Talk:Sound correspondences between English accents

Grammatical error in title

There is more than 1 chart in this article so its title should be International Phonetic Alphabet charts for English dialects rather than the singular chart.

1.126.109.57 (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd argue that it is confusing to use the phrase 'International Phonetic Alphabet chart(s)' to refer to this article, as an IPA chart shows places and manners of articulation etc. and doesn't make distinctions between different languages. I think we should rename the article to something like 'Cross-dialectal Phonology of English', which is much clearer and actually describes what the article is about. The current title sounds like it describes an International Phonetic Alphabet chart that only uses English phones, which is way off. Citation unneeded (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

forked to here Citation unneeded (talk) 13:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Dialect abbreviations in comments?

I want to propose the addition of comments to the markup of at least the vowel chart to make it easier to find cells that editors are trying to edit. For example, the first few non-header cell of the vowel chart, which are currently:

| colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" />
| rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}}
| colspan="2" |eə~ɛə

would instead become:

| colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯ <-- AAVE -->
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" /> <-- Boston -->
| rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}} <-- Cajun -->
| colspan="2" |eə~ɛə <-- California -->

or:

| <-- AAVE --> colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯
| <-- Boston --> colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" />
| <-- Cajun --> rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}}
| <-- California --> colspan="2" |eə~ɛə

As a related but separate proposal, I would find it helpful to include tags indicating the rows with the example word from the rightmost column; the first row, currently |-, would become |- <-- ham --> (or maybe |- <-- HAM -->).

Do other editors think these changes would make the current markup/code easier to use or more difficult? (I would of course volunteer to take on this effort; I'm not trying to propose more work for someone else.) -Literally Satan (talk) 21:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Less DEI please

This page should be restricted to varieties of English with an educational basis. African voiceless lateral sounds and dialects from non-native countries do not belong here.

124.169.158.113 (talk) 13:56, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Wider than tall

The table as shown in the article is a lot wider than it is tall. Would it not be a better idea to reorient the table vertically, so that the dialects are at the left and the diaphonemes are at the top and bottom? It would still be too wide for many people's screens, but at least not by as much as the table is now. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Rename page to be more logical

Mainly reiterating my comment here. The current title is unintuitive and confusing. It suggests that the page is an International Phonetic Alphabet chart that only uses English phones, like the ones on English phonology but for many more dialects. What this page actually does is show the differences between the phonologies of different dialects of English (i.e. Cross-dialectal English phonology). Renaming it this also gets rid of the debate about whether it should be 'chart' or 'charts'. Citation unneeded (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

That's not very descriptive of the article. English phonology (and other ones like Australian English phonology) is already cross-dialectal, and little of this article is about phonology. Nardog (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair point. What about 'Phonetic realizations of English'? Citation unneeded (talk) 08:20, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

or just 'English phonetics' to contrast with 'English phonology'. Either way, surely something like this is better than the existing title? Citation unneeded (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 4 October 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: move the page to Sound correspondences among English accents at this time, per the discussion below. I have used "among" rather than "between" according to generally accepted usage, but if any participant considers this a supervote, please feel free to move to Sound correspondences between English accents without consulting with me beforehand. Dekimasuよ! 03:45, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

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International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects → English phonetics – The current title suggests the current page is an International Phonetic Alphabet chart limited to English phones, like the ones on English phonology but for many more dialects, while the page actually details the specific phonetic realizations of different English dialects. I suggest renaming it to English phonetics to contrast with English phonology, or else Phonetic realizations of English (though that title is less consise). Citation unneeded (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - I'd expect an article on English phonetics to include much more than what this page has (like coarticulations, formant frequencies, positional allophones, prosody etc). As it stands the current title is a better description for what the page contains than the proposed move. Stockhausenfan (talk) 21:16, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  Fair enough. Do you disagree with my central point that the current title is unsatisfactory (better than my proposal though it is)? This page is not an IPA chart. Citation unneeded (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

  I do see your point, though I'm not certain what it should be moved to. Stockhausenfan (talk) 08:40, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Do you find Phonetic realizations of English unsatisfactory? Citation unneeded (talk) 10:57, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not happy with the use of "phonetic" as that proposal has similar issues to the current one. This article really isn't about phonetics but about dialectology. I'm thinking more along the lines of "Dialectal realizations of English diaphonemes", or "Correspondences between vowels in English dialects" although this isn't a suggestion for a change rather a starting point for further thinking. Stockhausenfan (talk) 11:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Bear in mind that the article doesn't just focus on vowels so a title would have to include consonants as well.

  I don't think we have to choose between emphasizing the correspondences or the realizations. The use of the prefix "cross-" as in Cross-linguistic onomatopoeias suggests comparison and can be used in conjunction with "dialectal" to create Cross-dialectal realizations of English.

  What do you think about that as a title? Citation unneeded (talk) 14:24, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yes that was my oversight.

  Cross-dialectal realizations of English diaphonemes sounds good to me, but in my opinion it's necessary to include the word "diaphonemes" there, as "realization of English" by itself is very nonstandard terminology (and unclear as it could refer to other aspects of English too like syntax). Stockhausenfan (talk) 15:47, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Phonetics is more than just segmental qualities. And English phonology, where English phonetics currently redirects, covers it much more holistically. Nardog (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  OK, but do you agree that the current title is unsatisfactory? If so, what should it be changed to? Citation unneeded (talk) 23:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I don't think this article should exist. It started out as indeed an IPA chart showing different phonemic transcription conventions, but it grew out of control. But deletion is unlikely as it already failed once, so I don't know what should happen to it other than rot into oblivion. Nardog (talk) 01:54, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  I've read your arguments for deletion and I think that while the page does have some problems regarding sourcing etc., it is really just a comparison of all the articles on "[dialect] phonology" and for that reason is useful in theory, if not in practice (at present it is difficult to read, so comparisons are hard to make). Perhaps it could be improved by having a sub-section for each diaphoneme/lexical set and a list of mergers and splits, rather than the current mess of a massive table?

  That first fact is why I initially suggested Cross-dialectal English phonology, but as you correctly pointed out then, this page is more concerned with narrow phonetic transcriptions than phonology (though the line between them is nowhere near distinct, as you mention on your user page). It seems that what we really need are clearly-defined guidelines on what level of phonetic specificity should be used here (e.g. not using some diacritics).

  Ultimately, I think this article is a useful resorce for the same reason that the section of English phonology that compares RP and GA is a useful resource. It just needs improving.

  That aside, the title is still unsatisfactory. What do you think it should be renamed to, given that it is no longer an IPA chart? Citation unneeded (talk) 10:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  @Stockhausenfan and I have come up with Cross-dialectal realizations of English diaphonemes, which seems prettty good to me. What do you think? Citation unneeded (talk) 20:44, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  That's an odd way to phrase it, as the realizations aren't cross-dialectal, and we seldom talk about "realizations" of a diaphoneme. I'd ditch the consonants (which don't vary a lot across accents, or vary in more restricted ways, and which the article only half-heartedly discusses anyway) and move it to something along the lines of "Phonetic qualities/realizations of English vowels". Nardog (talk) 01:49, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Phonetic realizations of English vowels makes sense to me (as does the proposal to scrap consonants, perhaps moving them to English phonology), but @Stockhausenfan has expressed qualms with the word "phonetic", so we'll see what they think. Citation unneeded (talk) 09:33, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Which I don't get. Just because phonetics covers more than segmental qualities doesn't mean "phonetic realizations of vowels" means anything more than allophones. Nardog (talk) 13:11, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  My objection to it is mainly that in my opinion each English dialect has its own phoneme inventory. As I see it, the article provides the correspondences between vowel phonemes of different English dialects. That name change would seem to imply that English has a certain set of phonemes, and these phonemes have different allophones depending on dialect. I don't think that that would be a correct view of the dialectal variation in English.

  What about Comparison of vowel inventories in English dialects? C.f. Comparison of American and British English? Stockhausenfan (talk) 13:53, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  No disagreement there, but "phonetic realizations of phonemes" across accents doesn't have to mean the accents share the same phonemes. I would avoid the term dialect because the article is mainly about accents. Nardog (talk) 13:59, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  I guess the way I see the scope of this article is that this is really about sound correspondences. Hence, including positional allophones would be outside the scope of the article as it currently stands (unless those allophones regularly correspond to phonemes in other dialects), yet a title of "phonetic realizations of phonemes" would change the scope to include that.

  Would varieties be a neutral enough term instead of dialects? Stockhausenfan (talk) 14:47, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Varieties may be too broad and unspecific. What's wrong with accents? Nardog (talk) 14:52, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  Accents is probably good; I'm not familiar with English linguistics so I wasn't sure whether that was a term that was used in this context, but I'll defer to your judgement especially as I found the article Regional accents of English.

  So something like Comparison of vowel inventories in English accents? One potential concern here is that there might not be a consensus to get rid of the part about consonants, so Sound correspondences between English accents? The word "regional" could be added to either option. Stockhausenfan (talk) 15:08, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  An inventory usually refers to a phonemic inventory. "Sound correspondences" IMO doesn't quite describe what the article is mainly about, but I wouldn't object. Nardog (talk) 23:44, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  So have we reached a consensus on Sound correspondences between English accents? Citation unneeded (talk) 07:54, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

  Looks that way. Citation unneeded (talk) 21:11, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.