATH affect many of the same environments, but they seem independent. For example, bad never became a BATH word, but it is usually subject to lengthening/raising in accents that feature it. Grover cleveland (talk) 00:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, I suppose that settles it then :) Grover cleveland (talk) 05:51, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I personally like /æː/, though that's the symbol used for Australian English's bad-lad split. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:37, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Example of dictionary using diaphonemic transcriptions

Apparently the 2008 "Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary" does this. See this review. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:09, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

Their version of the IPA is very close to ours, apart from [e] and [ʳ] for coda /r/. — kwami (talk) 21:25, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language uses a nearly identical system (except they also use the small-caps I with stroke for wanted, they an undertack rather than a superscript schwa for syllabic vowels, and I can't remember whether they use /i/ for happy). A. di M. (talk) 13:56, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

foal rhymes with full, and it doesn't rhyme with bone

it's not a good example; please remove it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.126.70.183 (talk) 07:26, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

It is a good example, if it warns you that the transcriptions may not reflect your dialect. Can you think of a word ending in L which has that vowel? — kwami (talk) 07:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

For whom does foal [fol] rhyme with full /fʊl/? -- Evertype•✆

Nobody? --Kudpung (talk) 01:14, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Foal and Coal rhyme for me, as do Bone and Phone. I think that full might not exactly fit in with the vowel it's put under (at least in my dialect.), but I don't think it rhymes with foal or coal. I've spent the last 10 minutes attracting strange looks saying those words out loud.173.32.219.250 (talk) 07:20, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course foal and coal rhyme. Can't see where 'full' comes near it. I've spent the last 30 years lecturing English and getting some funny looks... --Kudpung (talk) 11:23, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

WP:IPA-EN, extended

Today I got an idea I'd like to float out there: what if we created WP:IPA for English, extended (title is debatable) and a corresponding Template:IPAx-en to cover a few (overlapping) purposes:

• Narrow transcriptions that currently use Template:IPA and link only to WP:IPA (like the myriad English phonology articles)
• Local pronunciations that go beyond different diaphonemes (Examples: Melbourne, Louisville, New Orleans)
• Historical pronunciations
• Old English, Middle English, Scots, etc., which don't have transcription keys of their own, and likely won't for some time

Ideally, this page would first transclude the diaphonemic key at WP:IPA for English, then perhaps duplicate (or more likely supersede) IPA chart for English dialects, then handle the other relevant IPA symbols (in time giving dedicated sections to OE, ME, Scots, etc., which could be split off when ready)

I'm thinking this could relieve some of the pressures to narrow the broad nature of transcriptions at WP:IPAEN, while not casting the novice into the sea at WP:IPA. Of course, care must be taken to discourage use of this new key in the vast majority of cases where WP:IPAEN is more appropriate. — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 23:08, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see this. You have my support.

There is a template {{IPA-endia}} for dialectical pronunciations that don't fit into the existing key. (Lots of them link manually to the Australian English phonology article right now.) Go ahead and move it if you think of a more intuitive name. There's also now {{IPA-sco}} for Scotts (some of whose transclusions are actually Scottish English), as well as IPA-ang and IPA-enm.

Yes, it could easily get to be a mess. That was a problem with the old IPA-en-aus, which simply made Australian place names impenetrable. — kwami (talk) 05:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Tune

tune should be with soon in u: - not with cute in ju: — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reggiepv (talk • contribs) 15:39, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

In American English, tune is a perfect rhyme with soon. However, other places pronounce this with a y-like sound, as in cute. This is the result of the historical process of yod-dropping. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:31, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Vowel of "cot"

Cot is /kɑt/, not /kɒt/ for the vast majority of native English speakers (Americans and Canadians).--TheAmericanizator (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes. Do you think we shouldn't encode the distinction between /ɑː/ and /ɒ/ despite the significant number of speakers who do make this distinction and its presence in dictionaries? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:43, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

nasal vowels

Just a note in case we add these, Wells[2] notes that in BrE the French vowels [ɛ̃ œ̃ ɔ̃ ɑ̃] tend to be pronounced [æ̃ ʌ̃ ɒ̃ ɒ̃]. That's not nec. the way they're normally pronounced in the US, though; AFAIK they tend to be either [ɛn ʌn ɒn ɒn] or, if actually nasalized, s.t. more akin to [ɛ̃ ʌ̃ õʊ ɑ̃ː] (I can't actually tell what the last vowel is; it might be [ɒ̃].) Is this s.t. we even want to mess with? — kwami (talk) 11:54, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

So you're saying the British are superior to Americans? Nice to know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.104.45.20 (talk) 22:49, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Chi for k

I don't think chi should be listed with sky and crack for examples of /k/. It's confusing, and there are plenty of other examples. (It's referring to the Greek letter, right?)--68.193.135.139 (talk) 00:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy vowel

I've been finding that ‹i› is not a reliable indicator of the happy vowel in our transcriptions. It's very commonly used for unstressed /iː/ instead. Some of that may be my fault, but I've been finding it in articles I'm pretty sure I never touched. This was why I had originally advocated avoiding the five Latin vowel letters altogether. I've been going through the articles converting ‹i› to ‹iː› where needed, but since I don't make the distinction, it's not an easy job, and I'm almost certainly making mistakes. I've even changed some to ‹ɪ› so that I don't have to look them up six times, and am basically lost where I can't look them up or predict them from the etymology.

So, question: is it worth keeping the ‹i› convention if that symbol has become ambiguous? Do we have anyone who makes the distinction who's willing to police those thousands of articles? What would be the complications of changing it to ‹ɪ› (e.g. needing to mark more syllable boundaries), leaving ‹i› for cases we haven't detemined? One advantage I can think of for ‹ɪ›, besides being unambiguous: If we get it wrong, it would be much more likely to be noticed that ‹i› is. — kwami (talk) 18:34, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Studded ≠ studied for many speakers. A. di M. (talk) 18:37, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Studded has schwi, /ɨ/. You're right, many articles do use ‹ɪ› when they should use reduced ‹ɨ›, but I don't think that would be as much a problem cross-dialectically. Maybe. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Does studded = studied for any speakers? That would surprise me, but then again I have trouble hearing the HAPPY vowel as [ɪ] in anyone's speech. As someone who doesn't make the length distinction, I'm afraid I don't quite see the problem (and may have caused some of it). Doesn't the HAPPY vowel essentially function as the reduced form of /iː/? Does it ever contrast with a reduced /iː/? (Despite having trouble hearing it, I'm pretty sure there's a contrast between mere unstressed /iː/, which is still [iː], and unstressed reduced /iː/, which is [i]. I could easily be wrong) — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 18:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Exactly: the happy vowel is the reduced counterpart to /iː/. Our reduced vowel set is i ɨ ɵ ʉ ə ər. As AdM noted above, there's a potential problem with using ‹ɪ› for both a reduced and a full vowel. However, they appear to be in complimentary distribution, or nearly so. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean by "they", KIT and schwi or KIT and happY? A. di M. (talk) 20:10, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

KIT and HAPPY. — kwami (talk) 23:04, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a minor correction, the HAPPY vowel is a neutralization of FLEECE and KIT. I don't understand why you would be making mistakes, Kwami. Shouldn't our conventions be based on synthesizing dictionary transcriptions? Can you give examples of how your inability of distinguishing between HAPPY and unstressed FLEECE can't be remedied by dictionary searches? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, when it's not in a dictionary. Most of these are personal and place names. — kwami (talk) 07:22, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much all British dictionaries distinguish HAPPY from FLEECE, though many older ones don't distinguish it from KIT. Not many dictionaries distinguish KIT from schwi, and, quoting John Wells, one of those which do "sometimes gets it wrong". A. di M. (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

In belated answer to Xyzzyva's question: Yes. Older RP speakers, for one, generally have studded = studied. I know that John Wells has said that he has this identity. Grover cleveland (talk) 07:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Nvidia

See Nvidia (the computer graphics chipset company). The opening sentence of the article says the name is "pronounced /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/ en-VIH-dee-ə" — with an inline source reference to a short YouTube video featuring a female voice whispering the name "Nvidia".

When I listen to the sound track of this video, however, I don't hear /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/ — I hear /ɪnˈvɪdi.ə/ (with the first two vowels being identical). I can think of several possible explanations:

1. The way it's meant to be said is /ɪnˈvɪdi.ə/ (just like in the video), and the people who say /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/ (or who think the video is saying /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/) are just plain wrong.
2. It's /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/, and the video is saying /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/, and people like me who think the video is saying /ɪnˈvɪdi.ə/ are just plain wrong.
3. The confusion between hearing /ɪn/ or /ɛn/ is happening because the people who hear /ɛnˈvɪdi.ə/ speak dialects that have undergone the pin-pen merger.
4. The woman whose voice is used in the video speaks a dialect with the pin-pen merger — possibly meaning it's impossible to tell how the name is supposed to be pronounced based solely on this one recording.

First, I'd be interested in knowing what people working here might have to say about this video: when you listen to it, do you hear /ɪn/, or /ɛn/, or is it not clear?

Second, there seems to be a potential basic flaw here in the idea of using recordings as sources for pronunciation in Wikipedia articles, if different people, listening to the same recording, cannot agree on a proper transcription. Taken to an extreme, I suppose this could mean that virtually no pronunciations are acceptable on Wikipedia (since almost all pronunciations are probably supported either by an editor's interpretation of a primary source, or by an editor's personal knowledge without any specific source at all). Please understand, though, that I would personally support invoking WP:IAR before proposing any massive purge of pronunciations from Wikipedia on this basis. Richwales (talk • contribs) 05:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like /ɪnˈvɪdi.ə/ to me, too, although the recording isn't terribly clear. FWIW, that's how I have always heard it pronounced in real life, too. I would feel justified in changing the pronunciation as given in the article, assuming that this recording is the only cited source. I agree that recordings are not ideal sources for pronunciation, but they're often all that is available and they're better than nothing. It's possible that the IPA pronunciation and the recording were added by two different editors, and that the editor adding the IPA assumed that the initial "N" corresponded to the name of the English letter "N" -- just speculation but I'm too lazy to check the edit history and find out :) Grover cleveland (talk) 08:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

There's another possibility, that it's a reduced vowel. Both /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ reduce to the same 'schwi'. But listening to the recording, that doesn't seem to be the case: it does sound like an unreduced /ɪnˈvɪdiə/ to me. I've changed the article, but Rich has a point: it would be better if we could confirm w say a live press release or something. — kwami (talk) 08:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It may be just me, but I hear /ɪnˈvɪdija/. This is not a proposal to change anything to the article. −Woodstone (talk) 14:53, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding of English vowel reduction is that [ɛ] doesn't occur in a syllable immediately preceding a stressed one. It could be that people mistakenly hear /ɛ/ because of the spelling, or it could be that the /ɛ/-/ɪ/ contrast is maintained by a shifting sort of reduction so that the latter becomes [ɨ] and the former becomes [ɪ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:49, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that one would normally expect a reduced vowel (something between /ɪ/ and /ɛ/) in this position — but the sound in question sounds, to me, like it is intentionally /ɪ/ (i.e., I agree with Kwamikagami). Since /ɪ/ doesn't normally occur in completely unstressed syllables, I initially assumed the first syllable was being lengthened to satisfy stress timing, though I can now tell that this is not the case after all. In short, the pronunciation doesn't seem to conform to general North American speech norms, which may be one reason why different people hear it differently. Richwales (talk • contribs) 18:18, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Reflecting on the question of using recordings as sources. Our policy on primary sources states:

All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.

While pronunciation transcription is technically analysis, I would break it down into pronunciations (or parts of a pronunciation) that are more-or-less obvious and/or dialect neutral and those that depend on speaker and therefore require trained analysis. For example, even someone with no phonetic training can tell from a recording whether Yankovic is pronounced with a /k/ or /tʃ/. However, whether the first syllable's vowel is /æ/ or /eɪ/ is not so obvious because of dialectal variation. Determining vowels is even harder with unstressed syllables.

While recordings-as-sources can be better than nothing, this is only for those obvious pronunciations. For everything else, it's actually worse than nothing because it gives the illusion of attribution for what is really original analysis. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:45, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

(a) there's an unstressed [ɪ] in chauvinism. (b) agreed, a more reliable ref would be preferable. — kwami (talk) 05:17, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Could someone confirm my use of this template?

I need confirmation that the use of this template at User:UpstateNYer/Gillibrand is correct. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I'm never too sure how the output for this should look in the end. Thanks! upstateNYer 01:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Pretty close; just needed adjustment for stress and for other dialects. — kwami (talk) 06:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I appreciate it! upstateNYer 17:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Leicester

The IPA information for the pronunciation of the name of the city of Leicester is slightly confusing. I'd be grateful if someone could take a look at the article and clarify what is meant by the different ways of writing the name. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 08:53, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I've corrected it. As for this specific pronunciation, is it just me, or does it sound rhotic? I know Leicester's in a non-rhotic area, but this doesn't sound like a plain schwa to me, unless all Leicester schwas sound this way. — kwami (talk) 10:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I think the things is that the [t] sounds slightly retroflex and colours the surrounding vowels, but there is no special retroflexion associated with the end of the schwa, or with the schwa as a whole. It's certainly a non-rhotic pronunciation to my ear. By the way, the sound can't be accessed from the actual article at present for some reason.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Rhotic-colored vowels

Here's another thing: the article refers to sequences of vowels and rhotics as "R-colored vowels", which is limited, I think, to North American English, and definitely doesn't hold true of all rhotic dialects. Furthermore, it's not a separate phonological distinction that only part of the dialects lack and hence needs to be reflected in the pandialectal transcription, it's just the way in which American English realizes sequences of vowels and a rhotic. Again, this seems like Americocentrism to me. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I see that there is a footnote which is apparently supposed to be a justification for this: "Note that many speakers distinguish these rhotic vowels from non-rhotic vowels followed by an R: hour /ˈaʊər/ from plougher /ˈplaʊ.ər/, hire /ˈhaɪər/ from higher /ˈhaɪ.ər/, loir /ˈlɔɪər/ from employer /ɨmˈplɔɪ.ər/, mare /ˈmɛər/ from mayor /ˈmeɪ.ər/". This argument is not valid, because that distinction isn't really between rhotic vowels and non-rhotic vowels, it's between syllabic schwas and non-syllabic schwas (with the latter constituting components of a triphtong). It's a distinction made also by some non-rhotic speakers and has nothing to do with the presence of rhotic vowels. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

So what would be your alternative, considering that /ɜ/ does not exist as a vowel in North American English and the schwa in /ər/ is a completely different vowel altogether?

The truth is Wikipedia's IPA system is a hodgepodge of dialects and incorrect usage, I'd call it weirdocentric. IMO it would be better to have separate systems for each dialect and the option to choose which one you want to use in the settings, because right now the transcriptions are more detrimental than helpful, imposing a non-existent "Standard English" pronunciation that is not standard anywhere. --TheAmericanizator (talk) 14:48, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, in this section I wasn't proposing any general alternative, I was just saying that one needn't talk about "R-colored vowels", something like "combinations with R" should be clear enough.

As for the general pandialectal system for English, I never liked the it at all, but once it has been adopted by consensus which I can't campaign against, I think its rules should at least apply equally to everybody, with no exception to accommodate for American English. The system is primarily designed to reflect all distinctions made in all major dialects, its signs are conventional and arbitrary (tending towards some kind of archaic "common denominator"), they are not intended to reflect closely the phonetic or phonological reality of any dialect, so technically, the use of /ɜ/ in /ɜr/ is not Anglocentric any more than the presence of an /r/ in /ɜr/ is Americocentric. The problem is, of course, that the very appearance of IPA misleadingly suggests a reflection of an actual dialect's phonology and not a pan-dialectal convention. That's why I'd prefer the use of the Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key (also because the current system restricts the already small circle of potential contributors of IPA transcriptions to hardcore Wikipedians versed in the system, and it could deceptively appear like some kind of prescriptive standard to the general readership). Apart from respelling, one could add proper IPA of whichever dialect one prefers or deems relevant, and it should be possible to write a program that transforms the respelling into correct phonetic IPA transcriptions in all dialects.

As for the question which existing dialect the current system resembles, I'd say it looks a lot like a broad phonetic transcription of the typical hybrid "Standard Foreign Teacher's English" used by many in Europe.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, technically rhotic vowels would be those pronounced with simultaneous retroflexion (though rhotic schwa isn't necessarily limited to to rhotic accents). "Combinations with r" sounds kinda awkward.

Phonologically, a lot of these pre-rhotic schwas are epenthetic insertions (and therefore not phonemic), though we keep them because this allows the vowels to look more non-rhotic. So the hire/higher distinction doesn't have anything to do with the schwas and more to do with whether the r is in the syllable coda (making, as you say, a sort of triphthong) or not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

True (underlyingly), but beside my original point. Different analyses of the phonology are possible, but the point is that none is dependent on a distinction between rhotic and non-rhotic vowels. Apart from that - sure, underlyingly, "higher" vs "hire" could probably be regarded as a case of syllabic Rs vs non-syllabic Rs, or as a case of underlying schwas vs epenthetic schwas, or possibly, for non-rhotic dialects with intrusive R, as syllabic vs non-syllabic schwas.

BTW, I have no idea what you mean by "rhotic schwa isn't necessarily limited to to rhotic accents": are you referring to some "half-rhotic" transitional forms like New Yorkers moving halfway towards GA? --91.148.159.4 (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

When a speaker of a non-rhotic accent produces a linking or intrusive r, that is often phonetically a rhotic schwa. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I see. I guess this can apply to any schwa followed by a [r]. Although, I believe that non-rhotic dialects tend not to have retroflex /r/s, and their /r/s tend not to colour their vowels in the same way as in GA. But it's true that schwas in general easily "merge" with the adjacent consonants in pronunciation, so a /ər/ sequence can sound a bit like an [ɚ] or a [ɹ̩]. In any case, that will hardly ever be relevant to the transcription of a Wikipedia entry. --91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

"Rhotic vowel" is incorrect, in some cases even in rhotic dialects. So some other phrase would be better. Maybe we could label the columns 'plain vowel' and 'followed by R'? Or only label the 2nd column? — kwami (talk) 17:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "followed by R" makes sense.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 17:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm going to bed, so I just changed it. Revert if there's an objection. — kwami (talk) 18:07, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

"In some articles"

The text says that "in some articles", /ɜr/ and /ər/ are transcribed as ɚ. But it shouldn't be, should it? This system is supposed to be pandialectal/supradialectal, and ɚ is specific to American English. If ɚ is allowed for the Americans, then British people should be allowed to use ɜː and ə and the whole supradialectal project would split back into separate dialect transcription systems. Just making statements about "some articles" sounds like people have resigned themselves to the fact that the officially accepted system is not being applied in practice.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 14:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There are a lot of articles that use this template and, although we can periodically go through and remove them, not everybody familiar with the IPA is on board with our transcription scheme (either intentionally or unintentionally going against it). This is just to cover our bases in case someone sees that character in an English transcription and doesn't know what it means. If you feel like it, you can always search and destroy it yourself; I've done that for a few languages. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:34, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, the text in this article should at least make clear that this is not the intention of the team, but rather something that is meant to be corrected. Also, there are so many ways in which people can go against the transcription scheme, you can't just accept and mention all of them in the article as "possible alternatives".--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually, <ɚ> is only found in English (and maybe Aus/NZ) names, not American. It seems that some English who object to <ər> in a name like Dover don't mind <ɚ>. That's the reason they're still they: preventing edit wars. — kwami (talk) 17:14, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What?! Well, I guess you need to explain to them what [ɚ] really means then! Perhaps they think it's the same as [ə], because they look similar? Or that it's some kind of compromise between [ə] and [r]? And why would they accept all the other combinations with /r/, but not [ər]? I'm inclined to suppose that it's just one or two people causing problems; but if you really can't get most people to buy your diaphonemic dialect-neutral transcription as such, then I think you should just scrap the idea altogether. It's not too surprising if that is the case - as I said, IPA looks like a phonemic or phonetic transcription, not as a diaphonemic one, so it's natural that people reading our "transcriptions" would assume that they express the actual sound of some "standard" dialect, with the /r/s always expressing actual /r/s, etcetera. I myself was puzzled when I first saw a transcription according to this scheme before I had read this article, and I'm sure most people never think of coming here and reading it.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect that they're used to [əʳ] or [əʴ] for linking /r/ and see [ɚ] as a reasonable approximation of that. Also, they do object to other r's, but this is the most common, and so accounts for the majority of cases. I think we'll eventually get them switched over, though. — kwami (talk) 22:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, [ɚ] was part of the transcription scheme for a while, so it's not like people who use it disagree with having a polydialectal system. Like I said, there are a lot of articles that use{{IPA-en}} and no matter what system we have, we're going to miss incorrect transcriptions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If what Kwami said is true, the English people who use it do disagree with the system and they also don't understand it, nor do they understand what it is they are using; they are trying to make it express their local pronunciation, out of patriotism, and they're failing, too. [ɚ] should never have been part of the scheme for obvious reasons - it's a narrowly GA symbol (and I don't remember it having been part of it either). If we only had monodialectal transcriptions, we probably wouldn't have "incorrect transcriptions" at all, because people using IPA generally know how to use it. On the other hand, with the current system, anybody familiar with IPA in general makes incorrect transcriptions by default, until they have familiarized themselves with your system as well. At least the abstract polydialectal system should be clearly designated as such, preferably alongside with local pronunciations in the case of placenames and personal names, so that people don't confuse the two. The way it is now, it says just "pronunciation:" or "English:" and people are likely to misunderstand it: for example, the article "Dover" as it is now, whether with the trancription /ˈdoʊvɚ/) or with the transcription /ˈdoʊvər/), can be misconstrued as mandating an American-style pronunciation for the name.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 18:54, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Not quite. What those people are doing is using ɚ to mean the same thing as /ər/. They don't disagree with using a polydialectal transcription, per se, just how to write it out. In the process they're misusing an IPA character (ɚ) and I think that's confused you as to their intentions.

And it's simply not true that a Wikipedia with monodialectal transcription wouldn't have examples of transcriptions inconsistent with conventions. Look at the other language transcription systems we use: people disagree on how to represent semivowels, how to transcribe mid vowels, how phonetically detailed to get, which dialect to represent, etc. Not to mention that "generally" knowing how to use IPA is different than having a group of editors consistently apply an arbitrary transcription convention. No, a monodialectal transcription system would simply be worse because it would have all the problems we have here and add more POV issues. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There is simply no reason for "English people" to edit war on Dover in order to get ɚ instead of /ər/ except that they think it reflects their dialect better. That's exactly what Kwami suggested and continues to suggest. If someone has been "confused about their intentions", then it's him and not just me. Yet, from my own experience with similar situations on Wikipedia, I'm much more inclined to think he is right.

About monodialectal transcription - it's true that we would still get stuff inconsistent with WP:s conventions, but it would always be possible for the reader to interpret it largely correctly in light of the IPA system in general. That is emphatically not the case with the present convention. Again, I think most readers and even many editors just never come to understand what this system is about - and that's not just their problem, it's also the system's problem. The chief aim in an encyclopedia should be to be understood, and understood correctly. In the case of Dover, the system has apparently been interpreted by some as sending a POV message, even though it is trying not to do that.--91.148.159.4 (talk) 23:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay, it turns out that Dover is a poor example. An editor added a non-rhotic pronunciation and Kwami himself then adjusted the transcription to have ɚ. I can't find any revert warring at Dover nor any discussion about it at Talk:Dover. Kwami may have edited in anticipation of edit warring (which he could probably point out and to which the archives here speak to), though I've edited the article to conform to the conventions here; we'll see if this elicits an edit war.

Given these facts, however, it does make sense that English editors (who speak non-rhotic accents and are used to seeing non-rhotic pronunciations in IPA transcriptions) would prefer ɚ more often than American ones. What the English editors object to is IPA that puts /r/ where they don't pronounce it. To them, having a character that looks like a schwa but that is different from it is a worthy compromise. If Kwami has suggested that English editors really think that they pronounce Dover with a rhotic schwa (which I don't believe he has), then he's simply wrong. While you may not agree to the logic of using ɚ instead of ər, it really is the case that people think this is a viable alternative for the reasons I've described; here are two explicit examples that came up in an archives search:

January 2010 - User:Lfh

August 2006 - User:CJGB

I don't know what you mean by "interpret it largely correctly in light of the IPA system in general." So I don't understand how the current system doesn't do this. It is a complicated system, but very little of this complexity comes from its polydialectality. Indeed, one of its important features, neutrality, would be undermined by a monodialectal system. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:58, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Example for ə

I'm wondering if a better example of ə can be used than "a mission". There are some who would pronounce that combo of words "ə mission" as intended. But the pronunciation that first came to my mind was "eɪ mission". I figured it out after a few seconds but it seems like a less than clear example. Blindrhino (talk) 22:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That was picked to show a contrast with omission. While your first instinct was to pronounce it with the vowel of pay, you figured it out. Do you think other readers might not figure it out like you did? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:20, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "a mission" is an unnecessarily complex example for the schwa. Why not use "ago" or "about"? −Woodstone (talk) 07:43, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

We also have Rosa's and comma. That should be good enough, shouldn't it? — kwami (talk) 08:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"Rosa's" has the disadvantage that it's not an English word, but a name, which cannot be checked against dictionaries. "Comma" is not very good eiher, because some people have it with a faint /a/. −Woodstone (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I think it might be important to clarify the importance of using ɵ in our transcriptions with a (near)minimal pair. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 12:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"About" has the great advantage that it makes the sound abundantly clear. Even without it being in a minimal pair. −Woodstone (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, we can have both about and a mission. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Alveolar trill vs. alveolar approximant

Hi, I'm studying phonetics at the moment and I just noticed that on the chart on the page, it is has an alveolar trill, /r/, as a pronunciation for 'rye' and 'try', when surely it is an alveolar approximant, /ɹ/? Also, it lists /hw/ which is surely pronounced /ʍ/ instead?

If you want to hear the IPA pronunciation of these sounds you can find them here:
/r/ - Alveolar trill
/ɹ/ - Alveolar approximant
/ʍ/ - Voiceless labio-velar approximant

Thanks! —PolishName 23:44, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, for phonetic representation, those are likely to be more accurate (though that depends on dialect). However, this isn't a phonetic transcription system. It's diaphonemic, and the symbols used can be less phonetically precise. In our case, we choose to use r instead of ɹ and hw instead of ʍ mostly for typographic reasons, but also because we don't want to make the transcription more difficult than it needs to be for people unfamiliar with the IPA. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:55, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

OXO Pronunciation

Could someone please verify that I got the IPA of "OXO" correct at OXO (brand). The company's about page (http://www.oxo.com/AboutOXO.aspx) states that pronunciation is "Ox-Oh". Evan.oltmanns (talk) 20:25, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Done. In the IPA, /x/ means something different than it does in the English alphabet. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:36, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate the quick turn-around on my request. Evan.oltmanns (talk) 20:58, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

Users can report such problems...

Why are we implying that users shouldn't try to edit articles? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:23, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Theta

Currently, the IPA theta has pronunciation examples of: θ = THigh, maTH. Since the symbol is familiar to most as simply theta, wouldn't it be more appropriate to change the example to θ = THeta, maTH? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.225.116.49 (talk) 00:53, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The name of the symbol is not as familiar as the examples we have. Plus, thigh is nice in that it forms a minimal pair with thy. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

/d/ examples

Would there be any significant objection to using, for example, door, dog, done, or dome? The current leading example can come off oddly provocatively, particularly when the suggestion is picked up at Template:IPAc-en and pops up alone there as a help tag for the reader... – RVJ (talk) 00:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Go ahead and change it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I've changed it to "dye", which is still part of the /ˈ_aɪ/ minimal set but doesn't have that ‘problem’. --A. di M. (talk) 17:43, 25 March 2011 (UTC)