Help talk:IPA/Dutch/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

/ʏ/ is not roughly like 'cut'

In Dutch, the norm for /ʏ/ is [ʏ ~ ʏ̈ ~ ʏ̞ ~ ɵ]. That is nothing like English /ʌ/, unless you count the Irish [ɞ] realization, which comes pretty close to the non-standard realizations of Dutch /ʏ/ such as [œ]. The closest you can get is "Estuary/Southern American 'put'". Peter238 (talk) 10:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, they're indeed pretty far apart in vowel space, but despite that phonemically better. If someone were to use it, at least he would be understood. This would not be the case if he would use the vowel in "cute", which would be interpreted as Dutch "hoed" ([ɦut]). Something similar would happen with "fuut" and "cute", though. The problem is that there simply are no equivalents, not even approximately, really. In any case, using "cute" for both /ʏ/ and /y/ suggests that they are the same, even though they are not. --JorisvS (talk) 11:21, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not at all arguing against replacing 'cute'. My argument is that a better option is writing "Estuary/Southern American 'put'". In Estuary, this vowel is realized in nearly exactly the same limits as ABN /ʏ/, i.e. [ʏ ~ ʏ̈ ~ ʏ̞ ~ ɵ] - backish [ʊ] is rarer (especially among younger speakers), and is more of a Cockney (maybe also MLE) thing. In Southern American English, only the higher variants [ʏ ~ ʏ̈] occur, the backish variant [ʊ] is (AFAIK) rarer, just like in EE. Peter238 (talk) 12:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

And I'm all for trying to find a better example. We could specify which form of English, though I don't know helpful that would be to the majority of speakers. --JorisvS (talk) 12:19, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Peter238's suggestion specifying American South and Estuary English dialect pronunciations of "put" sounds good to me. Most English speakers would be familiar with at least one of those two variants. (My only reason for suggesting cued/cute was so that people wouldn't think /y/ and /ʏ/ were pronounced identically.) Q·L·1968 ☿ 16:05, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Dialectal examples are less helpful than you'd think. People are familiar with the dialects in the sense that they've heard them and can understand them, but they wouldn't necessarily be able to pinpoint the differences in pronunciation of the vowel of put. Using the American South would be particularly bad because Southern pronunciations vary too much to be useful. I'm still particular to cute/cued, despite the problems people have identified with it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:57, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say that the best matching English phoneme for /ʏ/ is actually /ə/. It certainly would have the highest chance of being understood by Dutch people that way. CodeCat (talk) 20:22, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I was a little confused by that until I saw the vowel charts at Dutch phonology. If we're getting into the vowel space of /ə/, then the vowel of nurse might be better, since it has lip rounding for a lot of speakers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:02, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, makes sense. And I think we can note that it is non-rhotic. Although this would be much better regardless, we again face trying to approximate two different phonemes with the same sound in English. --JorisvS (talk) 08:52, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

QuartierLatin1968's suggestion of using English allophonic vowel length differences before voiced and voiceless consonants might be a good idea. Word pairs like nerd/nurse, curt/curd, or hurt/her could work to imply vowel length difference. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 13:49, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It makes sense, but the /ʏ/–/y/ and /ɪ/–/i/ pairs are not distinguished and not even reinforced by vowel length. --JorisvS (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

@Peter238 What about the e in yew? In most dialects the word is rendered something like [jɵw], and in most dialects the vowel stays within [ɵ~ʏ~ʉ~ʊ], which is a very good approximation for the realization of /ʏ/. Masimatutu (talk) 13:12, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Without taking a position on this evidently somewhat vexed question, I've tinkered with many of the English example words, either to make the comparison more direct (e.g. 'zip' rather than 'jazz'), to take up the allophonic length idea (but only in vowels specifically designated as long), or to propose new comparison words (e.g. marginal Dutch nasal vowels with marginal English nasal vowels). Feel free to revert and discuss any of these if they seem ill-chosen. Q·L·1968 ☿ 20:57, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Please someone look at Dubbeltje. The u is pronounced the same as the u in dubbing, and definitely not as in cute. 217.121.65.15 (talk) 13:48, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

It has little to do with the "u" in "dubbing", save for Irish and Ulster English. The Dutch sound is rounded, the English sound is, in most cases, not rounded (or when it is rounded, it tends to be back - this is also not very similar to Dutch). Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Odd comparison

IPA	Examples	English approximation
x	acht, weg	loch (Scottish English)
ɣ	gaan	roughly like go, but without completely blocking air flow on the g

Either this is confused with German pronunciation or someone messed up the symbols a little. I know there's a hard and soft G in Dutch, but the ɣ in gaan does not sound "roughly like go" in English; it almost always sounds the same as x in weg. The difference between the g and ch in general depends on the dialect, but I assume we're focusing on Standard Dutch and not, say, Dietsch. The book Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst—the most esteemed compilation of Standard Dutch rules and usage—states:

Het verschil tussen de stemloze ch-klank (van chaos) en de stemhebbende g-klank (van gas) speelt voor de meeste sprekers van het Nederlands - althans in het noorden, boven de grote rivieren - geen rol in de uitspraak;

[The difference between the voiceless ch-sound (of chaos) and the voiced g-sound (of gas) plays for the most speakers of Dutch - at least in the north, above the big rivers - no role in the pronunciation;]

The x page equally states that its sound is often used in the Afrikaans goed. It's hard to believe there would be no connection. Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 00:15, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

That is already explained in the note. "roughly like go, but without completely blocking air flow on the g" is an accurate description of the Belgian /ɣ/. Readers who wish to sound more northern will simply pronounce both /x/ and /ɣ/ as a voiceless uvular fricative. Peter238 (talk) 00:29, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Realization of /r/

The letter /r/ is pronounced in many different ways (anywhere between 6 and 20). Currently this page is only showing the alveolar trill, which is a common way of pronunciation. But the letter is equally often pronounced as a uvular trill [ʀ]. 43% of people (token frequency) realized the letter in some form of a uvular consonant, while only 37% realized in some alveolar way. (page 74 of the PDF)

I think these pronunciations should be added. Also, note 5 states "In some dialects, it is realized as an alveolar flap [ɾ] or even as an alveolar approximant [ɹ]". This should also be changed, because the alveolar approximant is actually one of the more common pronunciations (turn on a random TV in the Netherlands and you'll hear every syllable-final /r/ being realized as an alveolar approximant).

Why do we need to encode this variation in the transcription system? If we do encode it, what principle should editors use to guide them into choosing which symbol to use? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:32, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

We shouldn't encode it, because the Dutch /r/ is a very variable sound, as Sebregts himself notes. Sebregts also notes that (at least in Hasselt, not sure about other cities - no time to read the whole paper now), speakers with a uvular /r/ use all four variants ([ʀ, ʀ̝, ʁ, ʁ̞]) more or less equally often, which complicates things even further. There is also this book, in which in the first two (out of total four) chapters about Dutch the authors investigate the nature of Dutch /r/. There's no reason to change the /r/ symbol here. Peter238 (talk) 00:55, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I see this conversation died, but can this please be corrected? The current version is definitely not desirable. It describes /r/ roughly the way most Belgians would pronounce it (i.e. Trilled R), but uses an example that only corresponds to the pronunciation used in the North of the Netherlands. In other words, the example is in conflict with the description. Arno Sluismans (talk) 07:55, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

It's not. It says water (alveolar tap), not water (r-colored vowel). Mr KEBAB (talk) 08:13, 29 November 2016 (UTC)

"(Reverting vandalism - incredibly stubborn anon (which is a neutral term on WP) refuses to provide a valid source for his reverts (personal experience is not one). This is your last warning. Read WP:BURDEN and WP:VERIFIABILITY.) (undo)" Being hostile (neutral term) to anonymous individuals and framing them as 'stubborn' and vandalising is not making wikipedia a friendly enviroment. Snobbishly (also a neutral term) throwing a 300+ page academic paper at me without giving me the page number where it says what 'the' way is to pronounce the Dutch R is ridiculous and absolutely NOT sufficient to count as evidence for the currrent position that says that Trilled R is 'the' way to pronounce the R in Dutch. Throwing that paper at me doenst mean it validates your position, you ought to provide quotes and page numbers, that's the proper way, now you oblige me to read 300+ pages before the overlord allows me to have a dissenting opinion. Yes, there is great variation in pronounciation but saying that Trilled R is 'the' way to pronounce the R is at best partly true/incomplete. And who made MRKEBAB the emperor? Why is he the one from the politbureau deciding who gets a spanking? Why is MRKEBAB so stubborn himself by denying my evidence (modern media pronounciations wich you can verify yourself NOW) and labeling it as invalid? Saying only academic papers matter is a bit narrowminded. If 1 academic paper 300+ pages counts as valid, without giving the exact page number/quote where it says that Trilled R is 'the' way to pronounce R, then pointing at contemporary tv programs and individuals where they clearly do NOT pronounce the R trilled, then there is something wrong. Just look at public television how they pronounce R. How is the trilled R wich is not widely spoken more helpful than the gutteral R that is spoken as practically standard in national media? It would be helpful if the wikipedia community would be less snobby and try to be open to non establishment input. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.112.185.189 (talk) 17:16, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

(Redacted)

Read my edit summaries, the message I left on your talk page, WP:BURDEN and WP:VERIFIABILITY, and the two PDF's I provided. I haven't provided a page number because there's no single page on which such information is stated, just as there isn't a single correct pronunciation of /r/ in Dutch. But see e.g. page 123 in Sebregts, and pages 51, 94 in 'r-atics.

Next time, just ask for a page number and/or provide valid sources, not personal experiences - especially if what the other side (in this case, me) is providing are actual academical papers.

(Redacted) Again, personal experiences are not a valid source. (Redacted)

I will not even address what you've written to me on your talk page. I could easily go to the admins and have you banned for your language. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:46, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I dont consider myself a victim here, i am standing up to you and criticising you and you are not even seriously adressing my points. I just think you have too much power as 1 single person (by saying that im not implying I'm a victim, that's just your favorite cliche framing you want to put me in), you give lazy evidence yourself and you as one person do not even want to consider what i have to say and just label me as a troll, stubborn and say im vandalising. You do not even want to consider ample evidence for my input: national media. why cant you talk like a normal person? just look at the news, newshour, eva jinek, rtl 8 o clock news et cetera, et cetera. Or any other national news program. people in the media are sent to training for speaking a certain way.

just because there is no single way that letter is pronounced, that doesnt mean that what you say is correct. again: what you hear on national media in the netherlands is NOT or seldomly the trilled R. Yet you are stubbornly unwilling to recognise that as evidence. You apparently do not and cannot claim that the trilled R is 'the' way the R is pronounced in dutch because as i have said multiple times in national radio and tv media the gutteral R is considered standard. The fact that is not recognised by you is a big short coming and narrow minded. It is also a flaw that you seem to be the dictator around here that decides what is the truth on this or not EVEN though I have given very valid sources: national tv and radio media, national railways messages on stations/platforms etc etc. trilled R is NOT standard yet you want it to be perceived as such. I advise you to not be so narrow-minded and consider this and also have other people think about this. It is such a turn off that a single person like you who erroneously enforces the 1 wrong opinion as truth has no check or balance and all you do is demonise.

you are narrow-minded, again: NATIONAL TV AND RADIO MEDIA, that is not simply subjective personal experience, it is an observation that anyone can verify. What do you think is helpful for readers? How things in the real actual world are pronounced and are considered standard since people in national media often get training to speak a certain way? Or according to you this one out of many ways to pronounce the R and just pick one? The trilled R is seldomly heard in national dutch radio or television! WHy are you so stubborn not to recognise this? Why not even add the gutteral R besides the trilled R?

you are treating wikipedia as your own since you as only 1 person seems to decide what is truth (wich isnt truth if you only watch dutch national tv or radio, something anyone can verify! i am astounded by YOUR stubbornness! How can you just ignore that???) SOrry but this truly is narrow-mindedness. If this is how wikipedia is, it deserves its negative reputation of 'reliability'. I am not a victim, there is simply an unearned asymetrical balance of power, the fact im rather annoyed is because of your behaviour and actions.

Nonsense, don't try to insinuate that i have called you names or made under the belt remarks, you keep on framing me in a negative way that i do not deserve. i have been hard, direct and confronting but i havent gone down the road you seem to suggest. Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.112.185.189 (talk) 18:01, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

You have the pages already, just end the topic and check them. There's also a record of you not asking for the pages. (Redacted)

You're acting as though Wikipedia policies were my invention, my fault and me trying to hold you up to their standard was my fault, my problem and something that I have to apologize to you for. (Redacted)

Let me just respond to this as well: "just because there is no single way that letter is pronounced, that doesnt mean that what you say is correct." It's not about me being correct or incorrect, but authoritative sources saying what they say. Again, that's quite a shocking mistake to make, (Redacted) Do you really not understand the difference between me saying something and me quoting a reliable source?

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:42, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Again: you cannot just throw a 300+ page paper at me and practically claim that your way is right and put upon me the burden to read all of that. I have now said multiple times that you ought to give pages and explanation etc. Again: If you claim something, give me the page, the reason, the explanation. Because again, and you fail/are unwilling to talk about that: gutteral R IS THE STANDARD in dutch national tv and radio, national railway station/platform messages etc etc. Why are you unwilling to talk about that? why are you so narrow-minded and stubborn? Why MUST I give you a paper? I am giving you direct empirical evidence that ANY dutch person who watches tv, listens to the radio and travels by train CAN VERIFY. What I give you as evidence SHOULD be accepted as such, if not, your rules are flawed. Because how come that in those named important and influential NATIONAL medias no value is placed upon? Ridiculous.

You know what's manipulation? Labeling me as an anon that is vandalising, trolling, being stubborn, someone to act against like you're some punishing authority, insinuating I have called you names or something that deserve banning (butyou havent initiated it so you seem reasonable/forgiving). You are manipulating the image of me by talking like that about/to me.

See above comment, in practise in the netherlands, gutteral R IS STANDARD in national radio and tv and more!

Source: for the millionth time: listen to dutch tv! listen to dutch radio! etc! You will hear a gutteral R and NOT a trilled R! How is national tv and radio etc not authoritative? how is how dutch is spoken on the dutch railways/public transport not authoritative? ANY one can verify this. People in the national media get training so they do not sound like they are from Limburg/Brabant etc.

you who is continuing to be narrow minded, stubborn and snobbish is not surprising either, you are ignoring the simple fact how something is pronounced and you enforce your schtick without any check or balance, you are acting like a dictator here, you hide behind things and refuse to talk with me like a normal person, you refuse to be even slightly open minded and consider it. A normal person who doesnt act like a snobbish bureaucrat would ackknowledge that indeed there are many ways to pronounce the R but that there is definitively something considered standard in national media in the netherlands and I daresay is spoken by the most people in the netherlands. Why are you acting so estranged from the real world? Why not look beyond and accept the most obvious fact ever?

Don't reply inside my messages. That's pretty much all I can tell you. (Redacted)

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:14, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

Really? My reading comprehension is bad? It's one thing to disagree with me (wich is really the case here), it is another thing to try to insinuate that I'm stupid. You have hardly seriously adressed my valid points and I seriously doubt you have done any effort to understand what my point is here and I do think you are capable of that, just unwilling.

All I can say to you is to be more open-minded and be less hostile to people with a differing opinion! You just cannot handle criticism! All I want to be is correct, it is not about 'winning a discussion'. As I have pointed out ad nauseam, gutteral R IS considered standard! Just go out of your house or turn on the TV! What's going on when an organisation, and/or just you, seem to not being able to acknowledge obvious every day facts that happen everywhere! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.112.185.189 (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

(Redacted) Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:53, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

References

Two national standards

What happened to the separate listing of the Netherlandic and Belgian (implicit/de facto) standards? Would be great to have both as there are obvious differences. Morgengave (talk) 00:23, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Do these standards actually exist? If so, where are they codified? CodeCat (talk) 00:25, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

The lack of codification in this area applies to the language as a whole. I believe we have had this conversation once before: many people look to the IPA not only for the phonemes, but also for the pronunciation afaik. As a result, this article now implies there is only one standard (a conservative Hollandic pronunciation), or at least that's how a user less familiar with Dutch would see it. In addition, the current statement "See Dutch phonology for a more thorough look at (...) dialectal variations not represented here" reinforces that perception; seems to imply all other pronunciations are dialectal. If no sources are existing to back up any standard, let us then include the non-controversial big differences and/or add a clarifying (dreaded? :)) note to help the users understand the situation in Dutch. Morgengave (talk) 00:52, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

This is btw also linked to your edit on wiktionary:blèren. I would agree that the [ɛː]-sound is unexpected in that word from an etymological pov, but is that sound foreign to Dutch? For most/all standard Netherlandic Dutch speakers it can appear so, but for most/all standard Belgian-Dutch speakers, it will sound exactly the same as *bleiren: I am not an expert in phonology so I might overlook a subtle difference, but I do believe both are pronounced with an [ɛː]-sound. Morgengave (talk) 01:10, 14 August 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:16, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Phonemic status of glottal stop and rules for its transcription

According to note <j> on the page:

"The glottal stop [ʔ] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch and is indicated sparingly in Dutch transcriptions on Wikipedia. It is mandatorily inserted between [aː] and [ə] and a syllable-initial vowel, both within words and at word boundaries. Often, it is also inserted before phrase-initial vowels and before any word-initial vowel. This is not indicated in most of our transcriptions."

Questions:

1. Is this the best place to ask these questions; if not, where?
2. How can [ʔ] not be a separate phoneme if it is mandatorily inserted? (That suggests that we must write or say something that is not present in the language!)
3. Who or what mandates the insertion in this situation? Is it (let's denote it X) a WP policy for transcribing Dutch; some definitive standard reference for spoken Dutch; or something else?
4. This situation is described ambiguously using three terms separated by two "and"s, of logical form "between A and B and C". Wouldn't this form be better: "after A or B and before C"?
5. Shouldn't we state the authority (maybe X) for its optional insertion "before phrase-initial vowels and before any word-initial vowel"?
6. Since Dutch transcriptions on the English-language Wikipedia are primarily intended to help English-language speakers pronounce Dutch words, is there any need at all to indicate the presence of the glottal stop in those situations where English orthography never does — namely, "before phrase-initial vowels and before any word-initial vowel"?
7. Doesn't the current text over-specify the use of [ʔ]? (Because a "word-initial vowel" appears only at a "word boundary".)

Suggested revised text:

"The glottal stop [ʔ] is a Dutch phoneme that does not appear in standard Dutch orthography. The Dutch transcriptions on Wikipedia use it sparingly. X requires inserting [ʔ] after [aː] or [ə] and before a syllable-initial vowel, but only within words, not at word boundaries. X permits inserting [ʔ] before phrase-initial vowels and before any word-initial vowel; however, this does not appear in most of our transcriptions."

yoyo (talk) 04:32, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Can you give a situation where adding or removing a glottal stop changes the word? Rua (mew) 11:16, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps you're asking for a minimal pair? I don't have one to hand. But consider the examples given on the page:

1. beëindig [bəˈʔɛindəx]
2. Trijntje Oosterhuis [-ə ˈʔoː-]

The implication is that one must pronounce a glottal stop here to speak correctly, but that the orthography doesn't show it. So the transcription would have to include the glottal stop - in any position we native English-speakers mightn't expect it, to ensure correct pronunciation.

The first example appears to have a diaeresis above the second e, implying a need to begin a new syllable, just as we might see it used in English coöpt or coöperate (rather than a hyphen: co-opt or co-operate). Without that diacritic, one might pronounce /beeindig/ [bɛ:indəx], which may or may not be a Dutch word, but wrong in either case. So removing the glottal stop changes the word's pronunciation.

The second example exactly parallels the same situation in English: a word with an initial vowel follows one with a final lenis vowel, e.g. "juicy orange". We don't indicate the existence of a glottal stop between the two words, though many speakers (not all) will produce one. If it's a mistake in spoken Dutch to leave the glottal stop out, we need to show it in the transcription; otherwise, it's not necessary. yoyo (talk) 12:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

None of that addresses whether the glottal stop is a phoneme, though. In the examples you've given, the words are still the same without it. Your first example is a non sequitur: indeed, removing the diaeresis character changes the word, but that has nothing to do with the glottal stop. Rua (mew) 12:56, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

We would want to use sources to identify phonemicity, though articulating whether a particular sound must occur in a particular context to sound accurate is not a good measure of phonemicity. Pronouncing spin as [spʰin] instead of [spin] would not be in accordance with the phonological rules of English, but this doesn't mean that English contrasts /p/ and /pʰ/.

Still, the note could go with some rewording. I appreciate your attempt at avoiding passive voice, but we don't need to state an authority for what is a descriptive account of native speaker usage. How does this reword sound (changes from current version marked in bold):

"The glottal stop [ʔ] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch and is indicated sparingly in Dutch transcriptions on Wikipedia. It appears between [aː] or [ə] before a syllable-initial vowel, but only within words and at word boundaries. It may also appear before phrase-initial vowels and before any word-initial vowel. This is not indicated in most transcriptions at Wikipedia."

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:33, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Bad example for o:

Most Dutch people don't pronounce the oo in the Dutch word "boot" as o:. It is usually pronounced as oʊ and thus is the Dutch word "boot" not a great example for the sound o:. Rather, as stated in Note l, in Dutch the oo is usually only pronounced as o: if there is an r after it. My question is thus if it is not better if the example is something like "oor" or "voor" or something like that? Adriaan1313 (talk) 21:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I see what you mean, though the issue isn't really the example, rather it's that we have chosen to transcribe this vowel as [oː] rather than [oʊ]. This choice is likely based on an understanding that [oː] is closer to the form realized by more speakers, but I don't know about this. I wouldn't mind switching, but I'm not well versed in what forms are more accurate.

Do we want to parse [oː] and [oʊ] in our transcriptions? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:21, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. [oː] should be used for "-oor" (Dutch) only. [oʊ] should be added to reflect a more accurate representation of "boot" (Dutch). "Story" (English) is simply less accurate than "boat" (English) or "goat" (English) when trying to pronounce "boot" (Dutch). RJP98 (talk) 19:58, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Why not add both, each with their own context. Like you say, they occur both JHBonarius (talk) 12:39, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

We typically avoid dialectal variants of the same sound, especially when it's unclear for editors when to use which transcription. If there is variation within one dialect, it shouldn't be a problem to parse [oː] and [oʊ] in our transcriptions, but the phonetic contexts should be clear to our editors. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:40, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Unnecessary footnotes?

Insofar as our footnotes should guide readers to understand our transcriptions and editors to know how to transcribe, I'm not sure if all of the footnotes we currently have should stand:

footnote a is about voicing contrasts with the fricatives and also goes into phonetic detail for some dialects. Are we transcribing these differences or are we maintaining the voicing contrast that some dialects lose? If the latter, we might as well just remove the footnote.

footnote b is about the final ⟨en⟩ and goes into detail about dialectal variation, which doesn't seem relevant. How are we transcribing this sequence? We probably still need a note, but it should be much shorter

footnote c seems necessary.

footnote d is probably fine; we have similar footnotes in French and German. The only caveat is if this dialectal variation isn't as prominent as it is in French or German, it's probably not worth mentioning.

footnote e is about dialectal differences of a phoneme. Since we aren't transcribing these differences, we might as well remove this note.

footnote f is mostly about the phonemicity of a particular sound, which is irrelevant afaics. We also don't need to mention that [ɲ] occurs as an allophone of /n/ before [c] because already show that with an example word.

footnote g is about the phonemicity of [ɡ], which doesn't seem necessary

footnote h is about the glottal stop, but it also says that we transcribe this sparingly. What should we be doing with the glottal stop? If we don't indicate it in the places mentioned, we shouldn't mention that in the footnote.

footnote i is about checked and free vowels. This may be important unless it's already obvious to anyone in a position to transcribe Dutch words.

footnote j and footnote k are about dialectal variation in some vowels. Are we transcribing these differences? If not, it's not worth mentioning.

is about dialectal variation in some long vowels. Are we transcribing these differences? If not, it's not worth mentioning.

footnote l can probably be combined with footnote n, though if there's no citations backing up the presence of these vowels in Dutch, we should remove them from the key and our transcriptions.

footnote m is about how a non-native vowel is pronounced. If this is a common enough pronunciation, we probably shouldn't even mention this particular marginal vowel.

Any thoughts from other editors? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:29, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Reverted changes? Anyhow, some 'improvements'

I made some edits to the page, but they were reverted and I should propose changes in the talk page. Is this some new Wikipedia policy? That only some 'select few' are allowed to update pages? But anyhow.

• with the dutch "hut" it now says "nurse", with "ur" in bold. But the "r" is not part of the dutch "u", so I propose just making the u bold.
• with the dutch "aap" it now says "father", but this doesn't represent the prolonged 'a' sound. I propose "bra" as a better word.
• with the dutch "boot" (already discussed above) it now says "story". But this is just plain wrong. The english "boat" is more how (most) dutch people would pronounce it. Unless you have a strong dialect.
• with the dutch "fuut" is says "few", but the "w" sound is not part of the dutch "uu". That why I propose to making only the e bold.

JHBonarius (talk) 12:39, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for coming to the talk page. If you're curious about policy, you can see WP:BRD, which tasks editors with coming to talk pages when edits are controversial.

• The vowel of the English word nurse does not actually have an r in it that is separate from the vowel nucleus. This vowel depends on the dialect, but it could be [ɜ] or [ɝ] (the latter of which also possibly having simultaneous lip protrusion) or even rounded vowels like [ø] and [ɵ]. As such, the ⟨ur⟩ in nurse is a sort of digraph that can't be parsed into its constituent parts (much like ⟨th⟩ or ⟨sh⟩).
• I don't personally have a problem with bra, but I pronounce bra and father with the same vowel. I'll let other people chime in on this one.
• In my own dialect, boat is pronounced with [oː] or [oʊ], though [əʊ] and other diphthongal variants are common in other dialects. Story is nice as a monophthongal approximation, though it is typically pronounced a more open vowel in English ([ɔ]) so this might be a problem, as is the case that [oʊ] is a common pronunciation of the vowel in Dutch, even if we don't transcribe that way. We could say boat and mark that approximation as an American English one.
• The ⟨ew⟩ in few (another digraph) represents /juː/ and it is this combined sequence that is being compared to the Dutch sound. It's an imperfect approximation, but this is another sound that doesn't exist in English and so approximations are going to be, well, approximate.

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:38, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

And thanks for the response. I'm not a language expert, just here to try to improve things. So there are some things I don't understand.

• If I pronounce the word "nurse", I can stick on the "u" sound for as long as my breath holds up, before continuing to the "rse" part. Maybe it's not something separate in language, but just stopping before the "r" is just about how we dutchees pronounce are "u"
• Maybe the "aa" in "aap" should then be more like the "a"'s in Queen's Radio Gaga, at least the way they pronounce it in the song.
• The "boat" thing is a difficult one, if there ary many ways to pronounce it. I just know the "o" in "story" is WAY to short to represent the Dutch "oo".

— JHBonarius (talk) 20:01, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

It sounds like you are a non-native speaker with a misunderstanding of English phonetics. While your pronunciation of the vowel in nurse is likely close enough to help you get by, your description of how you pronounce this vowel is not how native speakers of most dialects pronounce it. This vowel is a monophthong. Some linguists even transcribe it as if it were a syllabic [ɹ] (so nurse would be [nɹ̩s]). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:21, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

short "o" is not really an open o sound [ɔ]

I don't think, it is correct to describe the Dutch short o sound as being an open o [ɔ], as in the example "bot". To my German ears, the "o" in words such as bot, hond, vol is actually VERY closed. So [o] would be the correct IPA symbol. - For instance, Dutch "hond" sounds almost(!) exactly as the German Standard pronunciation of "Hund". There is really only a tiny difference. And "vol" sounds very close to English "full". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.199.31 (talk) 16:09, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

We're going with the sources cited at Dutch phonology#Vowels. Do you have a source or are you just relying on your ears? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:39, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

/ʌu/ or /ɔu/

The article Dutch phonology uses /ɔu/ as the main symbol of this phoneme. Which one should we prefer? Burzuchius (talk) 09:42, 5 April 2021 (UTC)