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Latest comment: 3 months ago34 comments2 people in discussion
Referring to Help:IPA/Insular Catalan (in particular the "Ma." column, or "B" where "Ma." isn't present), the guide linked in the lede for the IPA transcription. I've myself had conflicts in the past over using the symbol a particular help guide prescribes, rather than ones which seemed to logically represent the word, but I think this case may just be one of the helpful IP editor using the symbols of Central/Western Catalan IPA rather than Balearic (and specifically Mallorcan), rather than a dispute of pronunciation. To wit, the guide for Balearic Catalan specifically gives surnames ending -ch as an example for /x/, while the distinction between /ɔ/ and /o/ relates to open/closed of the same sound. Can't ping IP editor but here if discussion is wanted. Kingsif (talk) 22:05, 25 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi! I think you are talking about me! I've just seen you've partially reversed my changes.
I'm not so sure you are a native Catalan speaker (I am, and I know Majorcan Catalan as well), but as for final -ch goes, the thing is: it depends. I see you are trying to religiously follow the IPA table for Insular Catalan, which by the way, it doesn't differ as much from the normal IPA table for Catalan/Valencian, because at the end of the day, it's the same language.
The /x/ sound does not exist natively in Catalan, we know it by virtue of being a sound in Spanish and in foreign languages, such is the case for Bach, a German (and NOT Catalan) surname, where ⟨ch⟩ is pronounced /x/. This is why in the Help:IPA table it is under the "Marginal consonants" section, i.e. the non-native sounds that speakers might be able to make (which by the way also exists in the Catalan/Valencian section).
One historical example is the Catalan word maco (pretty, beautiful), which comes from Spanish majo. Because Catalan speakers a couple centuries ago did not know how to make a /x/ sound because many did not know Spanish, they turned it into the closest sound they knew, which was a /k/, thus coining maco. Obviously nowadays they do know how to make that sound, but the point still stands, and it still is a consonant that does not natively exist in Catalan and is not used in unless referring to Spanish names/surnames or German/foreign ones, this is why it's under that section still.
Now, in Catalan, ⟨ch⟩ also exists (which the table fails to show, this however does not negate its existance) word-finally in surnames as a fosillized spelling of a final /k/ sound (you can see that in Old Catalan#Orthography). This is because before Catalan orthography was standardized in the 20th century, it was commonplace (as an unwritten rule) to write final /k/ sounds as ⟨ch⟩ instead of just ⟨c⟩, thus people would write amich instead of amic (as Old Catalan#Orthography attests), magnífich for magnífic, llach for llac (as ca:Ch#Ch_en_català attests as well), and the list would go on for all Catalan words that end in a final /k/ sound. And in no way would those words be pronounced /x/, neither in Majorcan Catalan. (This can be attested as well with the Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear dictionary, which includes IPA transcriptions for almost all Catalan words in all its variants, note that the dictionary is from a century ago). The existance of the ⟨ch⟩ digraph for /k/ is also attested in this Wikipedia, see Ch_(digraph)#Romance_languages, where it states: "In Catalan ch represents final [k] sound. In the past it was widely used, but nowadays it is only present in some surnames (e.g. Domènech, Albiach)." This is why I included those surname examples in my edit summaries, among many others, such as Llach, Bosch, Benach, Cadafalch, Domènech, Estruch, Buch (unrelated to German buch), and so on. And Lluch is no exception.
So again, it is the IPA table failing to show those examples, but in any way, the fact that it is under the "Marginal consonants" means that it is not a rule for those specific examples, but rather an exception to the rule. And it must be applied as such.
Now for the Coll part, it is without a doubt an open /ɔ/. As it is stated in Wiktionary and the very comprehensive Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear entries, coll —which either means neck or hill (more likely the case)— is stated as such. (And even I, a native speaker, pronounce it as such, personally I've never heard it pronounced with a closed /o/. Note that the IPA transcriptions for all variants of Catalan/Valencian also state it as such, including Insular Catalan/Majorcan/Minorcan/etc). Again, just because it is not explicitly shown in the table does not mean that is not the case.
In Majorcan the distinction between /ɔ/ and /o/ exists and is the same as in Central Catalan, with the only difference that unstressed <o>'s are pronounced /o/. This is why in the Insular Catalan table it differs between Ma., Mi., and Ib., with some pronouncing unstressed <o>'s as /u/'s (as is the case in Menorcan and Ibizan (as Balearic Catalan states)).
In Catalan orthography however we don't always show how a stressed vowel might be pronounced. For instance you would not know if molt (very) is pronounced with /ɔ/ and /o/ unless you knew that word pronunciation, the same goes for soc. The IPA table in those instances does tell you how it is correctly pronounced, however you can't extrapolate that to all instances and affirm that Coll is /o/ rather than /ɔ/. And just to be clear, the distinction in stressed quality is absolute. between /ɔ/ and /o/ relates to open/closed of the same sound as you have stated is wrong, it is not a dialectical difference, the sound is absolutely different and it is in no way an allophone and must not be mistaken as such, stressed ⟨o⟩'s are actually one of the few things where all Catalan variants almost unanimously agree on always pronuncing it the same fashion, whether it is open (/ɔ/) or closed (/o/).
And finishing up, no, you should not be using the tables symbols especially for stressed vowel qualities (⟨o⟩'s and ⟨e⟩'s in this case) if you do not know (since even for <o> it shows both /ɔ/ and /o/ in the Insular Catalan table, because we pronounce them differently despite using the same grapheme ⟨o⟩), please always refer to a dictionary that includes IPA transcriptions, even more if you are not a native speaker (as it seems the case). Wiktionary is a great source and more than enough for what you will need, but I also can't recommend enough Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear because of how comprehensive it is with transcriptions for all Catalan varieties.
I hope this clears things up, I think I have been comprehensive enough, however I can clear up any more doubts or curiosities of Catalan/Majorcan that you may have as well.
Also, I do not know how you came up with the idea that the ⟨u⟩ in Buch is pronounced /y/. This sound does not exist in Catalan or Spanish/speakers do not know how to make such sound. The Insular Catalan/Catalan IPA table does not even show that vowel (except for déjà vu, and even that is up to discussion), and both Wiktionary and DCVB show it is /ˈbuk/. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 00:13, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Just because I might as well /æ/ is also up to discussion, as the table shows it can also be pronounced /a/ in Majorcan Catalan, so I don't know why you specifically chose /æ/.
As Balearic Catalan#Phonetic features states /a/ is [a] in Majorcan ([ä] in most Catalan dialects), while [æ] is only found in the town of Felanitx. The audio linked to the IPA in the article is also in Central Catalan, where that sound exists even less, but even so, Cata Coll is from Pòrtol, Marratxí, very far away from Felanitx, so she would not even pronounce her name as such. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 00:33, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I do not know how you came up with the idea that the ⟨u⟩ in Buch is pronounced /y/ - I didn't say that anywhere? Do you mean Lluch? If so, based on the preceding sound.
As I said, this is not about pronunciation, but about which table is used. This is because I have, as I mentioned, run into editing disputes before where I used correct symbols like you want, but they conflicted with the table guide, and basically it gets taken very seriously. I am not disagreeing with you on the pronunciation, so I feel like a long comment discussing that is rather irrelevant. You also insisting that dictionaries be used (for what? - not that it matters) is an invocation of WP:OR and discounts that dictionaries were used to create the tables' guides.
Finally, it isn't actually relevant, but I have used Catalan over a decade and lived in the Balearics, and your apparent attempts to demean(?) (General condescending tone, but I feel I think I have been comprehensive enough, however I can clear up any more doubts is explicitly, unnecessarily, passive-aggressive) are not helpful or productive. If the issue was pronunciation, it may be fair to mention that in a way that is helpful (not to imply every other paragraph that you think I am ignorant). Of course, it also doesn't matter - trust me, I've had the native speaker debate with users who reverted me (like I have you) before and the users who only focus on IPA transcriptions do not care what anyone's native language is, that if you can understand the phonemes represented by a table, you just use the table.
Reminder: we are debating the agreement of symbols in the Balearic Catalan help table, and this article. Let's focus on that. If you can drop the OR, and we can go symbol by symbol if necessary. You seem to have done that for /k/ (Lluch), so I'm happy for that change to be made. Shall we do the rest? Kingsif (talk) 00:58, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Right, so I said I follow your explanation for /k/ in Lluch - note, I follow based on the Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear. And while I think the help tables reserve the right to use different symbols (e.g. /x/ in the Latin American Spanish guide being "h"), the /k/ is of course present in the Balearic Catalan table. (Old Catalan orthography and an unsourced sentence about surnames may be the general context for your reasoning, but that would still foundationally be OR).
Now we have /a/ (Cata), /ɔ/ (Coll), /u/ (Lluch). All are stressed vowels.
I mention in a comment below that the vowel/semi-vowels I put in the IPA originally were based on the sounds the table says each represents. These ultimately link to Catalan phonology, where there are notes on vowels.
For /æ/ (Cata), I referred to the note The vowel /a/ is [...] further fronted and closed [a ~ æ] in Majorcan.
For /o/ (Coll), the difference is closed (/o/) or open (/ɔ/), and the only directive is that The [Central Catalan] open-mid /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are lower [æ, ɒ] in Majorcan, Minorcan and Valencian. I then tested saying the word.
For /y/ (Lluch), the difference is frontal (/y/) or back (/u/). The note In Valencian and most Balearic dialects /i, u/ are further open and centralized led me to question the transformation of /u/, so I again tested saying the word. Assimilation of the "u" into "Llu" produced the frontal sound described.
For /æ/, as you have mentioned in Majorcan it is further fronted that in Valencian/Catalonia Catalan, so instead of being [ä] it is [a ~ æ], note here that [æ], as I mentioned (and as Balearic Catalan#Phonetic_features mentions) and cited is only present in the Felanitx dialect of Majorcan Catalan (Felanitxer), which if you are interested in you can read about it in the Catalan Wikipedia, but basically it is [æ] because Felanitxer suffered a fully fledged vowel shift, which did not happen in the rest of Majorca, and as such we should refer to [a], which is the commonplace in the rest of the island and specifically where the person in question is from.
For /o/ I'm puzzled with your comment. First off, yes, open vowels (and since you've lived in Majorca I think you can attest to it, especially comparing it to how Catalans or Valencians speak) in Majorcan are way more open that in any other variant of Catalan. In DCVB (and in Catalan sources) we usually annotate them as [ɛ̞, ɔ̞] rather than [æ, ɒ] but whatever, it's probably more correct the latter way. The word coll however is with an open (therefore it should be ɔ, or rather more correct ɔ̞~ɒ even though those symbols aren't in the table so we should refrain from using them (?)), though you initially marked it as closed in the IPA transcription. I'm confused because you've said you pronounced it, and to you it sounded as closed? In DCVB and Wiktionary it states it's open, the audio also sounds clearly open. (Also wouldn't sounding it off be considered OR?)
For the /y/, does more "open" mean more "fronted"? Aren't those totally diferent things?? I've never heard of any Catalan assimilation or whatnot creating /y/ sounds. Lluch to me pronuncing it is /ʎuk/, and DCVB states the same (which was created and mainly compiled by a Majorcan guy, by the way). I was reading the source of such quote (Recasens Vives (1996:66, 141)), particularly page 141, and it states that it presents the same opening in Majorcan as Central Catalan, Valencian, all being more open than Spanish. Stating that open vowels are "a little bit" (un xic) more open in Valencian, Majorcan and Minorcan than the rest. And stating that /u/ is more closed in the rest. I fail to see how that justifies an outright /y/.
1. The guide (and note, unless I've read it wrong) seem to be attesting /æ/ as wholesale Majorcan, not only Felanitx, so perhaps that needs updating. 2. IDK 3. As said, the note confused me somewhat based on the description of being open, but I was focused more on "centralized".
That said, I will ask if your view is the notes are unclear or (my view) they didn't give a straight 'answer' in these cases and my attempts to use them to decide which sound it seemed the table advised didn't work.
To me the fact that it shows both means that it includes the felanitxer one without excluding the more commonplace other, regardless, I was skimming through my books both Dialectologia catalana (Veny, Massanell) and El català de Mallorca (Bibiloni) (the first one is really generalist for all Catalan dialects, there is really nothing not written already here but the second is really really thorough and I can't genuinely recommend enough if you are interested in Majorcan particularly, I assume you don't know about their existance since you're probably American (eyeballing here)).
Anyways, the latter one talks about /a/ sometimes having a palatalized character and ending up being pronunced /ɛ/, this is particularly true in w:ca:Parlar tradicional de Palma, however that dialect is moribund nowadays, and that has more to do with the vowel being palatalized by /c/ /ɟ/ preceding sounds. In any case, casa is still pronunced with an /a/, nor an /æ/ or /ɛ/, so its safe to assume its only felanitxer.
For the second point yeah, refer to DCVB (I would trust it with my life), especially if you are not a native speaker, not to sound pedantic, but eyeballing phonemes probably is not the best idea, especially if you are not fluent in the language currently. If you are interested, there is some unwritten phonotactic rules about the quality/distribution of open and closed vowels (influenced by the consonants following it), but I can't find the article(s). Found it: https://mascaro-uab.weebly.com/uploads/4/0/9/2/40925737/efectes_accentuals.pdf
And for the third one, if it was centralized it would be /ʉ/ anyways before /y/, but again it seems a really faint distrinction that I've never heard or seen in my life (I've been more shocked about how Majorcans pronounce /l/ in comparison to how Catalans do) and neither is documented (especially in IPA transcription) nor is present in the current table, so I would refrain from such innovations for the time being.
And yes, the basis of my edits is DCVB (as is Wiktionary), and I always check them beforehand. The notes are kinda clear, except for the open vowels one, that honestly left me shocked, I've never heard any difference. I know your attemps were in good faith, however I would refrain from making any innovative "assimilations" or assumptions (as a native speaker honestly I wouldn't dare either lol) and whatnot and just sticking to what DCVB says, as well as the audio pronunciation (it is provided and is really clear). 79.152.100.145 (talk) 04:25, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Anyways, I'm glad we had a civil conversion and I hope we both learned from each other (I did!).
I'm sorry if my initial post sounded really hostile/patronizing, my idea was more of really going into detail/elaborating on the topic because I assumed you had little knowledge for your reverts and comment, but yeah then I found out and learned more about how IPA tables work, even though my feeling is we kept on having a circular argument here, especially with the tables-to-real IPA Catch-22, not that it matters anymore.
Thanks for the reply. One last reminder (I am not American, please, this information is known) - it’s not good form to be speculating on any user’s nationality (or knowledge) in general, especially in basically every comment. It’s, upfront, unnecessary, and can be seen as discriminatory or an attempt to make users reveal personal information. I don’t know why you continued doing so after it was established as irrelevant to discussion and I advised you against speculating, so I will AGF that it’s just because you rambled off topic - but this means you could do it again out of habit, so I’ll warn you that you should not do so in future unless it’s actually necessary. I won’t give you a WP:CIVIL warning template, but now that you know, take it seriously. Kingsif (talk) 13:18, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
About your comment about the surnames, I'm glad you backed down on it, because honestly I'm shocked you never ran into any personally and knew this. It is common knowledge in all Catalan speaking territories, and again, saying it like this would sound like I'm making stuff up and that is why I specifically cited the articles (in both this wiki and the Catalan one) mentioning it, and I'm sorry they weren't sourced with works or cited correctly. This is why I cited other famous people with -ch at the end of their name that included their pronunciations in their article, to show how its more commonplace than people would think, since language normalization did not magically change people's surnames. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 02:48, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Again, it's not about knowledge, Domenech is incredibly common for example, but there was a surname ending -ch as an example in the tables, so I went with it. Kingsif (talk) 03:32, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Fair enough! And that's why I explained that it was a foreign name that should be treated differently and rules should not be applied to it similarly to others.
Do you think maybe we should/or could add an example under /k/ for any of those surnames in both Insular Catalan and Catalan/Valencian IPA pages to clear any doubt for future curious people? I mean, they are really commonplace. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 03:38, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, we can go case by case if you want. But what I meant to say is that the table can't include all instances, as it is understandable. And both stressed ⟨o⟩'s and ⟨e⟩'s can be pronounced differently, even in words spelled the same (diacritical marks go so far). This is what I meant by using Wiktionary. And I do not understand how exactly you made the decision to choose one "o" over another. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:09, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Tables can never include all examples, but that isn't really the main point of them (though helpful, the idea is to check which sound is being used - e.g. "a" and "æ" under the Ma. column both wikilink to slightly different sounds). Kingsif (talk) 01:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Right! And that is why I mentioned dictionaries which include IPA transcriptions for words that might not be in that table. I also understand that IPA tables go so far, that is why I questioned your choices on the "o"'s and "u", the felling I got is that you just chose whatever fit best the table, and this is why I wrote that comment. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't really understand if the point of contention is that the Catalan/Valencian and Insular Catalan tables mismatch a bit, they obviously do, since the vowel qualities change, and you seem to state that people use "symbols" in the IPA tables for different articles where they should not, (I do not know which symbol I used that does not exist in Insular Catalan). However my initial edits did not conflate with the initial table, this is why I'm confused? 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:20, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Sorry, I'm typing out a comment (fairly slowly I suppose) - I can see why you're confused. And my hesitation is based on my experiences, which you won't have, generally in handling Spanish IPA with non-Spanish speakers who follow the Spanish table sound-by-sound. That in an article or two, I have used symbols that are present in the Spanish IPA table but to represent a different kind of sound (maybe even just closed vs open) than the table said, even though in practical usage it was correct. The symbols I used in this article, are based on which type of sound the table says they are, ironically done because I didn't want to have a debate with the editors who focus on IPA maintaining about using their tables correctly.
That is to say, I would not have issue with your edits, but so far your explanations aren't really in reference to the table the IPA has to agree with... and I don't know why I'm questioning it really, except being used to debating the IPA. Kingsif (talk) 01:30, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, this whole discussion seems confusing. If I can be honest to you, for me IPA templates work to thoroughly transcribe the article name (or whatever, obviously following the IPA template and not using any weird symbols), and then if you want to know more you click on the link to the Help:IPA template, where you may know more, but just for general knowledge and whatnot. This is why I'm confused about following the IPA template and why in my original comment I mentioned you following "religiously" the table. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Also I don't really get what's the deal with OR, the IPA table was certainly made using original research, and IPA transcriptions are in this thin line where they require people transcribing something whose IPA transcription might not have been published in an article or something that can be cited.
Frankly I don't know if citing Wiktionary is considered original research, I'm fairly knew to Wikipedia. What I do know is that Wiktionary entries cite many other dictionaries, although I don't know if that counts (???). By that I meant to say that words whose pronunciation isn't in the IPA and that you (as you've said) might have had doubts about should probably be looked up to ensure that they are correct, instead of just outright applying the table as seems the case with Coll and Lluch (since in the latter case you even put vowels such as /y/ (!!)). 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:35, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm in the process of a comment explaining, but I didn't just blindly apply the table. The OR thing is more like, saying "I know how these words are said" and "the history of this word means it's said like this" and similar, is not considered sufficient. I have even had someone disagree with me on a Catalan IPA transcription when it was the same as that published by esAdir, because of sounds apparently not matching. Kingsif (talk) 01:40, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
That's why my initial doubts about your knowledge of Catalan were about, sorry if I sounded patronizing or condescending. coll in all places I managed to check was with an open o sound, and that way sounded odd personally to me too, this is why I made such comment. But I obviously checked sources beforehand, this is why I was weirded out about you reversing that change and doubling down on the table.
On the other point, Catalan is extremely regular in those instances, even where they are in isolation. And this is why I mentioned Coll at all, it's origins are the Catalan word and that is why I cited it as such, again I didn't want to sound condescending or anything like that, I just meant to clear any doubts around that specifically citing sources. 79.152.100.145 (talk) 01:49, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, don't worry, your experience and mine in terms of Wikipedia IPA editing are obviously different. Let's put it this way, your version is probably going to stay and the discussion is here if anyone stumbles across the article and objects. Kingsif (talk) 02:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply
