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needs audio

This IPA stuff is way too confusing for most people to get. Why not have an audio reference for US English at least? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Slides2008 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 8 March 2009

Perhaps audio would be more appropriate at IPA chart for English dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it's fucking confusing. I don't see why audio couldn't be added and audio for individual words constructed from the pieces. Kinkywhynot (talk) 15:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Questions about Digraphs

I was just wontering, why is it that whenever I read IPA charts, they always list [tʃ] (letter t and small letter esh) and [dʒ] (letter d and small letter ezh) instead of the digraphs [ʧ] (small letter tesh digraph) and [ʤ] (small letter dezh digraph)? In other words, why are they always written as two letters (t and ʃ) and not just the one single digraph [ʧ]? Wouldn't it make more sense this way? Also, [ɩr] and [ɩər] are listed as different "R-colored" vowel sets, but don't they sound the same? And doesn't the same go for [ʌr] and [ɜr]; [ɔr] and [ɔər]? Cloudy fox 001 (talk) 22:25, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

  1. Affricate digraphs are no longer part of the IPA.
  2. Not all of our readers speak midwestern American English.

kwami (talk) 23:15, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

To extrapolate a little on the above response, there are dialects that make a distinction between long and short vowels before /r/ while other dialects, including my own, don't make such a distinction. This can be confusing, but it's an attempt to be neutral. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:29, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

easier access

Would it be possible to create some type of popup, expandable table, etc for specific pronunciations? i.e: a page has a pronunciation listed by ipa standards, and, when clicked on, creates a popup that lists only the sounds used in the word, in order, followed by a link to the ipa page itself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.239.82.149 (talk) 02:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Diphthongs

/oʊ/ and /eɪ/ or diphthongues, but not listed in the diphthong section of the table. Why is that? Imho they should be moved. Jalwikip (talk) 13:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I also don't think "ju:" should be listed as a diphthong (it's a consonant+vowel combination, and possibly shouldn't be listed at all).--Kotniski (talk) 14:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I suspect that the rationale for putting /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ in the monophthong section might have been that they are pronounced [oː] and [eː] in some dialects of English. However, I agree that it is quite confusing this way. If we transcribe them as /oʊ/ and /eɪ/, we should put them in the diphthong section. — Emil J. 15:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps we should rename the categories. Currently the "diphthongs" do not have a second column for their rhotic versions. /ju:/ should be illustrated somewhere, because it is realized differently in different dialects. It may not be a phoneme, but then arguably neither are the diphthongs, /hw/, or /ŋg/. kwami (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well I think /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ need to be paired with their /r/-equivalents /ɔər/ and /ɛər/. Which aren't really "r-coloured" in the wikilinked sense. The current table is a patchwork of confusingly juxtaposed structures. Here's my proposed rework:

Vowels
IPA Examples IPA Examples
Plain vowels R-colored vowels[1]
æ bad, pat ær barrow, marry
ɑː balm, father ɑr bar, mar, party
ɒ bod, pot, cot[2] ɒr moral, forage
ɔː bawd, paw, caught[3] ɔr born, for
ʊ good, foot, put ʊər boor, moor
uː booed, food
ʌ bud, butt ʌr hurry, Murray
ɜr bird, myrrh, furry (or /ɝː/ [4])
ɛ bed, pet
ɛr berry, merry
ɪ bid, pit[5] ɪr mirror
i happy, city, toffee[5]
ɪər beer, mere
iː bead, peat, feet[5]
Glide diphthongs
oʊ beau, hoe, poke[6] ɔər boar, four, more[7]
juː beauty, hue, pew, dew[8] jʊər pure, endure,[8] curious
eɪ bay, hey, fate ɛər bear, mare, Mary
"True" diphthongs
aɪ buy, high, ride, write aɪr byre, hire,[9] fiery
aʊ bough, how, pout aʊr sour,[9] dowry
ɔɪ boy, hoy ɔɪr coir,[9] Moira
Reduced vowels
ə Rosa’s, above ər runner, mercer (or /ɚ/ [4])
ɨ or ɪ roses, business [10]
Syllabic consonants
əl bottle —
əm rhythm
ən button
  1. ^ In many dialects, /r/ occurs only before vowels. In Wikipedia articles, /ɪər/ etc. are not always distinguished from /ɪr/ etc. When they are, the long vowels may be transcribed /iːr/ etc. by analogy with vowels not followed by /r/.
  2. ^ In most North American dialects, not distinguished from /ɑː/.
  3. ^ In some North American dialects, not distinguished from /ɑː/.
  4. ^ a b In some articles these are transcribed /ɝː/ and /ɚ/ when not followed by a vowel.
  5. ^ a b c American convention is to write /i/ when unstressed and preceding a vowel or word boundary, as in wiki /ˈwɪki/ and serious /ˈsɪriəs/; British convention used to be /ˈwɪkɪ/ and /ˈsɪərɪəs/, but the OED and other influential dictionaries recently converted to /i/.
  6. ^ Commonly transcribed /əʊ/ or /oː/.
  7. ^ In many accents not distinguished from ɔr
  8. ^ a b In many dialects, /juː/ or /jʊər/ is pronounced the same as /uː/ or /ʊər/ after "tongue sounds" (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /θ/, and /l/), so that dew /djuː/ is pronounced the same as do /duː/.
  9. ^ a b c In many accents, a true diphthong before //r// is disyllabic
  10. ^ Pronounced as [ə] in Australian and many US dialects, and as [ɪ] in Received Pronunciation. Many speakers freely alternate between a reduced [ɪ] and a reduced [ə]. The OED uses the pseudo-IPA symbol ɪ [1], and Merriam Webster uses ə̇.

And I thought about putting a ʊr row in for courier. jnestorius(talk) 00:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

May I suggest "vowel before R" instead of "R-colo(u)red vowel". In most non-North American accents, the first vowels in mIrror, mErry, mArry, sOrry, hUrry are phonetically damn-near identical to those in kIt, drEss, trAp, lOt/clOth, and strUt. the fact that a "R" succeeds is irrelevant. Grover cleveland (talk) 21:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
That would certainly be an improvement. A more radical rework would be something like:
IPA VC example Vr# example VrV example
æ bad /bæd/ - carrot /ˈkærət/
ɑ(ː) palm /pɑːm/ bar /bɑr/ barring /ˈbɑrɪŋ/
ɒ pot /pɒt/ - moral /mɒrəl/
ɔ(ː) caught /kɔːt/ war /wɔr/ aura/ˈɔrə/
ʊ good /gʊd/ - -
ʊər - moor /mʊər/ mooring /ˈmʊərɪŋ/
uː food /fuːd/ - -
etc.

improper reference

"That's in Gimson that 'r' used for run. IPA uses ɹ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.74 (talk) 11:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

It isn't just Gimson. Lots of well respected phoneticians and phonologists use /r/ to represent the English r-sound, especially (as here) at the phonemic/broad-transcription level. —Angr 20:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)"

Are they mentioned as references? Anyway that's completely irrelevant, I'm afraid, whether anyone else (regardless of his respect) uses it besides the Gimson system. The reference for IPA was mentioned as improper, as it indeed is improper. Misleading to confuse broad transcription with IPA. There is no broad transcription within IPA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 16:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The IPA is just a writing system. It can be used for broad or narrow transcription, or even orthography (which is why there are things like capital ɛ, capital ɔ, and capital ŋ. —Angr 18:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

IPA by itself no. You need a 'System' that defines the semantics of characters. just mentioned. I mean if there is some intention to improve quality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 20:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you do need a system that defines the semantics of the characters. And in broad transcription, that system can define /r/ as the initial consonant of English "red" and the final consonant of English "bar" in rhotic accents, however those consonants may be phonetically realized. But the same is true of narrow transcription - even then you have to use certain conventions and define what you want the characters to mean. The IPA symbols by themselves are idealizations; they do not define specific sounds in all their phonetic detail. Saying "there is no broad transcription within IPA" shows considerable ignorance of what the IPA is and how it's intended to be used. —Angr 05:52, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's intended to be used as a phonetic transcription, but that's all the same. It has nothing to do with the missing reference for the system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 09:25, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Schadenfreude

OH GOD, SAY THAT YOU'RE JUST KIDDING!

Aha, it's clear the user who complains for so long about IPA characters lives in America. In foreign countries IPA is actually taught, because it is simply needed. No need to mention the meaning of 'foreign countries' right? (sorry:) I don't know what this complaining is about: Each and every dictionary here uses IPA, and probably all over Europe. Even English language classes start with IPA characters for English. Etc.

"for wikipedia to be useful to a larger group of people" (I don't want to be offensive, but 6 400 000 000 people live outside North America. Large enough group of people?) "You need culture to appreciate culture."

(Reflection on "IPA Pronunciation Irrelevant To Most Visitors to Wikipedia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:Pronunciation/Archive_1) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 17:17, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, if someone is interested in a foreign language, he only needs to learn 30-40 symbols. Really huge effort? Oh! We learn a complete English language instead, and don't complain (people in foreign countries). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 17:21, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah btw why I'm about to write... May I help you with pronouncing Schadenfreude. It's something like shaadenfhroyde. At least people shall realize it, but that's far from good. Now stop complaining please, it sounds so sick. If not taught, there MAY be some problems with US education system, and not with IPA or with Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 17:25, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Using something other than IPA to augment IPA pronunciations is appropriate for English words since many English speakers are from the United States. Perhaps Americans are missing out in being unfamiliar with the IPA, but Americans make up a sizeable amount of our editors and our readers. For foreign languages, our policy is to use the language's orthography and the IPA (and maybe a romanization system for systems that write in non-latin based orthographies). — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I was actually thinking, maybe we should even cancel meter because not taught in US :)) Btw why does one come to a page "IPA for English" at all if he's completely dumb for IPA??! Uhh :-\

oh and btw I didn't want to sound sarcastic with American people, only I am about to scratch my own face because of the stupidity of a few. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.40 (talk) 09:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what your point is. Do you have something constructive to suggest or did you just come here to insult people? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:54, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there is any point to discuss this subject. "I didn't want to sound sarcastic with American people": I think that's clear. Maybe my English is not perfect, but I don't think I insulted anyone. If you read thoroughly you found why I came here and what I suggested. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.63 (talk) 13:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

You'll have to be clearer if you want me to get it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:12, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. Very simple. I wrote to make that looooong discussion short, and suggested people not to complain about something they are lazy to learn. IPA is useful for many people, no matter whether it's known in a specific country or no. or some other strange local systems are taught for i don't know what reason —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.161 (talk) 10:32, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Need additions...

ɛ bed, pet ɛr berry, merry
can ALSO be
e bed, pet er berry, merry
(BOTH ARE CORRECT)

AND

ɜr bird, myrrh, furry (or /ɝː/ [10])
SHOULD BE
ɜ:(r) bird, myrrh, furry (or /ɝː/ [10])
OR
ɜ:r bird, myrrh, furry (or /ɜ:(r)/ or /ɝː/ [10])

I think you misunderstand the purpose of this page. This is the one way that we are transcribing English words across Wikipedia. We have one way to prevent editing disputes (or to localize them here rather than spread apart to a half-dozen other articles). Thus, while those are indeed transcription variants in English, they're not changes that we should be making to the this guide... — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:18, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Re g → γ

I'm not complaining—I love this page and the people who build it. I'm just wondering if yall can school an ignorant peon on why Latin small g here became Greek small gamma? (I've a feeling that I've an "RTFM" coming … ) Cheers, — ¾-10 00:25, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Never mind … I just RTFH'd (H = history) and learned that it's been γ since the dawn of time. I was just looking without seeing. Ahhhh, grasshopper, you must learn to see. — ¾-10 00:30, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're talking about. There shouldn't be any [γ] in English. I did a search of the page, but it didn't come up. kwami (talk) 01:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
It's the usual bug discussed at WP:International Phonetic Alphabet#Voiced velar plosive: there's a commonly used font with a bug in it causing "ɡ" to render as "γ" or "ɣ". —Angr 05:23, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
This being the case, is there any real point in using the IPA "g" in place of an ordinary "g"? Does the ordinary g have some special distinct meaning in IPA? If not, and since the two are almost identical, wouldn't it be the lesser of two evils to simply use the ordinary letter g?--Kotniski (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Because it's ugly. And as an encyclopedia we should at least try to be authoritative. kwami (talk) 07:22, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Using the IPA template will force the open-tail g on many computers. I don't know what ideal the system configuration, browser, or unicode font is for displaying Wikipedia, though I doubt I've ever met anybody who has it all together. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 07:40, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't see that its being ugly (and probably so only to a few experts anyway) and slightly (and insignificantly) non-standard is enough to justify displaying completely the wrong symbol to many users. --Kotniski (talk) 07:52, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

IPA does not define the g symbol explicitly to be without tail. There is no distinctive use of the tail. Anyway, in my font settings I see all g's in WP without tail. So it would be better to use the normal latin "g", to avoid some readers to see invalid symbols, while not harming any other user's view. −Woodstone (talk) 09:01, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

There are other font problems, such as the tie bar. I don't think we should compromise Wikipedia because Microsoft doesn't know what they're doing, but should design the IPA templates so that problematic fonts are overridden. kwami (talk) 09:34, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
(ec) I certainly have no objection to using the normal "g". Even though this renders as the looptail g for many people, while the official IPA character is the opentail g , the looptail g isn't wrong, and is far less confusing than γ/Y. —Angr 09:38, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I've just gone through several thousand IPA transclusions, with one of the corrections being loop-tail to open-tail gee. *sigh* kwami (talk) 09:50, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
I think the tie-bar problem is different from this one in that the tie-bar just shows up off kilter (or as a box) while the open-tail g apparantly looks like a completely different character, which is misleading or at the very least confusing to some readers. We don't necessarily need to search and destroy all instances of open-tail g, but we might want to make sure that it can be clear from context which sound is intended if there happens to be an encoding problem on someone's computer. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 22:24, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
It will display the same way here, so they'll still be able to figure out it's the gee in go, but they'll be learning the IPA incorrectly. kwami (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
True, assuming they don't already know. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:11, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

On my mac ɡ looks like a closed g, smaller and anti-aliased with lots of space around it. It Looks real stupid. Perhaps we should have a solution that is more browser independent? The small latin g was fine before. We should change it back. --Knulclunk (talk) 22:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

If your browser has problems with g, it probably has problems with other IPA symbols as well--like maybe the length sign. But you're right, we should be as browser-independent as possible. I just don't think that compromising on transcriptions when your viewing problem will end with your next software update is a good idea. kwami (talk) 23:50, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we should ABSOLUTELY compromise Wikipedia because Microsoft doesn't know what they are doing. Wikipedia should be as user friendly, platform independent, and accessible as possible. The response "well, you need to update your software and use WP's preferred font installation for our obscure pronunciation system to display properly" is ridiculous. Just the kind of thing that Microsoft would do. --Knulclunk (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Besides, I am on a Mac, using Firefox. It doesn't display the "Y" but a lower case closed tail "g". Since WP's IPA is FORCING this glyph on us, I can only assume that it is important. As I read higher up in this discussion, a normal lower case "g" is not incorrect. What you have done is specifically force an INCORRECT glyph on thousands of users.--Knulclunk (talk) 17:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can blame Microsoft for this. I've never seen this problem myself and I've used over a dozen different computers with Microsoft Windows, including run-of-the-mill default installation. Perhaps we should make it our policy to not force the open-tail g character (as opposed to being neutral) but we need to make sure first that the computers with this problem do see a distinction between g and ɡ since the IPA template is likely to force an open-tail g anyway. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:15, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Knulclunk and Kwami both make very good arguments in their own way. Kwami's is kind of the type of mentality of "don't conflate content with presentation," for example, "build your xml properly and keep the xsl separate," which is very important, and Knulclunk's is kind of the "serve your customers what they need right now and do your deconflation later." Each is a valid perspective, so neither can be attacked as ridiculous. I would tend to lean toward the content-vs-presentation side, but I couldn't say that the other is bad. The content-vs-presentation side is what wins in the long term—it is the correct way to achieve total platform independence, in fact—but the short and medium terms could be different, knowing that there will be revision later. — ¾-10 19:40, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
As for blaming MS, isn't it a MS font (not platform) that's causing the problem, same as the tie bar? Can we tweak the IPA template to avoid that font? kwami (talk) 22:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
I have no clue, but if we can that would seem to solve the problem, no? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:48, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Using Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary

I'm working on pronunication of British place names, starting with cities, using Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary (17th) as source. Some questions:

  • Is the vowel in party (Derby, Carlisle) /ɑr/ or /ɑːr/ in this standardisation? I guess the former.
  • How should I represent cases where /ə/ can be omitted such as primary /ˈpraɪməri/ (Canterbury)?
  • This page distinguishes between /ɔr/ and /ɔər/ but my source doesn't. Any suggestions how I can get this info, or do I just guess based on spelling? (Newport, Portsmouth, York) Gailtb (talk) 09:54, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
The vowel of "party", "start", "Derby", "Carlisle" is /ɑr/ in this system. I would put optional sounds in round brackets (parentheses) thus: /ˈpraɪm(ə)ri/. "Port" is /pɔərt/; "York" is /jɔrk/. /ɔər/ is usual when the spelling is ore or oar, and after labial consonants (p, b, f, v, m); however, /ɔər/ does not usually occur before non-coronal consonants, so fork is /fɔrk/ even though "f" precedes, because "k" isn't a coronal consonant. (The only exception I know of is pork, which is /pɔərk/ even though it precedes "k".) When in doubt, just use /ɔr/, since most accents of English have lost the distinction anyway. —Angr 10:12, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I think it would be useful to describe the parentheses notation on the page.

I have a further question about the primary & Canterbury example. The full entry is: UK: /ˈpraɪm(ə)ri/, US: /ˈpraɪmɛri/, /ˈpraɪmɚri/ (using our symbols). Can /ɚ/ ever be omitted by those who use this? In other words, when trying to convert this to our system, how many alternatives are there?

  • 2 alternatives? - /ˈpraɪm(ɚ)ri/ or /ˈpraɪmɛri/
  • Or 3 alternatives? - /ˈpraɪm(ə)ri/, /ˈpraɪmɛri/ or /ˈpraɪmɚri/

Hope my question makes sense. Gailtb (talk) 13:30, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I'd never write /ɚ/ before /r/ anyway, so I'd say /ˈpraɪm(ə)ri/ or /ˈpraɪmɛri/. —Angr 14:02, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

ʊr

(copied from above): And I thought about putting a row in for courier. jnestorius(talk) 00:27, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

This is beyond my dialect. Is there a reliable distinction between CʊrV and CʊərV? In the OED, I'm getting 1250 hits for CʊərV, but only 160 hits for CʊrV. (Also 600 hits for Cʊər# vs. only a couple (such as forfeiture, atour) for Cʊr#, but I'm assuming that's not a reliable distinction for most people.) But courier does get two entries, /ˈkʊəriər/ vs /ˈkʊriər/. Should we have allow /ʊr/ as a possible sequence? How can someone who does not control the distinction anticipate which word has which? kwami (talk) 02:23, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
The problem is the "r-coloured" column in the table conflates Vr# and VrV. Pretty much any vowel can occur in VrV; the gap at ʊrV is lexical, not phonotactic. JC Wells mentions courier specifically. The ʊər#—ʊr# distinction is the r-coloured variant of uː—u, which isn't in the table, even though iː—i—ɪ is. jnestorius(talk) 13:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
What about uː—u—ʊ, then? Do we have such a distinction anywhere? kwami (talk) 22:29, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
LPD's key uses u for influence, situation, annual, bivouac, and i for happy, radiation, glorious. I don't know if happy tensing covers all the latter group. But LPD has no ʊər—ʊr distinction: forfeiture is given with [-ɪtʃ ə] in RP and [-ətʃ ər] (variants [-ə tʃʊr], [-ə tjʊr]) in GenAm. jnestorius(talk) 02:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
Okay, maybe leave it out then.
(Since there is no phonemic difference between the vowels in VrC/Vr# and VrV, we write them all as if they were rhotic. Not something I'm happy with, but people object to transcribing English in a phonemic IPA orthography.) kwami (talk) 02:46, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Since all vowels appear in open syllables before /r/, should we transcribe them the same way we do in open syllables when they're not before /r/? That is, should we have /ɔːˈroʊrə/, with ː and ʊ, and leave ɔə for closed syllables with coda /r/, or should we have /ɔˈrɔərə/? kwami (talk) 13:14, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Isn't "aurora" a "North"/"Horse" word? Wells lists aura, aural, Laura and Taurus among the "North" words, and calls their appearance before a vowel "exceptional" IIRC. No words spelled with "au" appear among the "force"/"hoarse" words (as the proposed phonemicization would suggest). Grover cleveland (talk) 15:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Kwami's talking about aurora, not aurora. —Angr 16:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
Whoops -- sorry. Silly me. Grover cleveland (talk) 01:43, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there a phonemic distinction between /aɪr, ɔɪr, aʊr/ and /aɪər, ɔɪər, aʊər/ in any dialect we cover? I seem to have one in fire vs flier, with the same [ʌɪ, ɑɪ] vowel distinction as in writer, rider. kwami (talk) 16:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Most American dictionaries I've looked in seem to believe that flower and flour are distinct as bisyllabic /flaʊər/ vs. monosyllabic /flaʊr/, but for me at least they're completely homophonous. +Angr 18:48, 10 May 2009 (UTC)
Me too. The word "flour" is etymologically identical to "flower", and the two words used to be spelled the same. See e.g. hereGrover cleveland (talk) 15:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe flower is a bad example. OTOH, I've heard some informal pronunciations of fire and power as something roughly like [faː] and [pʰɑː]; if there are dialects in which that happens with such words, but not with comparatives of adjectives ending in /aɪ/ or /aʊ/, then there's a higher-hire split in them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A. di M. (talk • contribs) 17:09, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I distinguish the comparatives in /ai/, but only because of "Canadian" raising ([hʌɪəɹ], [hɑɪəɹ]), which I don't have in /au/. Maybe Canadians have an /au/ split as well? And is this only found in polymorphemic words then? kwami (talk) 17:25, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
I guess this could be transcribed using syllable break /haɪəɹ/, /haɪ.əɹ/, much like you would transcribe [naɪt͡ɹ̥eɪt̚] as /naɪ.tɹeɪt/, and [nʌɪt̚ɹeɪt̚] as /naɪt.ɹeɪt/, or [hiːtʰɔːks] as /hiː.tɔːks/ and [iɾɔːɫ] as /iːt.ɔːl/. So, if there were a dialect which actually distinguished flour from flower, we could write /flaʊər/ and /flaʊ.ər/. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 19:27, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

/i/ /iː/ allophones?

Hi, not a linguist but an enthusiast, so please understand that I'm not 'telling it how it is', but hoping for better understanding. The IPA for English table lists /iː/ in 'feet' and 'bead', and /i/ in 'happy'. Now, clearly the vowel length in 'bead' and 'happy' is different; however, there appears to be allophonic shortening/lengthening between 'feet' and 'bead' (RPish speaker here). Now, we may ignore that, and, as the OED does, transcribe 'feet' and 'bead' both with a long vowel, acknowledging that this will have a different realization in different dialects. This leaves us using /i/ only at the end of words, and /iː/ only within syllables. Are they then phonologically distinct in English? Is there any minimal pair to separate /i/ and /iː/? And if not, ought we, in this phonemic, rather than phonetic chart, distinguish them at all? Is there not a case for simply everywhere using /i/?

Indeed, is vowel length anywhere distinctive in English, and if not, should /ː/ be retired altogether from this chart? --Che Gannarelli (talk) 11:18, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that /i/ and /iː/ are the same phoneme. I also know the sentiment against using the length-mark in phonemic transcriptions, but personally I think it's more helpful (and certainly not wrong) to use it, provided we use it consistently (so <seedy> should be /'siːdiː/, for example).
And indeed that's the problem, is it not? There's an audible difference in length between the two vowels in that word, even though they're not phonemically distinct. Ought we distinguish nonetheless, if it's less jarring than seeing those two vowels given the same length? But if we do that, can we reasonably elect at the same to to represent feet as /fiːt/, rather than /fit/?
Good stuff, this phonology. I'm surely in the wrong subject!--Che Gannarelli (talk) 11:40, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, if we do want to distinguish between sounds that represent the same phoneme, then we would have to change policy and start giving phonetic, rather than phonemic transcriptions: ['siːdi] would be OK. However, since this is English WP and we assume that our readers speak English, I think that the current policy makes sense. Readers will make the subphonemic distinctions intuitively for themselves.--Kotniski (talk) 11:56, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
None of which I've any wish to dispute. However, we're then left with the fact that the table presently lists /i/ and /iː/ separately. As for the others /uː/ and /ɔː/ only feature as long. If I'm not mistaken, /u/ varies in length as a function of voicing, and /ɔ/ does not. Of course, all of this is subphonemic. I'm simply unsure of the merits of distinguishing /i/ and /iː/ at all.--Che Gannarelli (talk) 12:08, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I thought the point of having separate symbols is because of happy tensing: that for some people, [i] and [ɪ] are allophones, while for others [i] and [iː] are. jnestorius(talk) 13:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
That's right. It's not that [i] is an allophone of /iː/ in certain positions, but that /iː/ and /ɪ/ neutralize in those positions. [i] happens to be a common phonetic realization of this, though other varieties have it closer to [ɪ]. It's the same for /uː/ and /ʊ/. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 17:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Which brings us back to whether we should also have [u]. Not sure how many dictionaries support it, though. kwami (talk) 20:06, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
The amount of words with [i] is pretty numerous (mostly due to some very productive affixes with it) but what about [u]? The only word I can think of that has it is throughout. Are there existing places on Wikipedia that would incorporate it? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:46, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
I couldn't tell you. I'm not sure how well we could maintain it, either. kwami (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Virtue, tissue, cashew? —Angr 21:53, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Wells in LPD has [u] in lots of unstressed syllables, but not virtue, tissue, cashew. Anything with -uate, -ual, -uous (virtuous works). jnestorius(talk) 23:00, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes, those words have it (at least, those that don't have [ju], or equal and equate), but what about places at Wikipedia? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 00:00, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
I can't follow what we're discussing here. For English, we try to give phonemic representations, right? So we should be discussing not [u], but a putative /u/. If we want to switch to phonetic transcription, then there would be no problem with [i] and [u], but if we're doing phonemes, we should stick to phonemes.--Kotniski (talk) 08:21, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
There are many cases in English where phonemes are realised differently in unstressed positions. We do not need to reflect the details in the phonemic representation. Therefore I propose to use the most neutral (latin alphabet, no diacritics, no glides) symbol /a, e, i, o, u/ in those positions. −Woodstone (talk) 08:46, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
But then you run into problems in words like <seedy>, where you're stating that there are two different phonemes involved where most(?) speakers have only one.--Kotniski (talk) 09:03, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
But the point is that many speakers have different phonemes in the two syllables of seedy. [si:di] may be the most common pronunciation, but [si:dI] and [si:de] also occur. —Angr 09:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
So for these reasons writing /siːdi/ would be adequate. Certainly the length is different. And minor allophony in unstressed realisation is not of great concern here. −Woodstone (talk) 09:54, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

(unindent)Which is why we have both /i/ and /iː/. The question we're asking here is if we should do the same thing with /u/ and /uː/. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:29, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should abandon the /.../ notation and just use [...]. Ordinary readers have no idea of the difference (and are just confused when they see pronunications of foreign words in [...] and English ones in /.../.) And those who do have the linguistic knowledge are also confused, because we're not using the /.../ notation in the standard way.--Kotniski (talk) 08:11, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree the slashes are incorrect. But square brackets are even worse, since the transcriptions don't match the dialects of many of our readers. We might try back slashes, as some US dictionaries do, since those are undefined by the IPA. But our system is partially phonemic, which is perhaps good enough. kwami (talk) 10:13, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

VRV cases

Apparently they "haven't been decided" yet. Since I didn't see discussion of this question on the talk page, perhaps we could discuss it here. I would start the discussion by asking what the problem is. Fwiw, I'm pretty sure all the examples I added are included in the relevant lexical sets by Wells. Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

My question (above) was whether we write the vowels phonemically when they occur in open syllables followed by an /r/, as in the examples you just added to the key. The articles that transclude this page are inconsistent. Do we want to transcribe, as rhoticized, all vowels that have rhoticized variants? (E.g. /eɪ.rV/ as "ɛərV", the same as /eɪr#/ "ɛər".) Do we leave either variant as equally valid? (It's hard for me to judge, because for me all vowels followed by /r/ are all more-or-less rhotic.) kwami (talk) 07:06, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Could you give a specific example? Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 06:06, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
Let's take two you added, oral and serious. You could argue, based on the intuition of native speakers that the or- and ser- are closed syllables, that these should be transcribed /ˈɔər.əl/ and /ˈsɪər.i.əs/. However, you could also argue that that is phonetic detail, and that these are phonologically open syllables, o- and se-, and that they should therefore be transcribed /ˈoʊ.rəl/ and /ˈsiː.ri.əs/. Both systems are used in our articles; the tendency to use the latter might be even stronger in unstressed syllables, where the intuition that the /r/ is ambisyllabic is weaker. Actually, in most any phonemic analysis, only the latter would fly, but we chose a partially non-phonemic representation (adding special vowels that only exist before /r/) to satisfy RP speakers. kwami (talk) 07:16, 18 May 2009 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that
  • Phonemically, it would make more sense to represent "serious" as /ˈsiː.ri.əs/
  • However, we have already decided to represent words like "seer" as /sɪər/ rather than /siːr/, as a concession to RP speakers
  • Hence there is uncertainty as to whether "serious" should be /ˈsiː.ri.əs/ or /ˈsɪər.i.əs/.
It seems as if two separate questions are being mixed up here.
  • Is 'seer'" in the same category as 'serious'? Surely the answer is "yes", as confirmed by e.g. Wells's assignment into lexical sets.
  • How should we represent 'seer' and 'serious' in IPA? There may have been some disputes over this question. Regardless of the answer, however, they should have the same representation as each other. Personally, despite being an RP-like speaker (at least until I moved to the US), I would strongly prefer the second, more phonemic, option, but that's really irrelevant. If "seer" is /sɪər/ then serious must be /ˈsɪər.i.əs/. Grover cleveland (talk) 04:21, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it's the first option (/ˈsiːriəs/) that's phonemic. The second (/ˈsɪəriəs/) is phonetic.
Why "must" we use the same transcription for the two words? That's my question. Why should the vowel /iː/ be written the same way in serious and sear, if it's not written the same way in other words? If we transcribe a phoneme two different ways for two sets of words (syllable closed with an ar vs. open syllable not followed by an ar), how do we decide which we should use for a third intermediate class of words (open syllables followed by ar), when either transcription would work for any of the three classes? kwami (talk) 07:37, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Actually, it's the first option (/ˈsiːriəs/) that's phonemic. The second (/ˈsɪəriəs/) is phonetic. . Thanks. I'm aware of the phonemic/phonetic distinction: I got confused as to which was "first" and which "second".
Why should the vowel /iː/ be written the same way in serious and sear, if it's not written the same way in other words? I assume you mean words like "see". /ˈsiː/. Personally I would prefer it if all three written /iː/. However if, as we appear to have decided, sear/seer is to be /ˈsɪər/, then it is clear (in my personal speech) that serious is more similar to seer than it is to see. Is there any dialect in which serious is closer phonetically to to see than to seer? I can't think of any. They may all be equivalent in Scottish or Irish English. Perhaps the question is clearer if we use the vowel /eː/ instead. Is Mary closer to May or to mare? Grover cleveland (talk) 14:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Okay, this might be a little clearer. Suppose we have a pronunciation of moraine that retains a full o vowel. Do we write that /mɔəˈreɪn/? Or /moʊˈreɪn/? kwami (talk) 10:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
Unfortunately this isn't a word that I have strong intuitions about how to pronounce: If I did, I would probably make the first syllable a schwa. Grover cleveland (talk) 14:40, 21 May 2009 (UTC)
With me, I find that open syllables followed by ar sound rhotic when stressed, but not when unstressed. So we could end up with [ɔər] or [oʊr] depending on stress, which seems a bit much to ask our readers to follow. And then of course other dialects will have other intuitions: all the same, all open syllables the same, all vowels followed by ar the same, etc. I've seen different conventions from different editors. We could simply leave it unspecified, I suppose. (I would also prefer to have the vowels all the same regardless of rhoticity, but I'm afraid that might spark a revolt and we'd be back to listing US vs. UK pronunciations for nearly every entry.) kwami (talk) 16:31, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

First of all, let's remember that the point is to keep all the distinctions found in RP and in GenAm in our transcriptions. My two cents:

  • There are dialects in which seer is two syllables /siːə(ɹ)/ (e.g. Roger Waters on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"). One of the dictionaries I looked it up on only lists that pronunciation. If you want to make a comparison with serious (which I guess nobody pronounces with four syllables), maybe beer would be a better example?
  • There are dialects in which seer is two syllables /siːə(ɹ)/ (e.g. Roger Waters on "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"). One of the dictionaries I looked it up on only lists that pronunciation.
  • I don't think that the real difference between horse and hoarse in any of the dialects which still distinguish them is anywhere near what the symbols /ɔː/ and /ɔɘ/ would suggest if taken too seriously (i.e. phonetically); but that's what most of the sources which distinguish them do. After all, in most articles we transcribe the consonant in raw with a symbol which is supposed to represent a trill...
  • If I understand correctly, the only distinction not found in RP that we're attempting to transcribe are the syllable-coda R, the voiceless W, and the horse–hoarse thing. If so, the most logical thing to do is just taking transcriptions for RP, and throwing in /r/s, /hw/s, and /ɔɘ/s in the appropriate places. (This would mean writing /kwɔːrt/ and /mɑːrk/ with length marks, unlike we do now.) This way, one can obtain a transcription for RP by just deleting /r/ when not followed by a vowel, /h/ when followed by /w/, and replacing /ɔɘ/ (and /ʊɘ/ too for younger speakers) with /ɔː/. To obtain a transcription for GenAm, you would throw away length marks, replace /ɛər/ /ær/ /ɪər/ /ɜːr/ /ɒr/ with /ɛr/ /ɛr/ /ɪr/ /ʌr/ /ɔr/ (did I miss any?), and replace any /ɒ/ left with /ɑ/. Words for which doing these would produce incorrect results (e.g. sorry) would be given with separate transcriptions ("British: /sɒri/; American: /sɑri/"). --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 20:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
I believe that some GenAmericans do say /sɔri/. But generally the members BATH and CLOTH lexical sets would need to be given in two versions. Grover cleveland (talk) 20:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
That'd be "British: /sɒri/; American: /sɑri/ or /sɔri/" then. As for BATH and CLOTH, we would need to give two versions anyway: there are people who used to say /fɑst/ and now say /fæst/, and the Queen says /ɔːfn/ while the BBC say /ɒfn/; so they are not even consistent within each dialect. Just writing "/klɒθ/ or /klɔːθ/" and "/bɑːθ/ or /bæθ/" would be OK, IMO. --A. di M. (formerly Army1987) — Deeds, not words. 21:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
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