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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Hi, as mentioned at Template talk:Audio-pipe, we cannot remove the info links in this article if we use GFDL audio samples. Please don't delete them. --Kjoonlee 08:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

This is a proposed site for a future chart to quickly explain the values of the symbols of the IPA. Once it's up and running, {{IPA2}} can be redirected here.

People have been asking for a simple key to the IPA for quite a while. It's not an easy request, but I propose that we make a list with the symbols grouped graphically, so that e.g. all symbols derived from a are together, because newbies won't know how else to look them up. Each symbol should be linked to its own article, since a lot of the time a simple chart won't be of much help. Then there should be a brief "good-enough" description ("[t] with the tongue curled back" etc.), avoiding technical terms such as "back vowel" or "labial" or "fricative"; and examples, if there are any, from languages native English speakers might be familiar with, such as RP, French, German, etc. I think that if there isn't any reasonably well known language that has the phone in question, we should simply leave that section blank, and let the reader navigate to the page in question. How does that sound? kwami 03:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Format

Excellent start, I'll be glad to help building. How about reformatting like:

Symbol Examples Description
A
[a] Spanish casa, French patte For many English speakers, the first part of the ow sound in cow.
[ɐ] RP but (With English, this is normally written "ʌ")
B
[b] English bat
[ɓ] Swahili bwana Implosive [b]

−Woodstone 07:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Woodstone. I didn't see this until after I pretty much finished the chart (though I still need quite a few examples), so I'll just give you my reaction:
  • Pro: Your format looks much nicer than mine. It's more solid and uniform, whereas mine is broken up and uneven.
  • Con: My format enables an index, so the reader can navigate easily, and it allows more variation in column width, which means the columns aren't wide unless they need to be to fit their contents.
I don't mind one way or the other, so reformat it if you like. kwami 09:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
P.S. If you can link the symbols to their individual articles (but keep them formatted as they are in the IPA article, without making them bold or underlined), then I think we are pretty much done. Get some feedback, and maybe we can link up to the template. kwami —Preceding comment was added at 09:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I put in some links in the example above. I do not see underlines. I assume that is triggered by the IPA style in the table header. Do you see underlines? −Woodstone 12:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

No underlines. Evidently that's a property of the IPA class. kwami 18:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I doublechecked: the stylesheet mediawiki:common.css has: 

/* Remove underline from IPA links */
.IPA a:link, .IPA a:visited {
  text-decoration: none;

−Woodstone 19:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Organisation

The chart is justly organised by resemblance of the symbols to latin letters. How do we deal with doubtful cases. I saw for example /ʌ/ duplicated under A and V. For this case clearly the intention of IPA is similarity to A. How do we deal with this? The most logical place only? Duplicate entry? Or a line at V like "/ʌ/ see under A".? −Woodstone 15:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the last of those is the best.--JHJ 17:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The table's so short that I don't see a problem with duplicating. I put [ʒ] under both G (its historical source) and Z (its graphic source), for example; under G the example is beige, while under Z the example is azure. I'm hoping those will act as mnemonics no matter which one people look up. kwami 18:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
If we duplicate entries, they will grow apart in future edits and lead to confusion. It would be better to refer to the section where they are described, as I have done for most of them already.−Woodstone 19:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Some queries

I'm not at all convinced by the description of the lateral fricatives mentioning [ʃ] and [ʒ]. English speakers often approximate the Welsh sound with some English voiceless consonant plus /l/, but they don't choose a sibilant in my experience. (And it doesn't sound anything like [ʃ] to me.) Is there a reason for this choice?--JHJ 17:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It often seems to have such a quality to me, and when I describe it this way some people seem to have an easier time getting it. What else would we say?
That seems like OR to me. We need to be very careful about basing such descriptions on our own perceptions; as I said, my perception is different: it (in the Welsh I've heard spoken, not the Wikipedia soundfile) sounds more like [θ] than [ʃ] to me. I'd just describe it as the Welsh sound.--JHJ 18:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
But most people aren't familiar with Welsh. Also, it's used for a great many languages around the world, and in those I'm familiar with in Africa and America it's not sibilant to be sure, but not at all [θ]. Maybe we could list both; that might be good enough for someone who just wants an idea, but serve as a warning that there's more going on. kwami 19:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Maybe (and they do share the key feature of being voiceless fricatives), but I'm still concerned about relying too much on our perceptions.--JHJ 19:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Maybe we can wait and see if it works for people, or if we get complaints that it only confuses or misleads them. kwami 20:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Is [θ] missing, or did I just not see it?--JHJ 17:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

It was under 'other'. kwami 18:45, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The sound for [ ɥ ] doesn't work. Æåm Fætsøn (talk) 08:54, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Front and back A

This is an old discussion, but there seems to be a reversal in the interpretation between back and front A between sources.

language source [ɑ] [a] [aː]
French common practice pâte patte
German IPA handbook hatten baten
many dictionaries hatten baten
Dutch IPA handbook bad zaad

Whereas the actual vowel sounds are like:

  • patte = hatten = bad
  • pâte = baten = zaad

We have never been able to solve this contradiction satisfactorily. How to proceed?

−Woodstone 18:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, a lot of French speakers have lost this distinction, and have [a] for both. For German, my understanding is that different forms of German do it differently. Given this, the German examples and the French one for [ɑ] may be confusing, and my suggestion is to remove them. We have enough other examples for both these vowels.--JHJ 18:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The merger in French is supported by the article on French phonology. The article on German phonology, as far as I can tell, uses [a] for both the long and short vowels. I thought it used to comment on the variation, but I couldn't see that on a quick read-through.--JHJ 18:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The German is confusing, but people still learn the French distinction. kwami 18:46, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch uses [a] and [aː], and that's the way they are actually pronounced in standard German. Timeineurope 18:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The actual vowel sounds are actually:
hatten, patte: [a]
baten: [aː]:
bad (standard pronunciation): [ɑ]
pâte: [ɑː] or [a]
zaad (standard pronunciation): [aˑ]
Timeineurope 19:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Prefer dictionary words

In quite a few cases names of places or persons are given as examples. This is not a good choice, firstly because they cannot be looked up in a dictionary, secondly because they are often pronounced irregularly. −Woodstone 18:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The proper names given as examples can all be looked up in dictionaries, none of them are pronounced irregularly, and several of them are linked to Wikipedia articles with sound files. Timeineurope 18:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Remember that a lot of people will not be familiar with these languages, so internationally known words and names, that non-speakers have been exposed to, are IMO preferable. kwami 18:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
However proper names are frequently mispronounced in other languages. Often just by reading them as if they were English words. −Woodstone. Who would ever guess that "paris" is [paʁi], not [pʰæɹɪs]? 19:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
A good reason to link to the article. If they don't cover the pronunciation adequately, the link will cause people to complain, it will be fixed, and Wikipedia will improve. kwami 20:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[c]

The only language I'm aware of that has [c] is Hungarian, and that only in very formal speech, so let's just leave this one blank. The Malay and Turkish examples were wrong, and even if they were right, I fear adding new languages will create chaos where everyone will add their favorite language, and we'll get away from making this accessible. kwami 19:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how. Surely the more languages added, the greater chance that the reader knows one of the languages. Timeineurope 19:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that the list will unmanageably long. We'll end up with examples from Koaia under half the entries, with some editor getting upset that we're oppressing him by not allowing every allophone in his language to be given equal time. Another problem we can see with the next example: Illustrating with languages that are not sufficiently well described to be used accurately. (Okay, Turkish is well enough described, but shows the potential problems involved.) kwami
The Turkish example was from the IPA handbook. If a phone does not occur in any of the primary languages, examples from languages that have it should be allowed. I agree though not to add more languages than necessary to get coverage. −Woodstone 19:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Two problems: First, the letter used is <ç>, not <c>, which represents [dʒ]. Second, <ç> is phonetically [tʃ], not [c]; it is represented by /c/ phonemically. This usage is commonly seen in Hindi as well, as noted in the description, but is imprecise. If we can use Turkish, we should also be able to use English church, or Hindi, which is also already one of our languages. kwami

20:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

The IPA handbook (edition 1999) shows for Turkish in the table [c], not [ç] and gives as example explicitly in the text that [c] occurs in /caɾ/ kâr 'profit'. −Woodstone 20:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I thought you meant it was spelled <car>, in Turkish orthography! The work kâr has traditionally been analysed as /kʲ/, but I suppose it could be [c]. My recollection of Turkish, especially of Persian borrowings such as this, isn't good, but /k/ is [c] or something pretty close to it before front vowels, and perhaps in Persian borrowings such as kâr. If we use Turkish, we can get ɟ and ɯ as well, so maybe it's worth it. kwami 09:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
We happen to have a Turkish word with that sound in it in English, kebab, so that's helpful. I also added Zulu, because we can fill so many blanks with it. kwami 10:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Linking example words

In my opinion we should not link the example words to wiki articles. Here they are words as words> Their meaning is irrelevant. −Woodstone 19:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Often, however, the article gives information on the pronunciation, and in a way that might be more accessible to the novice than the phonetics articles. kwami 19:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions to improve article

1) Hi, thanks to everyone who is working to build this article. One comment to improve the article from a person whose only knowledge about IPA is from looking at the pronunciation key in the Oxford English Dictionary: can the IPA symbols be made bigger? Some of them are very small and difficult to make out. Cheers, Jacklee 22:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

2) A more common alternative to the OGG sound files, such as MP3, would make this page more accessible.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.101.136.224 (talk • contribs)


Verification

I did a lot of mass editing on links, new symbols, spacing and symbol size. I hope I haven't broken anything. I may have selected a few wrong symbols, because they are difficult to read in the edit window. Please help verifying. −Woodstone 20:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Some of the symbols are very rare, we don't have (and are not likely to have) any examples, nor can we explain them adequately. If we leave them in, someone will try to "fill the blanks" by adding confusing and very likely inaccurate data, so personally I think we should leave them out. They are the epiglottals, ʡ, ʜ, ʢ, velar ʟ, implosive ʛ, the ʘ, ǂ clicks, a couple sounds which arguably (per Ladefoged, who chaired the IPA for a time) do not actually exist (ɶ, ɧ), and a bunch of less common diacritics. If people get this far into it, they can use the main IPA article. kwami 22:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
Fully agree, those rare symbols were left over in the list I constructed by parsing the consonant tables in the main IPA article. I just added the most common ones, like [dʑ] (Chinese), [tɕ] (Chinese, Thai), [ts] (Russian) and a few small caps. By the way, the IPA handbook has for German achlaut the symbol [χ], not [x]. For [ɦ] it has Dutch <hoed> as example. Perhaps in the list of reference languages in the lead, we should make a distinction between the most familiar ones (that can be used in parallel), and other ones, that are only referenced if the primary ones do not contain a phone. That part may then be a longer list. I do not understand the rationale of the list as it is now. Perhaps they are the languages you (Kwami) know something about? −Woodstone 22:20, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem with [x, χ], as with [a, ɑ], is that many languages are ambiguous. Different people, dialects, and social registers may have different values, and often their pronunciation is intermediate, so it becomes the call of the linguists to say which it is, and they disagree among each other. There are languages in the Americas and the Caucasus with unambiguous [χ], but then we're starting to get pretty obscure.
I'll probably be overruled eventually in the choice of languages, so I'll just give my thoughts here. I left out some languages I'm familiar with, because they're too obscure, or, like Japanese, don't add much of anything to the chart. (Most of the phones Japanese is supposed to add, [ɴ ɯ ɺ], don't really have those values.) On the other hand, a huge number of English speakers are familiar with French, German, and Spanish, and they fill in a lot of blanks, so they were my first tier. Then Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, and Russian are big languages, and also fill in a lot, so they were second tier. (Hindi's good for the retroflexes, etc.) Swahili is good for the implosives, and then Turkish was suggested. These aren't going to help many people, and so I guess are third tier. Zulu is your best bet for clicks, but is pretty much window dressing, because who's familiar with Zulu but not the IPA? (Some, I'm sure, but not great numbers like with the other languages.) So even with me I'm seeing language creep, adding one, then another ... Luckily, there aren't all that many blanks left. kwami 01:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Protection?

I'm wondering if we should protect this chart once it's linked to the IPA2 template. Since it will then be accessed from thousands of articles, it would be a great opportunity for mischief, and even random unsourced edits could confuse huge numbers of people.

There are a couple levels of protection: One, you have to be signed in to an account to edit, and two, you have to be an admin to edit. D'y'all think either of these would be appropriate? kwami 01:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Let's try it with no protection first and see how that goes. If that doesn't work, we'll try semi-protection before full protection. Nothing should ever be protected preemptively. Timeineurope 06:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

You're probably right. Another thing we could add is sound files, or even link to the files on the UCLA site. The chart can still be cleaned up a bit, but the links are in place, so we're ready go live. kwami 06:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, we're now online. kwami 06:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Do we really want to list long vowels separately?

Generally, vowels are only long in comparison to short vowels in the same language, if by "long" we exclude double vowels as in Japanese. That is, the distinction is relative rather than absolute. For example, can we really say that German Klee is long and, in comparison, French clé is short? Or that English sea is significantly longer than Spanish si? If not, then what we are indicating isn't absolute vowel length, but a phonemic distinction, and therefore doesn't belong in a phonetic chart. This is in contrast to aspiration, where milliseconds of VOT can be used as an absolute measure.

We have length listed in the diacritic section, and elsewhere a phonemic IPA chart for English, which should be sufficient for our readers. kwami 01:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

If we leave the long ones out, do we merge the long and short examples? Or do we select one of them? Next question will be: do we need the affricates ([ts] etc.): are there any cases where they contrast with the simple combination of the symbols? I'm ambivalent about both. Limiting each row to exactly one symbol has a lot of attraction. −Woodstone 09:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
For the vowels, I think just select one example. Those will mostly be from what we now mark long; in the case of [i] and [u] we could add a comment that in the case of English these are often written long.
For the affricates, I think [tʃ] and [dʒ] are worth keeping, because English speakers have a hard time hearing them as sequences, but I don't see any point to [ts] and [dz]. (People will wonder why we don't have [ks]!) Perhaps we should keep [tɕ] and [dʑ], though, since they're palatalized parallels of [tʃ] and [dʒ], and people will otherwise be confused by them. kwami 11:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I fail completely to see how this would make the chart more useful, and I have no problem seeing how it would make the chart less useful. Why should we say that both Mann and Aachen are pronounced with [a] when there's both a phonetic and a phonemic difference between the [a] of Mann and the [aː] of Aachen?
There's clearly such a thing as absolute phonetic length. Vowels are not only long in comparison to short vowels in the same language, but also in comparison to short vowels in other languages. The difference in vowel length between the [e] of French clé and the [eː] of German Klee is quite striking.
An affricate [ts] and a sequence of [t] and [s] are phonetically different, just compare a typical pronunciation of the Norwegian word tsar with how the German word Zar is pronounced.
Timeineurope 12:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
I guess they're all keepers, then. Also, you might consider adding something about the difference between Norwegian tsar and German Zar to Affricates vs. stop-fricative sequences. That would be a nice addition. kwami 23:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Sound samples

What do you think about adding sound samples, like in de:Liste der IPA-Zeichen? Korg (talk) 05:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

By all means do so. It was suggested above, but wasn't necessary before we went live. Also, I see that the De page has (Southern) German ch as uvular, which we've been fighting about here, so I changed our table to match. kwami 07:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Done. kwami 16:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Thank you! Korg (talk) 23:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Template

The {{IPA}} template does nothing. The {{IPA2}} template looks like the {{IPA}} template for Wiktionary. Can these ( {{IPA}} and {{IPA2}} ) be switched for the sake of consistency (and ease and simplicity) between Wiktionary and Wikipedia? Also, there doesn't seem to be a {{SAMPA}} template here. I guess I'll just steal the SAMPA code from wiktionary.

Another issue is: Should pronunciation even go here in Wikipedia? Maybe we can just link to Wiktionary. Or, we might even be able to put information from Wiktionary per word into the Wiktionary link template. Erudecorp ? * 21:21, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Read the documentation on the template pages. {{IPA}} forces an IPA-compatible font. Without it, Internet Explorer is not capable of displaying the IPA. Once Microsoft catches up with the rest of the world, we should consider doing as you suggest. kwami 22:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
As for your second point, most people assume this will only be used for the odd word people can't be expected to be able to pronounce. But the idea of a link from Wiktionary, so that the pronunciations can be keep consistent, is a good one. Does Wiktionary include personal and place names? kwami 00:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I used a collapsible table to make the example solution to the right. It is not a template, but could become one, I imagine. This could clear up and make room for proper leads. Note that it emulates proper Wiktionary layouts. Erudecorp ? * 06:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
The pronunciation is an essential part of a proper lead. Timeineurope 12:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
This wouldn't exclude that information. The pronunciation is already on Wiktionary. Erudecorp ? * 20:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Last time I looked, Wiktionary was a completely uncited piece of ----. I think "It's already on Wiktionary." is a non-argument. Shinobu (talk) 15:09, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is by no means the only encyclopaedia to do it this way. Your suggestion would accomplish little except to make sure the pronunciations were seen by far fewer people. We should definitely keep it the way it is. Timeineurope 12:29, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
If they don't want to see it, they don't have to. Erudecorp ? * 20:41, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Who compiled this list?

Who compiled this list, and based on what sources? You see, I came here to look up a vowel, and the first thing I see is that German "Mann" is located under "a". Well, I've been to Germany on several occasions and I know that most Germans pronounce this as ɑ. The pronunciation (the .ogg file) seems to coincide with a rather than ɑ, so at least that appears correct, but all in all such an apparent error in the first item of the list is not particularly confidence inspiring. Shinobu (talk) 15:05, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

German a varies between [a] and [ɑ]. Some editors insist that their source is authoritative and therefore that no further comment is needed. I'll remove it. kwami (talk) 15:29, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
Timeineurope, Gerbrant has a point. A lot of authorities transcribe this as a back vowel, allegedly because a lot of Germans pronounce it that way. The point of using a language in our examples in that people may be familiar with it, and if they're familiar with German having back a's, illustrating front a's with German examples will be misleading. I know you value your sources, but they aren't the only standard. kwami (talk) 19:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I have yet to see a source I would consider an authority on contemporary standard German pronunciation say that this sound is closer to IPA [ɑ] than to IPA [a]. Indeed, it is often suggested that native German speakers use this sound to approximate the vowel of English cat. Timeineurope (talk) 13:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, when short. Langenscheidt transcribes short /a/ but long /ɑː/, while German Wikipedia says it's neither, but rather a central vowel, which would be /ä/, or if you prefer, /ɑ̈/. In fact, they use French as an example of /a/. Yes, I know we shouldn't take them to be authoritative, but they do demonstrate that variation is common, and therefore likely to cause confusion among our readers. A warning at least is in order. kwami (talk) 19:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Please also have a look a bit higher up here in the section "Back and front A". I keep being confused by the allocations of these two in Dutch, German and French, which, to me, seems contradictory. In Dutch especially the distinction between /a/ and /ɑ/ is definitely phonemic with a lot of minimal pairs. The fact that usually /aː/ and /ɑ/ occur does not change this. In German the same occurs, for example <bahn>=/baːn/ and <bann>=/bɑn/. In my ears the front/back difference in much more relevant than the long/short difference. Perhaps the fact that English does not have any real /a/ and and certainly no minimal pairs contrasting with /ɑ/ makes it difficult for English speakers to make dependable judgements on these issues. −Woodstone (talk) 05:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, you have the back vowel short and the long vowel central, just the opposite of Langenscheidt. kwami (talk) 06:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to add that I – as a native speaker of German and a quite a trained phonetician, if I may say so – cannot make out any qualitative difference between the long /a:/ and the short /a/ in German. Neither in my own speech nor in other people's German, supposed they speak something close to High German. A qualitative difference here is merely a regional phenomenon. So for me it's phonetically [ba:n] ("Bahn") and [ban] ("Bann"). The Langenscheidt dictionaries seem to be as imprecise and misleading as they usually are. — N-true (talk) 16:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
In the north they say [a], in the south (Bavaria, Switzerland) they say [ɑ] – my personal impression, don't you agree, N-true? Dan Pelleg (talk) 09:30, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, indeed, southern dialects often use [ɑ], but it's not standard High German. — N-true (talk) 15:04, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Some problems

I've got a couple of problems with some items in this list. Forgive me as a few of these are repetitions of earlier points:

  1. [yː] [uː] [aː] [ɑː] [eː] [iː] [oː] [ɔː] [øː]; considering that the bottom of the page indicates what ː means, inluding these seems redundant. If it's not redundant, then this page is missing the instances of the other long vowels.
  2. Similarly [ɑ̃] [ɛ̃] [ɔ̃] [œ̃] are redundant since the bottom of the page indicates what ̃ means.
  3. Technically speaking, [ts] [dz] are not affricates in English. They are instead sequences of a consonant and a homorganic fricative. There are some phonetic differences. I understand comparisons to English would be helpful though. Am I being too pedantic here or should we put Like English [] in the description box?
  4. [ɘ] lists Russian as being a language that has this consonant but this is, according to a source several decades old, only for some speakers and not part of Standard Russian. I notice there are a few missing central vowels from the list. Should we just remove this one?
  5. [ɰ] Spanish is listed as having this sound. As velar approximant indicates, this is not accurate due to lip rounding features. Considering that [β] is listed as a Spanish example, we can move the agua example to [ɣ] and put a Japanese example for [ɰ]
  6. Also, what's with the [ spaces ]? Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. I'd vote to remove the long vowels, for article length if nothing else, but several editors want them there because of the languages we're using for illustration. I think that's reasonable (there are a lot of German words in Wikipedia, and we don't need long schwa), but another possibility would be to mention differences in length in the comments section.
  2. These are the nasal vowels of French. Again, they are a special case, considering the huge influence of French on English. Either that, or we could add them as marginal phonemes to help:pronunciation.
  3. Since there are practically no instances of overt (tie-bar) affricates in Wikipedia, making a distinction between [ts] and an affricate may be too subtle. But a comment at least is in order.
  4. Let's lose all mid-central vowels but schwa.
  5. Spanish is not a good example of [ɣ], and Japanese does not have [ɰ]. We should mention that Spanish is not exactly [β].
  6. The spaces are due to people trying to get things to be legible in their browser fonts. Personally, I have trouble displaying the retroflexes; the tail runs into the following bracket.
Also, you now have [ʕ] as the sound of Arabic ‘ayin, which it is not. kwami (talk) 16:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

a and a:

Symbol Examples Description
A
 (i) listen [ a ] Spanish casa, French patte, German Mann For many English speakers, the first part of the ow sound in cow. Found in some dialects of English in cat or father.
 (i) listen [ aː ] German Aachen, French gare Long [a].

Both these are using Image:Open front unrounded vowel.ogg which can't be right. Fred Bauder 19:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Why can't it be right? kwami 19:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Because it wouldn't be very useful to call it another letter if it's the same, would it? In natural language this is not unusual, but this phonetic alphabet is made by people for the purpose of ordning all different letter pronounciations of the world. Anyway, I know how the Dutch word 'bad' is pronounced, because my language is Dutch, and the audio file doesn't match it (or vice versa).
Symbol Examples Description
A
 (i) listen [ a ] Spanish casa, French patte, German Mann For many English speakers, the first part of the ow sound in cow. Found in some dialects of English in cat or father.
I'm not 100% sure about the Spanish and French examples (I think casa matches and patte doesn't), but the 'a' in 'Mann' doesn't match the audio file, because the 'a' in 'Mann' is much shorter.
 (i) listen [ aː ] German Aachen, French gare Long [a].
Sounds like a fine match to me for both examples.
 (i) listen [ ɑ ] Finnish Linna, Dutch bad
Again, the 'a' in Dutch 'bad' is way shorter then in the audio example. Marijnvdzaag (talk) 11:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
That's a recurring discussion. See also above at Wikipedia talk:IPA#Front and back A . Dutch seems to be one of the few languages with a clearly phonemic distinction of /a/ and /ɑ/. It's my theory that therefore many linguists are not able to hear the difference, leading to confusion about which is which. −Woodstone (talk) 12:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Rain??

This article states: [ ʷ ] English "rain" [ɹʷɛn] - Indicates a sound has lip rounding, "quick."

The example given, "rain," I believe, is poor. I am unfamiliar with anyone who would use "lip rounding" with this word - not that it may exist somewhere. (The example of "quick," on the other hand, is OK in my book.) Please come up with a better primary example. Charvex 07:06, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

As far as I understand, English /r/ is always labialized, especially in the syllable onset. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:25, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Personally, I pronounce quick as a cluster, [kwɪk], not labialized [kʷɪk]. kwami 12:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Might be a dialect issue, though. Charvex, where are you from? GA has labialized /r/. kwami 12:21, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I won't argue with GA. But for me, the /r/ in rain is a retroflex approximate that I would indicate with [ɻ], but this happens whenever /r/ is followed by most close mid-front unrounded vowels or the dipthong /eɪ/ for me. Pulling my tongue back to make the /r/ sound, which is almost uvular, in combination with these kinds of vowels eliminates the need for the labialization in words such as "rain." However, the labialized /r/ does occur when the vowel sound moves further back, as in a close mid-back unrounded vowel, and of course, open back rounded vowels, e.g. "rot." - - My comments are personal observations. My interest in linguistics is primarily in syntax rather than phonetics. I will defer to your better judgement. Charvex 07:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I thought maybe we should specify 'American English', so others aren't confused. kwami 07:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
According to Luciano Canepari's Handbook of Phonetics, rain is pronounced [ɹ̱˞ʷɛ̝ˑɪ̯n̺] in British English and [ɰ̟͡ɹ̱˞ʷɛ̝ˑɪ̯n̺] in American English. His phonetic transcriptions are extremely exact, although he uses his own ideosyncratic way of transcribing. I "calculated" it back into official IPA. So yes: There's a labialization in both neutral BE as well as neutral AmE. — N-true 22:01, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
That's a good idea. The American /r/ is fairly unique. It is one of the fastest ways to identify native American speakers, and it is one of the most difficult things in that dialect for non-natives to master who wish to learn it. Charvex 22:21, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
To user N-true: Although textbooks may state neuter BE speakers say [ɹ̱˞ʷ], I think it is only spoken in the southwest part of the country anymore. Most ordinary Londoners, and nearly everyone I know in the Midlands (Birmingham, Leicester, etc.), speak non-rhotic English. Charvex 22:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
There isn't necessarily any connection between labialization and rhotic dialects. kwami (talk) 08:27, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Referring here through IPA template

The German Wikipedia uses its IPA template to make all its appearances link to a page similar to this (Help:IPA) page (de:Liste der IPA-Zeichen) – immensely helpful, especially of course for non linguists, for whom it makes IPA coding hugely more accessible. How about doing that here, too? Dan Pelleg (talk) 09:43, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

We have two: {{IPA2}} and {{pronounced}}. Two others link to the help:Pronunciation page. kwami (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Mandarin tones

I'm assuming that these edits were meant for the talk page — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:03, 21 January 2008 (UTC) :

The listed Mandarin tones are incorrect. The following is the correct way it is pronounced and spoken in HànYǔPīnYīn:
ā=妈妈 [māmâ] "mother" High tone.
á=麻 [má] "hemp" Mid tone.
ǎ=马的 [mǎ] "horse" Fall-Rise tone.
à=骂 [mà] "scold" Falling tone.
â=妈妈 [māmâ] "mother" Light tone. But seldom indicated. Hence becoming written as: [māma]

(added by User:165.21.155.94, 22:57, 2008 January 20)

This page isn't about Pinyin, it's about the IPA, as cautioned in the examples cited. kwami (talk) 07:54, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Subtle?

The voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕ] is slightly comically described as a subtle sound deep in the throat. Surely a better description can be found. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not a good description. Care to come up with something better? kwami (talk) 16:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Uh-ʔ-oh! Tricky. My first inclination is simply to delete the word subtle. The article on Ayin suggests sing the lowest possible note, then one lower: would that be better? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe that would help some. Either way, they're gonna hafta follow the link to have any idea of what we mean. I've also read descriptions that say if you feel like you're going to gag, you've probably got it right, because English speakers only use these muscles when they vomit. It no longer feels like gagging to me, but I think it did at first. Or maybe I just wasn't saying it right at first.
Thanks for bringing the ayin article to my attention, because it's completely wrong. kwami (talk) 18:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Glad I was of some use! I'm pleased you got rid of the "bleating goat", which struck me as little better than a gratuitous piece of linguistic racism. BTW I see no reason to retain the parentheses round the final sentence: it's either relevant in its own right or should be omitted.
The Talk page claims that this article comes under WikiProject Judaism, an unduly restrictive claim IMO. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
PS I'm not sure the gagging is much better than the goat! In my experience the unvoiced pharyngeal fricative is easier for foreign students ("try saying hat in a loud stage whisper"). If you can manage that, you just have to voice the sound to get `ayn. But YMMV ... --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The gagging comment was from a very serious, non-racist account. I just meant it to illustrate how difficult it is to explain such things without phonetic terminology. kwami (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) The subtle sound is still there! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Voiced bilab fric

The description (Like [v], but with the lips nearly touching) should add that, unlike [v], it is not labiodental. In other words, it's less of an acrobatic feat than it sounds. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I would think that "with the lips nearly touching" would make it clear that it wasn't labiodental to people who don't use the word "labiodental." — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Maybe; but those very people will tend to try to make it labiodental when they read like [v], won't they? So the resultant sound is likely to be something like [bv]. Come to think of it, why not like [b]? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Oh, something along the lines of "like b but with the lips not quite touching"? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 10:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that sounds better. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:48, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The text is fine now—but I think the example (la Bamba) is unfortunate, since the 2nd b is in fact pronounced [b]! la Habana might be a less confusing example. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
La Bamba shows that not all Spanish b's are pronounced this way. kwami (talk) 23:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Really? It may do to you & me, but not to the uninitiated non-Spanish-speaker! A reader who doesn't know Spanish might well try to pronounce the 2nd b in the same way as the first. Now you could point out that the 2 bs are different—but this page is meant to help people to understand IPA, not to master Spanish. Having la Bamba can only confuse: that's why I suggested la Habana as an example with only one b. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:07, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, it's not going to teach anyone Spanish. If they don't already know Spanish, the example is useless, so it doesn't matter which word we use. If they do know Spanish, however (and that's why we're using major languages as much as possible: because many of our readers will know them), then it will be helpful to have that distinction made. kwami (talk) 11:12, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Fine! But in that case you should make the difference between the bs explicit. This will be useful for non-Spanish-speakers & Spaniards alike, since the latter may well never have thought about the difference between the 2 allophones. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:51, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe an important factor is that there is a soundfile at Habana. −Woodstone (talk) 12:52, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The difference is explicit: only the first b is given as an example. But the sound file at Habana may make that a better example. kwami (talk) 22:08, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Don't you mean implicit?? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're all heading in the right direction, using these IPA symbols. Eventually, you'll achieve perfection, and all words will written using the symbols, and English can completely disappear.JGC1010 (talk) 02:25, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

this is a terrific aid

Thanks for all the work on this table. It is terrific!

I just added the {{pronounced}} template to Sergipe, and decided to gave it a try, since I don't know Portuguese. It was a bit tedious, but I could work through each symbol and piece together a pronunciation. The contents bar is very helpful, and the audio clips generally work fine.

I did discover one bug — the audio clip for IPA: [i] seems to be incorrect.

--Jtir (talk) 17:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your appreciation. It is more than welcome since the sometimes vehement, even abusive negative reactions we regularly get are somewhat discouraging. −Woodstone (talk) 18:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

description of the audio clips

I listened to all of the audio clips checking for link problems and found that there is notable variation in how the consonants are spoken.
Some seem to be preceded by a vowel, and sometimes four examples are spoken.

I'm not a linguist, so I will defer further interpretation to others. --Jtir (talk) 22:16, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


TSM Senna (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2009 (UTC)I think that there is something wrong with the audio clips refering to one of this vowels: [ e ] or [ eː ]. They seem to be the same and the file name is also the same.

Correct, the vowels [ e ] or [ eː ] sound the same. The only difference is their length. Length is relative only. There no absolute length at which an [ e ] becomes an [ eː ]. The sounds in the sample file are all spoken quite long, to make them easier to hear. −Woodstone (talk) 20:54, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking of adding "top" links to each section of the table, so it would be easy to jump back to the contents bar (off to the far right, so as to not clutter the left side). Any ideas how that might be done? --Jtir (talk) 22:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

See [1]; is that what you expected? Korg (talk) 03:47, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Well done. I had also tried but did not succeed. −Woodstone (talk) 08:35, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! That's perfect. And way more than I would have known how to do. I guess that #top is a magic internal link. --Jtir (talk) 18:33, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it is an HTML anchor generated by MediaWiki (in the Monobook skin, at least). Korg (talk) 01:35, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation — not so magic after all. :-) --Jtir (talk) 13:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Note for ties

I did not use the "ref" template on purpose, because it has hard coded square brackets. These are somewhat confusing in this context where square brackets have a specific meaning. −Woodstone (talk) 15:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I see. I don't really think confusion is likely, but sure, change them back to {{footnote}} if you like. I just have a problem with the use of a # sign preceding the note - I think there should be a {{footnote|1}} there, otherwise it doesn't look like a footnote at all. --Kotniski (talk) 16:24, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
I would like to keep the links, but don't know if there is a way to get links without the square brackets. Unfortunately, they bleed into the next column on my display. It would also be nice if there were two return links from the note so that readers can jump back to the section where they came from. --Jtir (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I think I found how to do it the way you meant. Have a look. Notice also the pop-up. −Woodstone (talk) 21:49, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That works perfectly without popups. With popups enabled (via My preferences:Gadgets), hovering over the first note-link displays the note, but hovering over the following ones displays the top of the page. Further, none of the forward links work (clicking on them has no effect). The back links work fine. Articles that use <ref> tags work perfectly with popups.
I have Firefox configured to use a minimum font size of 16, so that explains why some of the note-links fall on the separator between the left most two columns. With no minimum size, the note-links fall inside the left column. I see similar problems on other sites, so it may not be something that can be fixed.
Do people use the "info" links that are part of the {{audio-pipe}} template? I find that it clutters more than helps and gives the left column an irregular appearance. The name "info" is also ambiguous.
--Jtir (talk) 15:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm using MS-IE and all forward and backward links work as expected. All popups show the note text. There is no clutter from the audio-pipe template (only a loudspeaker symbol is shown) and the IPA aligns correctly.
Trying Firefox, I see the links malfunctioning as you describe, but no clutter from the audio-pipe and no misalignment. These differences go beyond my knowledge and control. Anyway, the way it is now is not worse than before and better for most readers. So let's leave it till we get help from someone more versed in these issues. −Woodstone (talk) 17:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for checking Firefox. I checked MSIE. The forward and back links work and the note preview is displayed for all note-links.
For the record: Firefox 2.0.0.12 (Linux and WinXP) and MSIE 7.0.5730.11 (WinXP). All updates installed.
I'm puzzled. Don't you see "(info)" links to the right of the IPA symbol? They link to the ".ogg" "image" pages. It is displayed in a reduced size font (when I don't have a minimum size set). I see the loudspeaker icon to the left of the IPA symbol.
Anyway, I'm fine with the way it is now.
--Jtir (talk) 18:31, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I see in the first column:

  • IE: a loudspeaker, all IPA left aligned, nothing to the right.
  • Firefox: nothing left, IPA badly aligned, small (info).

What a mess. The (info) thing was added later, we can probably get rid of it. Why the speaker does not appear is not clear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woodstone (talk • contribs) 21:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

It looks like you fixed this problem. With both Firefox and IE, I now consistently see in the leftmost column a loudspeaker to the left of the IPA and nothing to the right. The IPA symbols are all left-aligned. For Firefox, this is true under both WinXP and Linux. Thanks! --Jtir (talk) 23:54, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I've deleted the (info) link before, and been reverted because that is supposedly somehow illegal. — kwami (talk) 22:20, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Help:IPA chart for X

I was thinking that IPA chart for Spanish, IPA chart for Russian, IPA chart for Polish, and IPA chart for Hebrew, as well as any other IPA chart for X pages (but not IPA chart for English) could be turned into Help pages like this one. Some reasons are as follows

  1. We already have templates that link to several of them {{IPARus}}, {{IPAHe}}, {{Plph}} so it's apparent that they already function as help pages.
  2. We don't often have two pages covering the same topic with different levels of technicality. A less technical IPA chart for English is justified because it helps readers understand the IPA.
  3. Currently, there is no criteria for exclusion of IPA chart for X pages. If they are help pages, then we could exclude languages we don't commonly transcribe in our articles.
  4. Having them be help pages would enforce a certain degree of uniformity in our transcription.
    1. Users having an issue with the way a word is transcribed at, say, our article on Dmitry Medvedev can take it up at the help talk page rather than the article itself.
  5. The rigors of verifiability are a bit laxed with help pages and this would allow us to use a transcription system that isn't identical to any one system actually used. The phonetic narrowness and character selection we use would, of course, be based on sources but we could get away with practical concerns.

If we don't convert them to help pages, we still would need to address 3 and 5. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:56, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Help

How would write Watcher in the Water? I'm confused about how to actually write the name as thi si s my first time...78.144.29.124 (talk) 21:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Since this is just watcher plus water, which anyone can look up in a dictionary, we wouldn't bother with it. — kwami (talk) 21:59, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

IPA/"spelled" pronunciation javascript toggle suggestion

What about implementing something like dictionary.com has done with a toggle between the two different ways to notate pronunciations that they have chosen. e.g. look at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pronunciation and notice that you can click a javascript link (Show IPA Pronunciation) that toggles the IPA and "spelled" pronunciation guides. I think this should be implemented in the Mediawiki software somehow. I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, so feel free to crosspost this suggestion wherever. Thanks. --Rajah (talk) 07:54, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

move link?

Shall we try moving the link from "IPA" or "pronunciation" to the IPA transcription itself? I think that would be more intuitive to the reader. The reason it was done otherwise was to prevent the link underline from obscuring the IPA, but that's no longer an issue.

That is, {{pronounced}} would go from displaying

pronounced [abc] to
pronounced [abc],

and {{IPA}} would go from

IPA: [abc] to a less jarring
[abc].

If we don't like it, we can always revert. kwami (talk) 01:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. There are templates where IPA is a link to an audio file (such as {{Audio-IPA}} and it might get confusing... unless maybe the audio links are all supposed to be marked with a sound icon. If audio links are all marked as such then I can get behind this. {{IPA-pl}} already does it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Not sure I understand the point about audio links, but otherwise I definitely support this idea. (There's also an audio variant of {{IPA-pl}}, namely {{Audio-IPA-pl}}, if that's of any use as an illustration of a possible solution.)--Kotniski (talk) 07:11, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
The audio link icon is automatic. kwami (talk) 08:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, looks like they're working. kwami (talk) 08:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I prefer
Laboe (IPA: [laˈbøː]) is ...
to
Laboe ([laˈbøː]) is ...
Timeineurope (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
(Responding to my talk page) Let's get feedback from other people too. There are also countless articles where the "IPA:" is redundant. Or we could restore the "IPA:" but leave the link in the transcription. kwami (talk) 18:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
We could also start removing the parentheses for ([abc]) and (/abc/) entries, since the brackets/slashes are enough to set off the transcriptions. As for confusion, anyone who doesn't know what "[abe]" is won't know what "IPA" is either, which is where the link comes in. kwami (talk) 18:55, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider the "IPA" to be redundant, at least not when I use these templates or see them used. When it is redundant, then I'd say the wrong template has been used and a switch to {{IPA}} is in order. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
All sorts of phonetic alphabets are put between square brackets. The 'IPA:' shows that the transcription is in the particular phonetic alphabet known as the IPA, so that if you know the IPA already, you don't need to click the link. Also, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some people misinterpreted the phonetic transcription as a variant spelling, e.g. interpreted 'Dilthey [ˈdɪltaɪ]' as 'Dilthey, also spelt Diltai'. Timeineurope (talk) 23:22, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
Which other phonetic alphabet is in use on Wikipedia?
We can hardly expect readers to know which phonetic alphabets are in use on Wikipedia. Timeineurope (talk) 01:59, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll restore the "IPA:". kwami (talk) 00:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
One place where it's redundant is where you have pronunciations in both English and the source language, and need to link both, but don't want to repeat "IPA". kwami (talk) 00:58, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
My view is that the less clutter caused by these transcriptions, the better. People who know what IPA is probably also recognise an IPA transcription (appearing between the appropriate delimiters) when they see it. So putting the letters IPA in every time seems redundant.--Kotniski (talk) 12:36, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
My thoughts exactly. Also, if you pass the cursor over the transcription, it tells you it's the IPA. kwami (talk) 17:07, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
PS. the "pronounced" template doesn't specify IPA either, but there haven't been any problems. kwami (talk) 21:34, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Kaiser

Copied from my talk page after I reverted Morris's edit.

Kwami, I corrected your example of Kaiserslautern here. The second "er" is actually /er/, so I shortened it to "Kaiser." This caught my eye because I used to live in the town. Funny, huh? Morris K. (talk) 18:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, odd. Okay, I'll un-bold the second syllable. I agree Kaiser's a better example overall, but some editors want examples with sound files whenever possible, which is probably a good idea. kwami (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
According to the Duden-Aussprachewörterbuch, the second 'er' of Kaiserslautern is pronounced [ɐ], just like the first. Timeineurope (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Timeineurope: Are you using a new edition of Duden Aussprachewoerterbuch? My 1962 edition states that the first instance is /ər/ and the second is /er/. Please let me know about this. Morris K. (talk) 19:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm using the 2000 edition, in which this error has been rectified. Timeineurope (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

?

Rather like English tune (RP) or cute. Sometimes used for [tʃ] in languages like Hindi.

Like [d] said while swallowing

Like [b] said while swallowing

When I look at these explainations, I think HUH?!. I believe I am an average person, how can I swallow and say [b] at the same time? By the way, I don't understand how the t in tune sounds the same as the c in cute. Please explain. Mallerd (talk) 12:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
If you can think of a better way to explain ɓ, ɗ, knock yourself out. Otherwise we're reduced to saying "implosive" or "glottalic ingressive", which means the same thing but uses less accessible vocabulary.
Languages don't all sound the same. Explaining non-English sounds in reference to English will at best be an approximation. kwami (talk) 18:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course, I understand that, but can you do it? I haven't asked someone else to swallow and pronounce a [b]. To me, it is impossible. Perhaps only English can do it. Mallerd (talk) 21:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
If you follow the links, you will get to more detailed (and more technical) descriptions. That might help. Then maybe you can think of a clearer wording for this chart. I can't, at least not while keeping it short. kwami (talk) 22:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Maybe "gulp" would be a better word. kwami (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


It should be noted that the sound files currently linked to the implosives are recorded someone who doesn't speak any language with implosives and are totally unrepresentative of the implosives found in any language I am aware of. In the implosive "b" for instance, there's way to much negative air pressure in the oral cavity, and in the VCV example, there's an audible glottal closure long before the oral stop closure. We'd like to have samples from native speakers; meanwhile, I'm really not convinced that such unrepresentative samples aren't worse than no samples at all... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.236.38 (talk) 18:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Text to IPA converter website?

Is there a site that allows one to search for IPA "spellings" (if that is the correct term; "values" perhaps? "transliterations?") of words? I feel this would be a useful resource for easily and reliably listing pronunciations of words in English and/or other languages?

My reasoning is that, from going over the talk page, giving a word's IPA spelling isn't an exact science and results may vary depending on the editor's personal accent and IPA experience. For languages with no official standard dialect, this can be an issue (on the level of American and British English spelling differences), so having a centralized "conversion database" of sorts would help in building consensus on how words should be spelled.

If such a site exists, I would be interested in knowing about it. Thanks for any tips. --5millionaccountswow (talk) 17:19, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Dictionary.com has IPA pronunciations. Just click on "Show IPA Pronunciation". --Kjoonlee 19:29, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Here is the online convertor. Just enter the text in the empty window, then push the left of the two buttons. You may ignore all the Japanese signs. www.manabo.net --Faterson (talk) 17:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

"Exact pronunciation"

Kwami ([2] [3] [4]) and TE ([5] [6] [7]) seem to disagree on the inclusion of the phrase "the exact pronunciation varies considerably between these languages" in regards to high back vowels and retroflex fricatives. You folks care to use the talk page or should I make some popcorn? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

How many Rs can you hear in the following?

Park your car in Harvard Yard. The rain in Spain is mainly in the plain. Oh, the idea of it.

--Kjoonlee 18:28, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with including such a truism, but I see no reason to single out [u]. I had originally added a similar comment to [ʂ] (which TE is not restoring), but it was removed, I think rightly, because similar comments could be made for all IPA letters. We either need to (a) come to agreement here as to which letters cross some arbitrary threshold of divergence, (b) make a general comment in the intro to the effect that languages sound different, or (c) leave it alone. Having editors add such comments piecemeal to the sounds that they hear as different in the languages that they happen to be familiar with will be a mess. kwami (talk) 18:53, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm in favor of b. There is some added nuance with retroflex sounds but that is dealt with thoroughly at retroflex consonant; we needn't burden readers who just want basic help in understanding the IPA. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:27, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Aeusoes1, the comments clearly don't burden readers; they convey additional information that helps readers. A Russian reader wanting to know how to pronounce Mandarin r is less helped by the current version, which indicates that it is pronounced the same way as Russian ж, than my version, which indicates that Mandarin uses a different sound, albeit one transcribed with the same IPA letter. The reason I haven't written a similar comment about [m] is that it simply isn't true of [m].
I think that there is something objectively (rather than subjectively, as Kwami suggests) special about the sounds in question. It might be as simple as it being wrong to transcribe the different sounds with the same IPA letter. English /uː/ is often transcribed as [uː], but it might be more correct to transcribe it as [ʉː]. The existence of unfortunate traditions of transcription might explain why there is something special about the IPA letter u that doesn't apply to other IPA letters.
Are we really sure that both Mandarin r and Russian ж should be transcribed as [ʐ]? Either way, they are unusually different for two consonants written with the same IPA letter. To me, the Mandarin sound sounds like some kind of [ɾ] while the Russian one sounds like some kind of [ʒ]. I note that native speakers of Norwegian tend to have greater problems with Mandarin r than with most other Mandarin sounds, while they tend to have little problem with Russian ж.
Speaking of native speakers of Norwegian, they tend to hear German /uː/ as Norwegian /uː/ but English /uː/ as Norwegian /ʉː/. Consequently, they have a tendency to use Norwegian /uː/ for German /uː/ but Norwegian /ʉː/ for English /uː/. Similarly, they have a tendency to use Norwegian /u/ for German /ʊ/ but Norwegian /ʉ/ for English /ʊ/.
Timeineurope (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that the retroflex consonants are unusually divergent, and also that many language-specific IPA conventions, such as English vowels, are ideosyncratic, which is why we have such a comment for [ʌ]. (Of course, if we tell the reader what the problem is, [u] is just as notable as [ʌ].) But [m] is highly unusual in having little divergence between languages. Except for a few sounds such as [ʙ] which are so rare it's hard to know if there's much diversity or not, [m] is the only IPA letter I can spot that is uniform. So we're back to debating the relative merits of each case. I don't mind that, but I think it needs to be a controlled process. Take [s], for example: the difference between laminal and apical, dental and alveolar [s] are so great that people with different language backgrounds will hear some of them as [θ] and [ʃ]. In several Californian languages, one of the [s] sounds is equated with English [θ] rather than [s]. The reason [ʂ] gets so much more attention than [s] is simply that Russian, Mandarin, and Hindi are major languages, whereas the languages with divergent [s] are not. So, where do we draw the line? Only when the examples we use are divergent? or whenever someone looking up letter A from language B will find that it doesn't match our examples very well? kwami (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it seems as though [m] is the exception rather than the rule regarding interlanguage variation. A close second might be [ʔ].
The question isn't whether the additional comments are helpful or whether they are accurate. Are they necessary? I don't think so, especially if we're going to ignore the interlanguage variability for most sounds and highlight them for a few. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:31, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it matters whether they are strictly necessary or not. What matters is whether the article is more helpful with them or without them; this is a help page, after all. I think the solution most helpful to readers would be to have comments on all problematic IPA letters. Timeineurope (talk) 17:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you're going to ask that question, then I'd say the answer is no. It's not helpful to misleadingly imply/state that /u/ is special in its interlanguage variability. In the case of retroflex sounds, where the claim is more arguable, it's still not so helpful as it jumbles the page with superfluous information. It's the equivalent of inserting an equation while discussing the basics of physics. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:35, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Since we have such a comment for [ɐ] vs. [ʌ], I can see having something for [u] vs. [ʉ]. After all, this is more than distinct sounds being lumped under one letter, such as [s] or [ʂ] (or Swedish in-rounded "ʉ", for that matter); it's a case of comparable sounds being given different symbols in different languages, even though they're less similar to the prototypes of those sounds than they are to each other. Of course, even this is true for quite a few of the letters. kwami (talk) 08:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I was under the impression that the note for [ɐ] vs. [ʌ] was because it varies amongst English dialects and is a case of a technically inaccurate choice of symbols in the phonemic transcription (that is, it's a notable instance because it is so for English, the language we're assuming our readers are familiar with). I'm sketchy about making a note regarding [u] vs. [ʉ]
  • If we want to argue there's significant enough English dialectal variation, a note similar to [ɐ] vs. [ʌ] can work.
  • If we want readers to understand [ʉ] better, comparing it to [u] might work
I don't see any other reasons to make a note. Maybe it's late. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:55, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd say your [ɐ] vs. [ʌ] comment pretty much sums up [ʉ] vs. [u]. My concern is getting overly detailed, with little consistency between letters. If we have one, why not another, and another, and another ... kwami (talk) 08:08, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
We might be exaggerating a bit here when we argue that English /u/ is really [ʉ]. It's fronted, but in most dialects (with some exceptions Scottish and Australian) not enough to justify transcribing it as [ʉ] (even phonetically). — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 08:31, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

What was wrong with Kingal's edits?

I haven't looked closely enough to have a real opinion, but they seemed pretty innocuous and perhaps helpful. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:37, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The English comment was wrong, the Russian vowel was wrong, and in any case anyone who finds the Russian examples useful will be able to read Cyrillic. kwami (talk) 02:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

help

can someone add the pronunciation to the articles on Jehuu Caulcrick and Jonal Saint-Dic? Jehuu Caulcrick is pronounced Jay-You Call-Crick and Jonal Saint-Dic is Joan-All Saint-Deek. - -[The Spooky One] | [t c r] 00:16, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you tell us which syllables are stressed? Based on you descriptions, I'd guess they might be /ˈdʒeɪjuː ˈkɔːlkrɪk/ and /ˈdʒoʊnɒl/ (/-ɔːl/?) seɪntˈdiːk. kwami (talk) 01:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that's right. Just sound out what I put. I'm not 100percent sure though. - -[The Spooky One] | [t c r] 05:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I added the pronunciations to the article, could somone check to make sure i did it right?- -[The Spooky One] | [t c r] 21:46, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I reverted until we figure out what the pronunciations are. (1) Where is the stress? (2) Are you saying that Jonal does not rhyme with "tonal"? Does it rhyme with "alcohol"? kwami (talk) 04:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I think there correct the way they are up there. I thought of a better way to explain the pronunciation: Joan-All. There - -[The Spooky One] | [t c r] 14:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Knew to this

Does anyone know how to write the thing like the "/ˈdʒoʊnɒl/ (/-ɔːl/?) seɪntˈdiːk" for Dol Guldur? It sounds like Dol Ghold-oar, the "o" must be stretched in "Guldur". LOTRrules (talk) 14:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea what a "stretched o" is. Can you give us words with the same vowels? Where is the stress? kwami (talk) 20:14, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Forget that "stetch" thing, I can just noticed it sounds exactly the way I spelled it phonetically, can't you spell it out in IPA wise (Dol Ghold-oar)? LOTRrules (talk) 18:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Again, where is the stress? And are you expecting an English pronunciation? kwami (talk) 00:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, in English what else? And what do you mean about "stress"? Please visit the article page if it helps. LOTRrules (talk) 22:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I finally added an IPA pronunciation (IPA: [ˈdɒɫ ˈɡuɫdur]). It is a Sindarin word, so I would not want to give an English pronunciation. (In this case the English would not be very different, save the absence of the trill.) Double sharp (talk) 10:22, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

R

For the r "Rolled R". (Generally used for English [ɹ] when there's no need to be precise.)" I don't know who decided to write that statement within the brackets, but it will only encourage confusion. There IS a need to be precise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Deus911 (talk • contribs) 15:10, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

The <r> symbol is *rarely* used for English [ɹ], but it's *almost always* used for English /ɹ/--that is, in phonological, or phonemic, (NOT: phonetic) transcription. That's when there's no need to be precise. Jack(Lumber) 22:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Same letter, different concern: Though the typical French R's employ some vibration in the mouth, they are not literally 'trilled', for that word refers to the vibration of the tip of the tongue. The English term for the intended sound, which has been found in a few regional English dialects, is 'burred'. 74.10.198.105 (talk) 21:37, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The linguistic term is "trilled". "Burred" means the same thing, [r] as well as [R]. kwami (talk) 21:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

[ ɥ ]

I can't know how English speakers hear the French lui but as native French it is [y] and [i] put together that I hear. I have tried to hear any [j] instead of a [y] but I really can't hear any. Though I can hear some [w] I really can't hear any [j]. Since [ ɥ ] is always made with the cluster 'ui' in French words my question would be; which other language use the [ ɥ ] ? Hope this helps.--Overkilled (talk) 19:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

My understanding of [ɥ] is that it is phonetically identical to [jʷ], a labialized [j]. I know that Abkhaz and Mandarin Chinese have this sound as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Out of curiosity, what is the pinyin for this sound for mandarin? I don't really understand IPA, but both ji-ü = ju and zh-i = zhi have "lip rounding" in an informal jargonless sense. The first one's initial is very "flat", like the english expression "golly *gee*", while the second one involves pulling your tongue further into your mouth, and sounds a little like the english word "*ger*man". JackSchmidt (talk) 19:51, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
It's the yu in yuè 'moon', which I just added to the ɥ article. kwami (talk) 19:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks. JackSchmidt (talk) 20:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


[˜]

What is this mark mean? I found it in the pronunciation for chaise longue, just before the g, but can't seem to find any explanation of what it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.245.238.250 (talk) 03:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Nasalization. It just wasn't formatted properly. kwami (talk) 20:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation of <Mexico>

I noticed that the wiki page on Mexico claims a pronunciation of ['mexiko] for the name of the country. This contradicts the sound file linked there, as well as my prior experience, in which it should be something along the lines of ['meçiko]. However, since my knowledge of IPA is limited, and I realized this might be a better place to ask than the discussion page on Mexico, I would be grateful for some input: does the consonant in question, as pronounced in the sound file on the page, indeed sound like a [ç], or is it another IPA consonant? --134.130.57.186 (talk) 19:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

You're right, but if you look at the IPA for Spanish chart, you'll notice they're not going into that level of detail. The difference between [x] and [ç] is just an influence of the following [i]. Also, for many people it's more like ['mehiko]. kwami (talk) 20:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I just realized that when I listened to it again. The linked sound file (to me, and I know that isn't an authoritative source by any stretch of imagination, this is the "quintessential Mexico pronunciation") makes it sound like a sound somewhere in between [ç] and [h], which I couldn't find any fitting representation for. What I did find just now, however, is this: Toponymy of Mexico. It states: "In present-day Spanish, México is pronounced ['mexiko] or ['mehiko], the latter pronunciation used mostly in dialects of the Caribbean and some places in South America where /x/ has become a voiceless glottal fricative (/h/)." I'll let that sink in for a bit, wait for maybe a comment or two on the Mexico discussion page, and then decide on further steps. Thanks for the prompt help! --134.130.57.186 (talk) 20:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Since the pronunciation is linked to a dedicated IPA chart which is used for lots of other articles, any changes to Mexico should probably be done in conjunction with the chart. kwami (talk) 20:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Good point. Maybe I should try and find somebody over there to talk about it, because the previously mentioned article Toponymy of Mexico suggests an alternate pronunciation in new world Spanish, and no consonant in the list Help:IPA_for_Spanish seems to come close to it. Maybe there's reasons for that, or maybe it has just been an oversight so far. I'll head over and find out. --134.130.57.186 (talk) 20:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


[ ɖ ] and "harder"

Shouldn't the table say that this consonant is the one in American English "harder"? In RP the example doesn't seem to work. Dark Formal (talk) 20:27, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Actully, neither use this sound in harder. If anything, American English would use [ɽ] as the /d/ is flapped. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:30, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

[dz]

Surely a simple word like 'adds', 'odds' or 'beds' would be a better English example for [dz]? I'd never even heard of an adze until just now. --Nikki (talk) 01:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. If we're worried about coda devoicing, we could have gadzooks instead. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:OR

It's rather remarkable that no sources are given for this page, as there are plenty of sources available. The idea of grouping each symbol under a letter in the alphabet is also a very unusual idea to present IPA and I don't know what purpose it is meant to serve. It is almost by definition a violation or WP:OR as many sounds can not readily be placed under a given letter, making the selection original research. I note in passing that many symbols necessary for pronouncing Swedish (and probably many other languages) are missing (in the sentence "du är" ("you are"), both vovel sounds are missing from this page), so the selection of a given set of symbols would also seem to be someone's personal choice and once again violate WP:OR. JdeJ (talk) 09:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

OR is not applicable, since this isn't an article. Letters are grouped graphically to help readers find them. Several are cross-referenced. Swedish has vowels that aren't supported by the IPA, so adding them really would be OR, assuming it applied. As the intro states, not all symbols are included. Some are just too obscure. kwami (talk) 10:03, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
I agree about OR not being exactly applicable, but in the absence of a better way to highlight the problems... Personally, I think that the grouping is more confusing than in "normal" IPA guidelines. Last but not least, there are no vowels in Swedish that can't be expressed by IPA, they are just missing from the article, and I guess the same applies to many other languages as well. And who is to decide which languages and symbols are "too obscure"? JdeJ (talk) 10:22, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
If you feel that some existing IPA symbols are common enough to be added to the table, go ahead and add them. −Woodstone (talk) 11:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
There is no IPA symbol for the Swedish u, nor for the Japanese u, for that matter. kwami (talk) 11:41, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Confusing for people who already know IPA well enough, yes. But the Help page is mainly designed for people who don't know much about phonetic symbols, so they can look up "funny characters" like ɐ, ɭ or ʁ more easily than looking for them in a large table. — N-true (talk) 12:36, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
Lacking any example of OR, I'm removing the tag. (Formatting issues and missing info are hardly OR, nor is lack of references.) kwami (talk) 22:05, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
Oops, someone beat me to it. kwami (talk) 22:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

American English or British English?

Which is being talked about when the sounds are described in their english equivalents? Though there is variation even within the two, it would be helpful if the distinction were made. 65.241.27.227 (talk) 19:27, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I believe we do, whenever it's relevant. kwami (talk) 19:47, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Voiced Pharyngeal Fricative

The sound clip for the voiced pharyngeal fricative is the wrong one. See Voiced pharyngeal fricative for the right one. thanks--213.6.39.95 (talk) 20:09, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

fixed by AMSA83 -- 213.6.47.163 (talk) 13:15, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

en Wikipedia

As this page is at the en subdomain, there ought to be at least one english example for each symbol. [anon]

Not possible. kwami (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
A quick look shows that any sound that happens to be in the English inventory uses an English example, even if it's dialectal. So, other than for non-English sounds, this is a good suggestion. So good that someone has gone back in time to alter the article accordingly so that the article already reflected said suggestion by the time it was made. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:37, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

[ɧ]

How do you pronounce [ɧ]? I found it in Swedish alphabet and there's no entry in here for it. - ÆÅM «(fætsøn!) 07:49, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I have added the symbol and its pronunciation from the relevant article. The Swedish example word is my guess. Please double check. −woodstone (talk) 09:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I really don't think we need to include every marginal symbol. The table's a bit long as it is. I mean, look at all the stuff from Danish that we don't cover here. The intro warns that for some rarer symbols you'll need to go to the main IPA article, and in this case the article in question has a clear link that explains the sound in great detail. kwami (talk) 10:23, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
If you go that route we might chuck many more symbols (like e.g. the clicks). The symbol in question is very common in Swedish (hardly a marginal language). −Woodstone (talk) 10:25, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's true. However, this one is particularly bad. People can't even agree on what it is, so any time it's mentioned it needs to be explained anyway. kwami (talk) 10:28, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

editing tools

I have no idea where to take this up. How do we modify the editing tools? Since the IPA now has its own section, it can be expanded. It would be nice if we had tone letters and diacritics. kwami (talk) 09:03, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

They used to be in MediaWiki:Edittools. I don't know where the new version is with the selection box. When we add symbols, we might as well review the sorting order, which currently is not so clear. We might want to follow the same sequence as in help:IPA −Woodstone (talk) 12:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
The new version is at MediaWiki:Edittools.js. Korg (talk) 00:49, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
While we're talking about it, I'd like to suggest we force the IPA. Before the change, I could see all the characters but now I can't se the ones that need a unicode font. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:54, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

[ḫ]

Baruch (Hebrew: בָּרוּךְ, Standard Baruḫ Tiberian Bārûḵ ; "Blessed"). What does mean this small thing under h? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.148.159.114 (talk) 08:59, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Jostein Gaarder

It would be great if one could add the IPA for the pronunciation of Jostein Gaarder's name. I don't know of any better place to ask for this to be done huji—TALK 20:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Lothar Matthäus

Could someone please tell me what the IPA for Lothar Matthäus is? This is an example of a German pronouncing it correctly. 83.254.69.107 (talk) 15:36, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

According to the soundclip it would be [lota mateus], but I think more correct would be [lotaʁ mateus]. −Woodstone (talk) 19:20, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, the "R" probably isn't silent in a German name. 83.254.69.107 (talk) 03:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

No, the clip is right, the R is silent. Rothorpe (talk) 22:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Errors

The sound listed for [ɔ] is instead the [oʊ] sound. Also, "Spanish pero, American English kitty/kiddie" are all given as having the same middle consonant. While "kitty" is often pronounced "kiddie", "tt", "dd", and "r" are all different sounds.Heqwm2 (talk) 06:52, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

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