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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Superscript j

The superscript j (ʲ) is no longer listed at Help:IPA for English. We should remove it as an output from this template. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:46, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

For that matter, all of the superscript letters should be eliminated in the output. We don't encode for every optional sound at IPA for English, so superscript d, t, i, and schwa should also be altered in our outputs. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 01:07, 18 October 2015 (UTC)

Dotted underlines

Regular usage shows dotted underlines (with me), not the common continuous line: /ˈhaɪdrədʒən/. What is the background of this, or any WP:-page? -16:14, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I found {{abbr}} doing similar, but that is explicitly to be used for abbreviations only. (<abbr> tag).-DePiep (talk) 16:18, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
A dotted underline indicates that there is information in the mouseover. --deflective (talk) 16:56, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
I see. This is an HTML level issue. Any WP:-page? Can I use it ad lib? Any guideline? -DePiep (talk) 21:55, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
@DePiep: What did you have in mind? I've met stiff resistance (though only from one or two filibusterers) at Mediawiki talk:Common.css to using any form of underlining for, well, anything. At User:SMcCandlish/Underlining in Wikipedia I'm building a catalog[ue] of all the extant uses of this style on WP that I can find. Have any to add? My short-term goal with it is to prove that we do in fact regularly use it and that no readers heads asplode from it; the typical objection is that any form of underlining will necessarily "confuse readers", but there's no evidence of this at all. Anyone who's used the Web for more than a few days understands that there are multiple ways to mark up links, than there are different kinds of links, that underlining may or may not indicate a link, and that one site may have multiple different kinds of links (e.g. to documents proper vs. links to blog tags and other metadata), and multiple styles of underlining that indicate different things.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:21, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
I've discovered since: next to the regular link (hyperlink) we know, there is <abbr>...<abbr/>. It usulally produces the dotted line and a question mark when mousehovering over, plus a tooltip-like text). Background should be in/via {{abbr}}. It produces: US. I used it in {{Kennedy family tree}}, for the jumps.
And interestingly, this abbr is well defined by w3c (the HTML governors) [1]. e.g. W3C says like "use for abbreviation only" (not as a tooltip that may look the same). Our IPA-usage seems illegal by this.
I too had a discussion about using this (See Template_talk:Abbr#OK_to_combine_abbr_and_wikilink.3F). And stiff opposition there too. I think I took it to mw: but am not sure (I'll search if you ask). By the way, since then, the WP graphic presentation has changed for {{abbrlink}}: I could make a two-underlined link, regular + dotted line, they have removed the dotted one (but the question mark remains).
So I met stiff resistance there too. Usually the argument is "accessibility". I think we should be allowed to use W3C definitions, inside those definitions. -DePiep (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Square brackets feature

Square brackets, not slashes, are used for dialect (Wikipedia-ese: "English language variety") pronunciations, not cross-language pronunciations. I've added a feature for them, sandboxed and testcased.

Documentation addition [the example doesn't look right here because the code is still in sandbox of course]; this should go just above the SAMPA-related stuff:

Pronunciation guides that illustrate diaphonetic differences between dialects (varieties) of a language use square brackets, enabled with |square=yes:

This option cannot be used with |lang (doing so will generate an error message), and usually should not be used with |pron by itself.

The square parameter can also be given as [, as it can be in {{IPA-all}}. I.e., |[=y will also work. I haven't "advertised" this in the documentation, because the usage is hard to read and potentially confusing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:31, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

  • This key is not meaningful in transcribing allophonic or diaphonic variation. Square brackets mark allophonic or diaphonic variation; therefore, they cannot be used with this key. Did you mean that you want to provide phonemic transcriptions of dialects, for when a dialect might use a different phoneme? You can use the "local" keyword for that purpose: {{IPAc-en|local|ˌ|æ|l|ə|ˈ|b|æ|m|ə}} → locally /ˌæləˈbæmə/. Alakzi (talk) 11:03, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
    • It's been so long, I don't quite remember what inspired adding that code. I'm pretty sure it was a case of /fu/ (Irish English: [fə]; Australian English: [fa]) — or something to that effect; a case where minor variation assumed by this template, like the difference in the way British and Americans pronounce the a in father, was insufficient to convey a divergent pronunciation in one or more of the major English dialects, and the square brackets were desired. The |local feature here is not of any help for this purpose at all, because it cannot handle, e.g. |local=[[Australian English|AusEn]] or a pre-set range of options like |local=AmEng or |local=en-US; "local" doesn't mean anything useful in many contexts, and could not be used at all in the pseudo-example I gave, with two "local" pronunciations one after the other.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)
Not done: I've just changed the template to template-protection, so you should both be able to edit it yourselves now. However, there doesn't seem to be a consensus for the proposed edit quite yet, so you'll need to work that out first, of course. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 01:14, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Sure; I'm not trying to force anything.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, because dialectal phones will generate errors, I doubt it's useful to have an option for square brackets. {{IPA-endia}} will support any input, and links to a more useful IPA key. — kwami (talk) 01:44, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

There still is no IPAc version of these alternative templates, which means that vowels will not have hovertips. If using this template works for phonetic transcriptions, why not let them be used until a IPAc version is created? — trlkly 07:02, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
Exactly; the reason I want to improve this template is that it has the mouseover tooltip feature, and most of the others do not. We really need to normalize the feature set. It's very frustrating that most of the pronunciation keys, even in the Template:IPAc-foo family, do not have that capability. I needed it just two days ago for one language or another, and it wasn't available. Maybe just genericize this code (with my sandboxed square-brackets parameter) into a template that allows one to specify the linked key with a parameter?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:09, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Mid-line tilde

FYI
 – Pointer to possibly relevant thread elsewhere

The thread at Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet#Mid-line tilde not accounted for may (or may not) be relevant to this and related templates, depending on what characters the IPA pages they link to use (and at any rate, regulars here are probably the same audience for the discussion anyway).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:26, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

More on audio files please

The documentation says "The named parameter |audio= may be used to link to an audio file."
Could we link it to say Audio file format and indicate which formats will work with this template ? eg. will .oga/FLAC work ? and are there any recommendations for creating the audio files for this template ? - Rod57 (talk) 14:15, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Fails with "ə(r)"

This template cannot handle "ə(r)", which is how many dictionaries give the pronunciation of the end of most words that end in -er or -or in British English. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 19:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

According to our "compromise" system, those words should be transcribed with /ər/, with the understanding that Southern British speakers will know to drop the r's that don't apply to them (i.e. the ones with no following vowel). (There have been a few proposals to mark symbols which only apply to certain accents with e.g. superscripts, though.) ― A. di M.​  20:42, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll add support, though the parentheses won't show up in the output. — kwami (talk) 05:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
It'd be nice if this showed up superscript, then. It doesn't affect just one dialect. The same thing happens in the US state of Georgia (including in mid-word, as in the name of that state), for example, which comes out something like "jaw-juh" in "dictionary respelling". Dialects vary a lot in rhoticity, but they're not entirely consistent in when they drop or blur the /r/, so it would be useful to be able to indicate where this is very common vs. unusual.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:45, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

"H" in "high"

"H" in "high" seems a poor example, since there is a pronounced "h" and a silent "h" in the word. Wouldn't "hello" or some other word be a better example? --Tjsynkral (talk) 04:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it is. I'll change it. — kwami (talk) 05:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Is there any case (perhaps mid-word) in which dialects that tend to drop the h are less likely to do so? "Hello" is pronounced as if "ello" by a large number of speakers, in multiple parts of the world. My experience tells me anecdotally that dialects that do this are also apt to drop it from things like "cohort", but I'm skeptical this is done universally in all dialects that drop an initial h. If I'm correct on that, we should use a mid-word example, as more likely to be meaningful to more readers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:38, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Examples used for Tooltips

In the table provided in Wikipedia:IPA for English, the examples for i are fleece, seed, feel, mean, and sea, but the example given in the IPA tooltip is bead. This may be clear to anyone who is already comfortable with goofy English pronunciation, but given the ambiguous pronunciation of "ea" in read and lead, I suggest that fleece of the standard lexical set or at least feel or seed would be more helpful to the readers actually using the tooltip to learn how to pronounce a word. -AndrewDressel (talk) 14:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I don't link the phoneme-by-phoneme tooltips at all, given the large amount of allophony in English. I'd pretty much prefer tooltips for entire onsets and rhymes specified by hand, such as /kwɔrk/. Anyway, this discussion belongs on Template talk:IPAc-en. ― A. di M.​  17:43, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
AndrewDressel: I had this exact same thought myself a few years ago, and brought it up for discussion on the relevant talk page— there wasn't much discussion, but I did get approval by another editor to go ahead and make the change. Which I did (from "bead" to "seed"). But then the template got superseded, and my change somehow did not go along. I am going to try to re-implement it and see if it sticks this time. KDS4444Talk 10:43, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
But it seems I will need some help with this, so...

Please see above. Thanks! KDS4444Talk 10:53, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. And two edits on a stale 4 year-old discussion don't look much like consensus. So... please discuss and establish WP:Consensus. Bazj (talk) 11:25, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
Very well, then:

RfC: Should the mouseover tooltip for the IPA symbol i: be changed from "bead" to "seed"?

The current mouseover for the IPA symbol "i:" in the IPAc-en template offers the word "bead" as a pronunciation guide word. Might not the word "seed" be a less ambiguous word? KDS4444Talk 15:20, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

If it is to be changed, then I would propose to use "piece", because a word containing the symbol (letter) in question is preferable as a mneumonic.−Woodstone (talk) 17:23, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I prefer "seed" to either "bead" or "piece", because it is the least likely to be pronounced incorrectly. It needs to be something where the pronunciation is completely obvious, even to people for whom English is not a first language. Having the letter "i" in the word is of secondary importance. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:40, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
I would suggest the word fleece because that is the keyword John C. Wells has used in his lexical set. I think we should generally default to Wells’s keywords instead of making up our own. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 09:31, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I think that "fleece" is unsuitable for our purpose, because this word is likely to be unknown to many readers. The idea is to give them reference to a well kwown word. −Woodstone (talk) 14:44, 13 January 2016 (UTC)
I disagree with that assessment. Not only is fleece a fairly well-known word, but its pronunciation is intuitive. The use of ⟨ee⟩ to represent something other than /iː/ is so rare that even users unfamiliar with the word would have little reason to come up with another pronunciation. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:38, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Except at the end of words, where it's sometimes the /eɪ/ sound even in English, mostly in French loanwords (fiancee, divorcee, etc.). English is to inconsistent to rely on something like this, so the commonness argument is stronger – "bead" or "seed" would be more recognizable to ESL learners.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:33, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
I disagree with your rationale, but I have no problem with seed, so there's no point in getting into it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:14, 20 January 2016 (UTC)
Weak support for a change to "seed". I don't see any really major difference between any of these word choices, though "seed" is most common among them. I'm not aware of any dialect of English in which they're pronounced markedly differently (unlike, say, the "lee-zhr" vs. "leh-zhr" pronunciations of leisure; and no I can't be bothered to insert proper IPA for that; you know what i mean). There's no need to stick with Wells's own examples; it smacks of plagiarism. IPA symbols are symbols, not normal letters with diacritics, so whether the symbol is based on a glyph that coincides with an actual letter in the word is irrelevant, maybe even misleading.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:33, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

We seem to have a stable consensus for "seed" so, Done, bead -> seed at Module:IPAc-en/phonemes, documentation automatically updated. Bazj (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

"x" as in "fox" missing

I am stuck in finding where the "X" as in "fox" is. Where is it, because I don't know how to pronounce "loch" (which is the current "x" thing). Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 23:54, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Wait a sec, just do "ks". Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 23:55, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Implement changes according to consensus on Help:IPA for English

Over the last two months, we have reached consensus:

  • to discontinue /aː ɒː ɵ/,
  • to replacing /ɑr ɔr ɜr ɨ ʉ/ by /ɑːr ɔːr ɜːr ᵻ ᵿ/, and
  • to make sure that /u/ is only used for a reduced vowel.

Implementing this consensus means editing Module:IPAc-en/phonemes, which requires administrator privileges. I have tentatively tested the changes to be made on Module:IPAc-en/phonemes/sandbox (you can try it by using Template:IPAc-en/sandbox). For reviewing the changes, please have a look at the Module:IPAc-en/phonemes and Module:IPAc-en/phonemes/sandbox: Difference between pages.

Of course, I have made sure that the changes are backwards compatible. Any code that is producing valid output with the current template will continue to produce valid output after the tentative changes.

About the consensus:

Before implementing the consensus on the help page, the changes were explicitly announced two times on the talk page (see [2], [3]). The most contended change was the discontinuation of /aː/, but even the user who had introduced the sign (see [4]) agreed to its discontinuation [5] after it had been shown that the sign is hardly ever used in the intended way.
After the consensus was implemented on the help page (see [6] and [7]), it has not been challenged or reverted.
  • The consensus that /u/ should only be used for a reduced vowel has been reached in Help talk:IPA for English#Reduced and Variable Vowels. The example word “situation” is better suited for this purpose. Its /u/ is undeniably in an unstressed syllable, whereas the word “room” can be stressed. After the consensus was implemented on the help page [9], it has not been challenged or reverted.

--mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:47, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

For the same reasons, removing superscript letters should also be done, as I requested back in October (if it hasn't been done already). — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:12, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
Right, I had forgotten about these. It appears the superscripts are only used in about 150 articles. I think they should all be reviewed:
BTW, the transcriptions that used to have /ɵ/ also need reviewing. There are about 450 left. They can be found with the following search:
It is tedious work, but I’m getting there little by little. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:08, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
I have now reviewed all instances of ⟨aː ɒː ɵ⟩ that were being used in the templates {{IPAc-en}} and {{IPA-en}}, as well as the instances of ⟨ɒː ɵ⟩ within {{IPA}} that reasonably pointed to an English pronunciation (instances of ⟨aː⟩ are too numerous). If possible, I have replaced them by a sourced pronunciation (e.g. [10]).
I have also replace instances of ⟨ɑr ɔr ɜr ɨ ʉ⟩ that were being used in {{IPA-en}}. There are still instances of them being used in the template {{IPA}}, but these are hard to track. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:32, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

Wrong phonems

On SAMPA page & is ɶ but in {{IPAc-en}} template it's æ {{IPAc-en|,|&|l|@|'|b|&|m|@}} -> /ˌ[invalid input: '&']ləˈb[invalid input: '&']mə/

jcubic (talk) 10:44, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

"Tr"

How do make a "tr" sound? With "t" and "r"? Or is it "ch" and "r"? Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 08:47, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I just edited boldly on the Metropolis article and put in the pronunciation key. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 08:49, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I had always pronounced "tr" as "chr", which does not seem logical, but is what New Zealanders seem to do. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 08:51, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
The idea with IPA is that you write it how it sounds. If it sounds like "ch" and "r", then that's what you should write. Sometimes this might mean that you transcribe a word differently depending on the dialect of English that you are using, hence all of the footnotes in Help:IPA for English. We do follow some conventions to make transciptions more uniform across different dialects, like using "æ" for the vowel in "trap", "pad", and "ban", despite this vowel sounding different in, e.g., American English and British English. But there's no such convention for "tr" as far as I'm aware. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 13:22, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
The rule is that we transcribe phonemes for English, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation. The idea with transcribing phonemes is that you transcribe the phonemes regardless of how they sound exactly. There are numerous ways how the sequence /tr/ can be pronounced, e.g. [tɹ̥ʷ] or [tʃɹʷ]. It does not matter, we transcribe /tr/. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
It's possible that those sequences are reanalyzed phonemically by some speakers as /tʃ/+/r/. But we're a ways away from recognizing that as a feature of standard or dictionary pronunciations. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:57, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
That is interesting. How does such a reanalysis work? We should add details about it to English phonology. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:39, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
It's explained a little bit in this blog post, though I'm not sure if any reliable sources talk about it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:28, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I can't imagine an opposition of [tr-] and [t͡ʃr-] syllable-initially, so probably both could be analysed as /Tr-/ with an archiphoneme /T/. I've never encountered such an analysis though. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
If you're talking about someone's mental grammar, it's likely going to be either an underlying /t/ or an underlying /tʃ/. In addition to the slipups provided by the link above, I've also heard people insert an epenthetic vowel so that they pronounce a word like track as [tʃəˈɹæk]. But that's OR. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link to the blog post. It does not say anything about a phonemic (re)analysis, though. “I couldn’t say for certain exactly what this says (if anything) about Bush’s (or anyone’s) lexical representations of words with the relevant clusters, or the interaction of phonological rules/constraints in his production of these clusters, or whatever.” --mach 🙈🙉🙊 22:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I stand corrected. I hadn't actually read that guideline before - it goes to show there are always new things to learn on this site. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 00:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

"Beard"

Here's one more request for a change in an example word due to a possibly unfamiliar pronunciation: /ɪər/ gives as an example the word "beard". While I know how that word is pronounced now, I remember not knowing that (as a non-native speaker), and pronouncing it as "bear" + "d". Can we maybe replace it for instance with "beer"? It's the best word I can come up with right now, and seems to have much less potential for confusion. If someone thinks "beer" is not "serious enough", then maybe "sheer". In any case, a word in "eer" seems preferable to me. –Jérôme (talk) 15:54, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

The list of example seems to be quite disparate. Some are terrible, including vin blanc or nasturtium. It is also very confusing that the phoneme codes do not only list the codes for phonemes such as /b/ or /dʒ/, but also for sequences of phonemes such as /dj/ or /ær/. I would just ignore this list and use Help:IPA for English instead. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:23, 25 July 2016 (UTC)

ɔ

is, in fact, an English phoneme, where English ≠ RP but includes Southern and other forms of American English. Add it to the template already. — LlywelynII 07:10, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Similarly, əʊ and ɔʊ are distinct and it seems a bit counter to policy to impose the American pronunciation even on those trying to display the British one. — LlywelynII 07:43, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree that /ɔ/ is a phoneme, but so are many other things that are not included in the key. It's a diaphonemic system that doesn't agree phonemically with any dialect. It is unfortunate that the diaphonemic system does not distinguish between /əʊ/ and /ɔʊ/, since that distinction is phonemic in modern RP, and that is one of the important dialects that the key should take into account. — Eru·tuon 03:10, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
The wholly-holy split isn't a part of RP. Mr KEBAB (talk) 03:57, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
@Mr KEBAB: Really? English phonology § Allophones of vowels says it's RP, and Received Pronunciation § Diphthongs and triphthongs mentions the sound change too. But they could certainly be wrong. — Eru·tuon 21:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)
@Erutuon: There's a difference between the allophonic GOAT-backing before the dark /l/ and speakers having a separate GOAL phoneme that contrasts with GOAT in /lV/ environments. The first one is RP (or, better, 'General British'), the second one is confined to the local southeastern standard and, of course, Cockney itself, from where it probably originates. At least that's what Cruttenden (Gimson's Pronunciation of English, 8th ed.) says.
Slightly offtopic, but I've also seen some people postulate the GOAL phoneme for some speakers of New Zealand English, but that sounds like a bad analysis to me. The accent doesn't even feature the wholly-holy split, and all of the 'minimal pairs' are of the 'go-goal' type, which you can just as easily analyze as /ɡɐʉ-ɡɐʉl/, with a final /l/. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:54, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

'z' in 'Zion'

Zion does not seem a very neutral choice of words to use, especially in articles such as Gaza Strip, Gaza City, Strait of Hormuz, Shiraz, Azerbaijan, Hamid Karzai, Druze, etc. What's wrong with Zebra? ‑‑YodinT 17:03, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Please change “Zion” to “zebra” “zoom” as per Yodin’s reasonable request. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:39, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Would it not be better to use the monosyllabic "zoom"?−Woodstone (talk) 18:09, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
More so because "Zion" has no clear singular pronunciation: 'Zion (Hebrew: Tsiyyon), also transliterated Sion, Sayon, Syon, Tzion or Tsion. -DePiep (talk) 18:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks all. Also agree that "zoom" sounds like a good option. ‑‑YodinT 19:38, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
I am editing my above request to zoom. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:26, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
I wasn't entirely thrilled to do this, as I think the requesters were making something political that didn't need to be. And Zion, with that spelling, has a pretty standard pronunciation in English; it's only when the spelling changes that the pronunciation tends to change. Nevertheless, it's a reasonable request, so ... Done. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
Thanks StevenJ81. In my defence, I don't think any of us here were personally or politically offended by it, but pretty sure there are others out there who might see it as us showing a bias. As for me, I'd be quite amused if we changed it to things like "C as in Comrade" etc. ‑‑YodinT 00:31, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Fair enough. I wondered why that was there in the first place myself. But I did take at least a cursory peek to see if that was somehow a "standard" word to use. When it was clear it wasn't I went ahead. Take care. StevenJ81 (talk) 03:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
I did not make a political point. (But you would expand that notion to the one who added it in the first place right?). My point is still, that it did not fill its function to give an example of the English pronunciation. Since 'Zion' is imported into English, a name even, it easily introduces unclear or various pronunciations for English speakers. This is independent of the written form, because this guide relies on the reader knowing the word. (We don't need a guide that says: 'pronounce z as in Zion, when pronounced as Zion not Tsion nor Sion'). Another issue is that, Zion having a political/religious meaning foremost, it distracts from its function here (if the reader knows the non-English word at all). -DePiep (talk) 08:12, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Problems with tooltips for "optional" sounds

"Optional 'j' in 'Lucas'"? I've never heard Lucas being pronounced [ˈljuːkəs]. I suggest it be changed to 'tune', or otherwise 'dune', 'dew', 'stew', 'lieu', etc.

On a related note, when it comes to all of the "optional" sounds, it is not only counterintuitive and unhelpful but simply wrong to use single quotes to enclose the sounds in discussion, since they are not represented in the orthography (I mean, how is one supposed to find 'ə' in 'jewelry'?). They should instead be slashes (or square brackets?); or is there any specific reason single quotes are used there that I'm missing here?

By extension, it is also inconsistent that /ᵗ/ and /ᵈ/ are the only ones whose tooltips currently don't include an example or start by telling the reader which sound the mouse cursor is on. Hence I propose the tooltips "/ᵗ/ optional [t] in 'fence'" and "/ᵈ/ optional [d] in 'genre'". Nardog (talk) 05:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

These signs are deprecated anyway, see Help:IPA for English where the have been removed for quite a while now. We should manually remove the few cases that are left and then have this template changed so these signs will no longer be displayed. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 08:21, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
I have now removed all remaining instances of /ᵈᵊⁱʲᵗ/ from Wikipedia except the ones on the Userspace and on talk pages. I have used the following search for finding them:
hastemplate:"IPAc-en" insource:/\{\{IPAc-en[^\}]*([ᵊᵈⁱʲʸᵗ]|\([ə\@diɪjyt]\))/
On Module:IPAc-en/phonemes/sandbox, I have proposed a new code that will discontinue /ᵈᵊⁱʲᵗ/, while ensuring that the few cases that are left (all in the Userspace or on talk pages) will not break – they will display plain /dəijt/ instead.
Any further comments, or shall I go on and submit a Template:edit template-protected request? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 13:45, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
I for one see no reason to oppose your proposal. Nardog (talk) 01:02, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 20 February 2017

Please transfer the proposed changes from Module:IPAc-en/phonemes/sandbox over to Module:IPAc-en/phonemes. These changes will discontinue the signs /ᵊᵈⁱʲʸᵗ/ that have long been removed from Help:IPA for English, the page this template relies upon for documentation. There are no more instances of /ᵊᵈⁱʲʸᵗ/ in the main namespaces. There is roughly a dozen instances left on the user and talk namespaces (see all: hastemplate:"IPAc-en" insource:/\{\{IPAc-en[^\}]*([ᵊᵈⁱʲʸᵗ]|\([ə\@diɪjyt]\))/), but they will gracefully degrade with the proposed changes. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 13:11, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Done — Train2104 (t • c) 14:20, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Adding the word "pronounced" to the template

In many cases, "pronunciation" is not as appropriate as "pronounced" would be, particularly when the pronunciation is not preceded by the name of a language. Any chance of adding this? See the lead of the article Viktor Troicki as an example. Or is it better not to use the word 'pronounced' at all, just leaving the pronunciation guide by itself, as at Skandar Keynes? Rovingrobert (talk) 05:28, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

"local" as opposed to "locally" is also strange, along with the fact that no option except "pronunciation" ends with a colon. These weird choices are presumably so the options can be used in combination, but I cannot help but wonder if such an elaborate system is ever called for, making the code needlessly more complex, given how little it does and how few combinations one possibly needs, especially at the expense of the awkward and ugly result when an option is used alone. Feel like a certain number of hard-coded combinations would be more than enough. In fact I just did a quick search for articles that use multiple label options and the overwhelming majority were lang|pron. None used more than two. So replacing through WP:BOTREQ wouldn't be so difficult.
While you're at it, who in the world is supposed to understand that "IE" and "ZA" stand for Ireland and South Africa right off the bat? (If adhering to ISO 3166 "UK" should be "GB". This rather arbitrary use of country codes was probably because newer options mistakenly followed "UK" and "US", which were never meant to be country codes.) And where is Scotland, Wales, India, or Singapore? So I propose the following be the only options for label:
  • langpron → "English pronunciation:"
  • localpron → "local pronunciation:"
  • auspron → "Australia pronunciation:"
  • capron → "Canada pronunciation:"
  • iepron → "Ireland pronunciation:"
  • inpron → "India pronunciation:"
  • nzpron → "New Zealand pronunciation:"
  • sctpron → "Scotland pronunciation:"
  • sgpron → "Singapore pronunciation:"
  • ukpron → "UK pronunciation:"
  • uspron → "US pronunciation:"
  • wltpron → "Wales pronunciation:"
  • zapron → "South Africa pronunciation:"
which, again, are a lot more combinations than actually currently used, yet simplify the code and improve aesthetics. It also makes it (somewhat) compatible with traditional IPA templates such as {{IPA-sh}}.
If we were to proceed, we'd have to first add new options (listed in 2nd to 4th colum above) to Module:IPAc-en/pronunciation, replace all existing uses of multiple options through WP:BOTREQ, then correct the remaining options (listed in 1st column) in Module:IPAc-en/pronunciation, and finally modify Module:IPAc-en so that it will allow only one label option. We may skip the last part so old revisions woudln't output errors, though even then you would see labels like "English: pronounced" (so we may take a few months or so before proceeding with the final phase).
(On a side note, since {{IPAc-en}} offers only diaphonemic transcription, one might argue that there is little or no point in providing all these regional options in the first place. However, it is nonetheless the case that there are words and phrases pronounced differently between dialects not just under dialectal differences but above, and many articles already use these options. One might think, then, when a notation is prefaced with a specific region, it is only appropriate if the notation corresponded to the dialect, i.e. /æɪ/ instead of /eɪ/ for Australian, /i/ instead of /iː/ for American, etc., to which the counterargument would be that in this diaphonemic system /eɪ/ represents not just /eɪ/ but a whole array of phonemes and allophones among dialects. These conversations obviously are beyond the scope of this proposal so hopefully we can focus on the verbiage and punctuation of the labels rather than their necessity.) Nardog (talk) 14:43, 28 May 2017 (UTC)
Please replace the content of Module:IPAc-en/pronunciation with that of the sandbox so that we can proceed to a bot request, as described above. For the record I posted a notice at Help talk:IPA for English and received no response in a week. Nardog (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Nardog: The proposal is inconsistent. We shouldn't list Scottish and Welsh English along with "British English" when the last option actually means "Received Pronunciation". If you want to add Scottish and Welsh English, we must (or at least should) rename "British English" to "Received Pronunciation".
Besides, I'm not sure why we should list Australian, Canadian and South African English when they have all these extra vowel phonemes. Australian has /æː/, Canadian has /ʌi, ʌu/ whereas South African English has /ɘ/ (at least according to some analyses, it's a vowel distinct from both /ɪ/ and /ə/).
Welsh English merges /ʌ/ with /ə/ and the note doesn't cover that. New Zealand English mergers /ɪ/ with /ə/ and /ɛə/ with /ɪə/. Again, the note doesn't cover that. It is problematic in the case of mergers involving /ə/ because we describe this vowel as if it were inherently unstressed and it's not. Not in those dialects. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Also, Scottish English merges /ʊ/ with /uː/ and contrasts /aɪ/ with /ʌi/ (or however you want to transcribe them). Maybe it'd be a good idea to ditch the length mark... Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:35, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
@Mr KEBAB: The proposal may be inconsistent, but the current template is even more so, and the proposal, or at least its intent, is to make it less, albeit not entirely perhaps. Like I stated above, the template only offers diaphonemic transcription, so by design it cannot and should not account for all the differences between dialects, only for regional differences, like Parsing and Peugeot.
But as a matter of fact, currently there is only one article which uses one of these region labels besides "UK" and "US", which is Northcote, Victoria, so I'm all for getting rid of them all at once, à la {{IPA-en}}. Like Deflective has said, editors can add any label before the template manually. Nardog (talk) 06:35, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
I suppose I have (or had, see the last edits) just as much of a problem with inconsistencies on Help:IPA for English as I do with inconsistencies in your proposal. I'll take the discussion there and ping you.
Yep, go ahead and delete them all (apart from UK and US), as far as I'm concerned (and the Northcote transcription violates the diaphonemic principle, as you can see...) Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't see the advantage to adding a large number of specialized labels. In fact, I would be in favour of deprecating 'pronunciation'. Originally, it was introduced to replicate older template behavior to make adoption of this template easier.
The built in labels should be small & lightweight. Other behavior should be written into the page if the editor wants it. deflective (talk) 02:19, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm not sure if you got the gist of the proposal. The number of the currently available options is literally infinite. The proposal is to make it small and lightweight, while also getting rid of awkward wordings along the way. Nardog (talk) 06:35, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
You're talking lightweight implementation. I'm talking lightweight specifications. We can have both.
Deprecate the 'pronunciation' flag and limit the number of flags to one. If a page editor wants any other behaviour that you outlined in the proposed list then it should be written into the page. deflective (talk) 18:04, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
@Deflective: So what do you suggest the options to be exactly? Something like this?:
  • lang → "English:"
  • local → "locally"
  • ipa → "IPA:"
  • uk → "UK:"
  • us → "US:"
  • uklang → "British English:"
  • uslang → "American English:"
Nardog (talk) 23:55, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
Maintain the currently used flags, just without pron. deflective (talk) 01:10, 9 June 2017 (UTC)
Well that actually makes the revision a lot easier. Most instances of a second label parameter are pron, so we can just replace the output for pron with "" (empty text) and be done with it (for now). Nardog (talk) 14:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Please replace the content of Module:IPAc-en/pronunciation with that of the sandbox. Refer above to my conversation with Mr KEBAB in regard to the removal of the region codes and with Deflective in regard to the modification of pron. I've also made sure that the aliases english and pronunciation are not currently used. Nardog (talk) 14:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Done Izno (talk) 14:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

[r] is not [ɹ]

An alphabet, by definition, is composed of symbols that must be unique and opposed to each other. That's not the case in this faulty implementation of an "English IPA", at least regarding the ubiquitous English phoneme 'Alveolar approximant' ['r' in 'rye'], wrongfully represented here with the symbol [r] (that in the IPA corresponds to the completely different 'Voiced alveolar trill') instead of [ɹ].

You can find Wikipedia articles, like Junípero Serra, in which the first line reads: "Junípero Serra y Ferrer, O.F.M., (/huːˈnᵻpɛroʊ ˈsɛrə/; Spanish: [xu'nipeɾo 'sera]", where the contradiction becomes too evident.

Due to ease of typesetting? Then, why use the IPA, in the first place? There are many other more apt phonetic alphabets if typesetting (instead of consistency) is the concern. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gradebo (talk • contribs) 16:59, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

You should tell that to the body of linguists who do the same. I don't think the confusion you allege is a serious risk for our readers. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:14, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Additionally, [r] and [ɹ] are allophones in English. It is fully in accordance with IPA rules and practices to select the simplest grapheme to represent it. Traditionally /r/ has been used in the vast majority of textbooks for foreign learners of English. −Woodstone (talk) 09:12, 28 October 2016 (UTC)
They are? I've heard a tapped r in certain contexts, but not a trill. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 00:22, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
In the Scottish variant of English a clear trill can occur. Also some actors use a trill in "stage" English. −Woodstone (talk) 03:44, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Oh, so not so much an allophone as a dialectal variant. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 04:59, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Not every Scottt has the full rolled r, so yes, they are allophones. And does it really matter? There is never more than one rhotic phoneme in any variant of English. So IPA allows (advises) to pick the simplest representation. −Woodstone (talk) 10:48, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Still wouldn't be an allophone. Dialectal variant is the best term, even if there is variation among speakers. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:35, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
I support representing English r as ⟨/ɹ/⟩. It would more accurately represent the usual manner of articulation of the English r, which is approximant rather than trill. But I realize that changing this symbol on Wikipedia, when most linguistic texts lazily use the easier-to-type trill symbol, will smell like original research and therefore is unlikely to ever happen.
Responding Ƶ§œš¹'s point about reader confusion: I think the risk of confusion is very great. We are talking about millions of readers with different levels of knowledge and mental habits. Some of them have absolutely no knowledge of IPA symbols or the customs of using them. Others are very literal-minded and will not be likely to grasp that a symbol may have a very wide semantic range: referring to either just a trill, in the case of the Spanish IPA key, or an approximant, trill, or tap (with several different places of articulation, from alveolar to retroflex, and sometimes secondary places of articulation, such as velar and labial), in the case of the English IPA key. Others may simply not reflect very deeply on the symbol, but simply assume that it represents something like the English r sound. So it seems obvious to me that some readers will be confused. I don't know how many. We don't get very many people commenting on our English IPA system, and explaining how confused they are by it. — Eru·tuon 21:15, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
Original research is not a problem. It's really just a matter of readability. Thinking about your very specific situation, where a Spanish IPA transcription is put next to an English one, it still doesn't strike me as a serious threat. Imagine a sentence that uses no IPA, such as "The word ranch comes from Spanish rancho." In that sentence, readers are likely to know that the Spanish word has a different rhotic than the English one, even though they use the same letter. Their recognition of the difference does not depend on usage of a separate letter. The same can be the case for IPA transcriptions. It's very easy for readers to go "oh, that's the Spanish r and this is the English one" in the ways they would already would without IPA.
There might be a small cadre of linguistics undergrads who would be confused by our choice. But there is no serious risk of a reader thinking that we are making the claim that English has a trilled r or that Spanish has an approximant r. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:02, 30 October 2016 (UTC)
@Aeusoes1: A response after many months. Are most readers likely to know the difference between the Spanish and English rs? There are likely to be a fair number from countries that, unlike the US, do not have significant cultural contact with Spanish speakers: East Asia and India, for example. In saying readers are likely to know the difference, what geographical contingent of the English Wikipedia's readers are you thinking of?
As to your statement that readers will assume that the IPA is as imprecise as languages' orthographies: well, maybe that's true, but it's not an accurate generalization about the customs of IPA transcription, and it's not a healthy assumption to indulge. (Regarding "linguistic undergrads": huh? Most people are more ignorant than linguistics undergrads about the IPA, so why would linguistics undergrads be more likely to be confused?) — Eru·tuon 17:22, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
The "linguistics undergrads" I'm referring to would be those who are just becoming familiar with the IPA but not the difference between phonetics and phonology. Only someone with such an incomplete familiarity with the basics of the field would simultaneously be familiar with the symbols used in the IPA but not the conventions in phonology. Even these people, though, would just be confused as to why we were using the "wrong" symbol (which, by the way, is an accurate generalization about the customs of IPA transcription). No such individual would think that Wikipedia claims that English has a trilled r.
There's a balancing act in anticipating the complexity people can handle in a system. Too complicated and they get confused. Not complicated enough and we risk an oversimplistic presentation. I think defying conventions and adding another symbol would add to the complexity. I also think that the risk of people assuming our system claims that English has a trilled r is so minuscule it's hardly worth worrying about. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 01:22, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
In other words, yes you are completely right but no there are enough other RS that do the same that few native English speakers—i.e., almost none of our editors—are going to support you. It was, of course, obnoxious of IPA to make the less common rolled R use the default letter in the first place; presumably the English sources are trying to gradually force a change. — LlywelynII 07:10, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Introduce ambiguous tooltips for /ɪər, ɑːr, ɔːr, ɜːr/ in order to transcribe words like “Nero, safari, aural, McMurray”

Words like Nero are often transcribed as follows:

{{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|ɪər|oʊ}} – /ˈnɪəroʊ/

Now the tooltip for the /ɪər/ sequence says the following:

/ɪər/ 'ear' in 'beard'

In non-rhotic varieties, the /r/ in 'beard' is dropped, thus the 'ear' in 'beard' is pronounced as [ɪə]. This leads to the bogus pronunciation *[ˈnɪəoʊ]. This is obviously not what we want.

I see several solutions to this problem (in order of preference):

  1. We might change the tooltip to an ambiguous word where the /r/ may be dropped or not depending on context: /ɪər/ 'ear' in 'near'. In an r-dropping variety, the word 'near' does not have an /r/ when in isolation or in a cases like 'nears, nearby, near my hand', while it has an /r/ in cases like 'near at hand, nearer, nearing'. Similar ambiguous tooltips are already being used for similar sounds.
  2. Or we might add to the tooltip: /ɪər/ 'ear' in 'beard' or 'weary'.
  3. Another solution would be transcribing the name as follows: {{IPAc-en|ˈ|n|iː|r|oʊ}} – /ˈniːroʊ/. This works because the sequences /iːr/ and /ɪər/ are phonemically equivalent.

Other sequences that are affected by this problem are /ɛər, ɔːr, ʊər, aɪər, aʊər, ɔɪər/. In the cases where the /r/ cannot be dropped, they can be split up into /eɪ, oʊ, uː, aɪ, aʊ, ɔɪ/ + /r/, even though not all of the resulting sequences are commonly found in dictionaries (/aɪr, aʊr, ɔɪr/ are quite common, /iːr, uːr, oʊr/ are sometimes used, but I do not know any precedence for /eɪr/, cf. Help:IPA conventions for English#Free vowels). However, in the case of /ɜːr/, splitting up is not possible – thus the above solution #3 does not work in that particular case.

Also affected, but less badly, are the sequences /ɑːr, ɔːr, ər/. The reason why they are less badly affected is that their splitting up into /ɑː, ɔː, ə/ + /r/ is straightforward and unproblematic. The sequences /ær, ɛr, ɪr, ɒr, ʊr, ʌr/ are not affected either because the /r/ is never dropped.

All things being said, I suggest we introduce ambiguous tooltips for the affected sounds that do not yet have them:

What do you think? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 23:41, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's a real problem either way. It is, phonemically, the same vowel, just with a different phonetic realization depending on context. But it's not too much trouble to change it, so I'd be fine with your proposal. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:36, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I would be fine with either an r-final word in the tooltip, or an intervocalic-r word being added to the tooltip. I object to the third proposal, using /ˈniːroʊ/, because it's not synchronically equivalent to /ˈnɪəroʊ/ in RP: there is a contrast between the first vowels in near O and knee row. The RP vowel /ɪː/ (= /ɪə/) is historically derived from /iː/ + /ə/ (< /r/), but it's different from /ɪj/ (= /iː/ now. So, either of the other two alternatives are fine.
Regarding the choice of example words in the one-word tooltip option: I think war should be avoided since its spelling may suggest that it's pronounced with the /[invalid input: 'ar']/ vowel to non-native speakers. How about using 'for' instead? — Eru·tuon 04:28, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I think four would be better because for is often reduced in casual speech. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 04:35, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
These cases have in common that the r is actually the start of the next syllable. So why not go for a solution inluding a syllable break? −Woodstone (talk) 06:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
@Aeusoes1: Four has a different vowel from for in dialects that distinguish horse from hoarse. Perhaps there is another word with the right or sound that isn't reduced, but so many of the words on the Wiktionary rhyme page have the hoarse vowel. — Eru·tuon 06:58, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
Maybe abhor? I have only Abhor | Define Abhor at Dictionary.com at hand at the moment, but I do not know whether it is trustworthy. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:14, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
But McMurray is pronounced /mɪkmʌɹi/ in my dialect... Tharthan (talk) 18:26, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
So do we all agree on changing the tooltips to near, far, abhor, fur?
@Tharthan:: I was thinking of Fort McMurray, which is apparently pronounced with /ɜːr/, and where the /r/ obviously cannot be dropped. But pick any other word where /ɜːr/ is followed by a vowel, e.g. blurry: The /r/ cannot be dropped in non-rhotic varieties.
@Woodstone:: Example words with a syllable break won’t do. The point of the examples is that we want to indicate that the /r/ can be dropped, as it can be normally when the sequences are not followed by a vowel. Theoretically, we might duplicate the transcriptions so we have one series with droppable /r/ and another with non-droppable /r/, but that would never work in practice, plus we would have to manually correct the hundreds of cases that are already out there.
I did not mean the example words, but the words for which the transcription is used. They should have an appropriate syllable break to avoid this ambiguity. −Woodstone (talk) 17:22, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
@Erutuon:: The apparent difference between near O and knee row is not evidence of a phonemic contrast between /ɪə/ and /iː/, but of a word boundary effect. Within the same word, a subsequent /r/ can affect the pronunciation of the preceding free vowel (thus the equivalence of /nɪəroʊ/ and /niːroʊ/); across a word boundary, it cannot (/niː roʊ/ is not equivalent). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
Those tooltips sound fine, if Tharthan can confirm that abhor has the right vowel. Wiktionary seems to indicate that it does, by not having an alternative pronunciation. — Eru·tuon 06:41, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Abhor has /ɔ/, yes, at least in my dialect. Tharthan (talk) 17:54, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Since we have reached consensus:
Please make the following tooltip changes on the page Module:IPAc-en/phonemes (which is included in Template:IPAc-en):
Line # Current text Requested change
221 tooltip = "/ɑːr/ 'ar' in 'bard'", tooltip = "/ɑːr/ 'ar' in 'far'",
323 tooltip = "/ɪər/ 'ear' in 'beard'", tooltip = "/ɪər/ 'ear' in 'near'",
353 tooltip = "/ɔːr/ 'or' in 'born'", tooltip = "/ɔːr/ 'or' in 'abhor'",
431 tooltip = "/ɜːr/ 'ir' in 'bird'", tooltip = "/ɜːr/ 'ur' in 'fur'",
I have made a model of the change in [11]. Thanks. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

 Done However, I think some of this analysis is questionable or moot. In non-rhotic dialects, the -r is also dropped in most cases from words like far, near, etc., so this does not address the issue that was raised. It's an improvement anyway, because the examples are cleaner and are not cluttered by extraneous consonants (which in some cases might actually affect pronunciation in some dialects). Regardless, the Nero problem was a non-problem, because the /ɪə/ diphthong and the trailing /roʊ/ (with an enunciated r in all dialects) are separated by a syllable boundary, which should be indicated in the transcription. I.e., there is no /ɪər/ in "Nero", there's a /nɪə/ followed by a /roʊ/. In typical speech in a rhotic dialect there's barely an audible distinction between /ˈnɪəˌroʊ/ and /ˈnɪərˌoʊ/ (the //ɪə/ diphthong blends with the liquid), but the distinction is important in a non-rhotic dialect (and it may be that some, e.g. in the US Southwest due to Spanish influence, actually would subjectively place the syllable break between the /r/ and /oʊ/, and lean toward something like /ˈnɪrˌo/ or /ˈnɪrˌoʊ/, while some British would draw it out to almost two words, "knee-roe"). While I don't suggest that the /niːroʊ/ approach is invalid, it's arguably less accurate and doesn't make the distinction as clearly. I think that we should include syllabic indicators, since non-native speakers do not know where the stress and breaks are if we don't; there is no need to resort to the /iː/ solution if we do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:47, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for making the changes. However, I do not agree with your analysis of Nero. In order to show that the syllable in words like these is really Ner.o, Wells points out the allophony of /r/ in traditional RP. An /r/ followed by a vowel can be pronounced as a tapped [ɾ] if it is at the end of a syllable, e.g. in ferry [ˈfɛɾ.i], fearing [ˈfɪəɾ.ɪŋ] or her eyes [ˌhɜːɾ.ˈaɪz], but not if it is at the beginning of a syllable, e.g. in key-ring [ˈkiː.ˌɹɪŋ] or her rice [ˌhɜː.ˈɹaɪs]. I would go even further and say that /ɪər/ is underlyingly nothing but homosyllabic /iːr/. Its r-coloured pronunciation [ɪə(r)] shows that the /r/ must belong to the same syllable. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:57, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
@J. 'mach' wust: I prefer to analyze the r as a sandhi consonant inserted between one of the long vowels /ɑː ɛː ɪː ʊː oː ɜː/ or a schwa and another vowel. That unifies Nero, fearing, her eyes with cases like India(r) is or the law(r) is, where a vowel without r has merged with what was formerly a vowel followed by r (as in her, for), and is now pronounced with an unetymological sandhi r. Then, in old-fashioned RP, the r was tapped when it was a sandhi consonant (though they might shy away from pronouncing an "intrusive r" in the examples above), but not otherwise. Postulating that one minimally distinct phoneme is really another with an evanescent r after it (i.e., fear is fee plus r) seems overly complicated, because of the mostly invisible phoneme, and anachronistic: It once was that, but hasn't been for hundreds of years. — Eru·tuon 18:15, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

No "ʉ" (Close central rounded vowel)?

It looks like "ʉ" is currently treated as an alias name of "ᵿ" (Near-close central rounded vowel), but they are two different vowels. --fireattack (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

You are right. If anything, then "ʉ" should be an alias for /uː/, see Close central rounded vowel#Occurrence. The reason why we have it as an alias for /ᵿ/ (a “diaphoneme” that can represent either /ʊ/ or /ə/, as in the second "u" in "beautiful") is only for backwards compatibility. We used to have /ʉ/ instead of /ᵿ/. However, this usage of /ʉ/ was unprecedented in English dictionary-style transcriptions, see Help:IPA conventions for English. That is why we dropped it. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 23:50, 21 February 2017 (UTC)
Feel like we need a "Hidden aliases" parameter in Module:IPAc-en/phonemes for aliases that are now deprecated but kept for backwards compatibility, so that they would not show up in the documentation table (I don't have the coding skill to do so myself).
While you're at it, are we still supposed to distinguish "/oʊ/ or /ə/" from the regular /oʊ/? Help:IPA for English no longer does, so it feels like it should be merged into the latter. But hundreds of articles still use this diaphoneme, and in some of them /ə/ rather than /oʊ/ may be appropriate (for Iowa, for example, OED, Merriam-Webster and AHD all list /-ə-/ only; and in fact I once made the same kind of correction), so indiscriminate substitution (which has sort of already taken place because the template now shows /oʊ/) seems better avoided. @J. 'mach' wust: Thoughts? Nardog (talk) 20:53, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
We have decided that this guide should no longer recommend the ⟨ɵ⟩ sign that was used previously, see Help talk:IPA for English/Archive 17#RfC: Should we continue recommending the sign ⟨ɵ⟩? The sign was subsequently removed from Module:IPAc-en/phonemes.
It is true that a few hundred instances of (oʊ-|o-|ou-) still linger on. At the time I had looked them through and changed many of them to something like /moʊˈhɑːvi, mə-/ [12] if I could find a source. Unfortunately, it appears the previous (oʊ-|o-|ou-) was sometimes reinstated afterwards [13]. But even if a variant pronunciation is no longer explicitly indicated in the text, the sole use of /oʊ/ is still acceptable since the weakening of vowels in unstressed syllables is a natural process in the English language.
In the case of Iowa, the pronunciation was only recently changed to (oʊ-|o-|ou-) [14]. I have corrected it now, adding the sources you indicated [15]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:34, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
So can we agree the tooltip "/oʊ/ or /ə/ 'o' in 'omit'" should be removed?
While you're at it, "/ŋɡ/ 'ng' in 'finger'" has also been removed from Help:IPA for English and I don't see any reason to keep it (I've found 19 current usages). Nardog (talk) 21:27, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Template-protected edit request on 15 June 2017

I'd like the few minor tweaks I've made to Module:IPAc-en/phonemes/sandbox to be implemented into the main module. The changes include:

Nardog (talk) 23:21, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: Have you considered applying for template editor permissions? You look experienced enough to me. (I can take care of the edit request, but I figured I'd ask.) --Izno (talk) 12:07, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Not done for now: Nardog, you now apparently have the rights necessary to edit the module yourself. Cheers. Izno (talk) 12:31, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 Done. @Izno: It didn't even occur to me that I could apply to be a TE, let alone qualify. Thanks for your suggestion. Nardog (talk) 17:44, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Wrong class used to hide content from page previews

The template uses the nopopups class but this is incorrect. It should be using noexcerpt. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Popups#How_can_I_remove_content_from_a_page_preview.3F Who would be the right person to talk to to get this fixed?

@TheDJ: @Kaldari: Jdlrobson (talk) 16:51, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jdlrobson: I could make the change, but could you explain a little bit more in detail what specifically is the problem? Just quickly tested "IPA nopopups", "IPA noexcerpt", and just "IPA" with the page previews on, but couldn't really grasp the difference. Nardog (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
 Not done Hmm, the "nopopups" class seems to suppress the navigation popups rather than the page previews, so we shouldn't be replacing it. As for the "noexcerpt" class, I'm not sure what the rush is to adopt it at this moment because links to pages in the Help namespace seem to be exempt from previews anyway. I mean, do you see a preview when hovering the mouse over an IPAc-en notation? Nardog (talk) 18:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Nardog Hello. Firstly, sorry I should have been clearer. I am talking about the beta feature "page previews]" not the navigation popups. It actually sounds like both are needed if nopopups works with the navigations popup too e.g. "IPA nopopups noexcerpt". The noexcerpt class helps make the previews themselves more readable and controls the description shown in the popup. Right now these are being removed programatically in page previews and the navigation popup by guessing where brackets appear and this is not scaling to different languages. Note after adding the class you should not see any change/difference but this will enable us to remove a lot of unnecessary code and make things better for other languages. Hope I've been a little clearer this time? Let me know if you have any more concerns. Jdlrobson (talk) 15:27, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 Done. Nardog (talk) 02:39, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Wrong SAMPA

Currently "}" is set as an alias for /æ/, but "}" represents [ʉ] in X-SAMPA. Can we get rid of this? Looks like no article is using it, according to the search hastemplate:IPAc-en insource:/\{\{IPAc-en[^\}]*[^\}]\}[^\}]/i. Nardog (talk) 04:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to add tracking in Module:IPAc-en first, to make completely sure. I would do it if I had template editor rights. — Eru·tuon 17:49, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
The thing is, implementing tracking could in itself produce another error in the process. I think the regex search is pretty reliable, and even if there were pages using it (I wouldn't imagine many), they would eventually surface at Category:Ill-formatted IPAc-en transclusions anyway. Nardog (talk) 21:07, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't see why it would cause an error, but you can go ahead and remove } as far as I'm concerned. — Eru·tuon 21:24, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

While I'm at it, "&", another alias for /æ/, is also wrong (it stands for the rare [ɶ]). God knows how these symbols got in there. About a dozen pages use it, I'll fix them. Nardog (talk) 13:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

checkY Removed both "}" and "&". I'll check the tracking category from time to time. Nardog (talk) 14:24, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

I think the the audio link should be replaced with {{IPA audio link}}, which is used by many other IPA templates. The current way is problematic not just because the links to the sound and its information page are so tiny, and only the icon, not the notation, is linked to the sound (which is potentially confusing to readers because it's incompatible with other templates such as {{Pronunciation}}), but most notably because the usage cannot be traced back from the audio file's description page on Commons. So if a file linked from this template was deleted on Commons, the red link probably won't be removed by a bot until someone notices and do it manually. The aforementioned template also has the advantage of supporting microformats.

Compare: /ˌæləˈbæmə/ ⓘ → ⫽ˌæləˈbæmə⫽ ⓘ

I'll implement the change in a few days should no one respond. Nardog (talk) 13:43, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

 Done Nardog (talk) 21:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Addition of /ç/

The addition of /ç/, as occurs in Scottish "nicht" (with reference to http://scots-online.org/dictionary/scots_english.asp), has been reverted without indication of a reason, let alone a reference. One can thus only guess at the reasons, which may include the following:

  1. One possible reason might be that /ç/ is not RP. But neither is /x/. Possibly a consideration was that the latter occurs in British place names, such as Loch Ness, where we already use {{IPAc-en|x}}. If /ç/ does not appear in place names, there may as yet have been no need for it in our articles. But that need arises now in the pronunciation of Mary Hamilton#Lyrics.
  2. Another reason could be that the distinction is not phonemic. That would conform to the name of the page, but it does not agree with the practice for other codes, where e.g. /θj/, which certainly has no phonemic distinction from /θ/, is treated as its own entity. Moreover, since the data from this page are used for pronunciation guidance, scrupulous adherence to the dictate of the page name would prevent its application in practice.

I may not watch this page; so please don't count on me following up. If need be, please notify me. — Sebastian 11:12, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, there is no phoneme /ç/ in any dialect of English. In Scottish, [ç] appears as an allophone of /x/. As you surmised, we are not transcribing phonetic particularities, largely because it is unnecessary but also because there is too much dialectal variation. /θj/ appearing as its own item is probably because of dialectal variation, not because it is being treated as a separate phoneme. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:07, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
"[W]ithout indication of a reason, let alone a reference" is a weird characterization. Whenever someone makes a bold edit, it is they who have the obligation to explain themselves and gain consensus if reverted, unless the edit is plainly uncontroversial. (I personally think this case was especially inappropriate considering the admin's edit was done on a protected page without prior discussion.) But this is by no means a case of WP:SNOW or WP:IGNORE; in fact Sebastian has acknowledged [ç] to be non-phonemic.
The notation we use on Wikipedia for English words (as designated at WP:PRON) IS phonemic (as indicated by the slashes enclosing the notation), and it is not just phonemic but what is called diaphonemic transcription, i.e. accounting for multiple dialects (this is explained in more detail at Help:IPA/English#Dialect variation). That is exactly why diaphonemes like /θj/ and /ær/ are acknowledged as options in this template, because they become /θ/ and /ɛr/ in such accents as none other than General American, but remain /θj/ and /ær/ in others. (As for /x/, it does contrast in Scottish, as in loch /lɒx/ vs. lock /lɒk/, but not in many others, which is why it's acknowledged yet given the status of "marginal" at Help:IPA/English.)
The notation given for nicht in Sebastian's source is not phonemic but allophonic (as indicated by the square brackets), and, sure enough, dictionaries that employ phonemic transcriptions do transcribe nicht as /nɪxt/.[16][17] In any case, whenever a detailed, precise description of an articulation is preferred over a phonemic notation (Mary Hamilton#Lyrics is not such a case though), one can just use {{IPA}} or {{IPA-all}} (e.g. {{IPA-all|nɪçt|}}). Nardog (talk) 16:19, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, Nardog and others, for your good explanation. It is now clear that what I needed can be done with {{IPA-all}}. It is a pity, though, that that template doesn't have the nice tooltips for each symbol, as this one does. — Sebastian 21:50, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
@SebastianHelm: Since the same symbol doesn't always represent the same sound, a template with tooltips for multiple languages is not practical. Nonetheless, when referring to a specific sound, {{IPA link}} comes in handy. I recommend you take a look at the article International Phonetic Alphabet (especially the sections "Usage" and "Types of transcription"). Nardog (talk) 16:22, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
I see what you mean; we even have problems with phonetic transcription. E.g. German: [k] represents, as in Katharina von Bora, the phone that would go by [kʰ] in Mandarin. Well, anyway, not a topic for this talk page. But thank you also for making me aware of {{IPA link}} as well as of the relevant sections in the IPA article, which was helpful since I last read that article long ago. — Sebastian 19:14, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Resolved

The only phonemic IPA- template

I just realized that this template (and its deprecated sibling {{IPA-en}}) appear to be the only "IPA-" templates that yield phonemic transcription, while all others yield phonetic transcription. Once one knows this, it's not a problem, but it's a bit misleading. Maybe a name change might help clarify this distinction?

Also, why is English treated differently from all other languages? Is that because Wikipedia serves several countries divided by the pronunciation of a common language, to paraphrase Samuel Clemens, while for all other languages, being only secondary to en-WP, dialect variation is neglected? — Sebastian 21:50, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

That is explained well at WP:PRON. Nardog (talk) 16:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Thank you, that resolves the "why" question for me. Given that it is explained in the pertinent manual of style, I retract the the question about the name change. — Sebastian 19:35, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Resolved

Consistency: always list IPA symbol in tooltip

Right now, for phonemes where the letter in the example word is the same as the IPA symbol, only the letter and example word are listed; for phonemes where the letter in the example word is different, the phoneme is first listed, and then the letter and example word. For example, the tooltip for /d/ is 'd' in 'dye', whereas the tooltip for /dʒ/ is /dʒ/: 'j' in 'jam'. I suggest that all tooltips list the IPA symbol, such that the tooltip for /d/ would be /d/: 'd' in 'dye'.

Additionally, the tooltip for /ɡ/ is 'g' in 'guy'. The symbol U+0261 ɡ LATIN SMALL LETTER SCRIPT G is not same as the Latin letter ⟨g⟩, despite their visual similarity in some fonts, so even if my suggestion is not accepted and the tooltips remain in their current format, the tooltip for /ɡ/ should be /ɡ/: 'g' in 'guy'.

Nloveladyallen (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I see your point, especially in regard to /ɡ/, which seems a no-brainer. As for the others though, the counterargument obviously would be that they would be redundant. On the other hand, an argument could be made that there is benefit in explicitly marking the diaphonemes. So AFAIC I'm indifferent ~ down with it. Nardog (talk) 21:41, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 Partly done for /ɡ/. I'd like to hear from at least one other person should we proceed to implement the rest. Nardog (talk) 14:18, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Tooltips for /(/ and /)/

Currently there's no tooltip when you hover over /(/ or /)/ other than the standard "Help:IPA for English" 'tip. This is slightly jarring to find in the middle of a word. To remedy this, I would propose the tooltips "/(/: following phoneme not always pronounced" and "/)/: preceding phoneme not always pronounced". You can see this in action at Template:IPAc-en/testcases § Separators. — PinkAmpers&(Je vous invite à me parler) 22:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

Tooltips

I really think the tooltips for /ɔər/ and /ɔːr/ should be a minimal pair, since the contrast is lost in many dialects. Apparently war was declined "since its spelling may suggest that it's pronounced with the /ɑːr/ vowel to non-native speakers", but then abhor is even more of a strange choice because it is highly implausible a learner who doesn't know how to pronounce war is familiar with such an obscure word (and we don't really know if abhor is /ɔːr/ for all of the speakers who retain the distinction). For and four contrast, but for is often /fər/ when unstressed so not as good an example. Thus I think it should be war and wore.

I'd like to make several other edits to the tooltips, such as adding a colon after each diaphoneme for clarity, restoring some lexical set words and shortening some examples, and removing such unscientific descriptions as "short" and "long" vowels (diff). I'll implement the change in a few days unless contested. Nardog (talk) 17:12, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

I like your idea. Speakers who make this contrast may not realize it without a minimal pair. I don't like using hypothetical non-native speakers as a justification for our choices. I have found that doing so not only comes with hefty guesswork on non-native speaker perceptions, but comes at the expense of things that could help native speakers and even non-native speakers of sufficient proficiency. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:23, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
Non-native pronunciations of English are such a broad subject that we shouldn't give much thought to it here. If a non-native speaker pronounces war as /wɑːr/ then his English is poor and it's on him to correct that mistake. It's a common word. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:35, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 Done Nardog (talk) 09:36, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed the change in the template when I tried to fix the pronunciation at Borneo. These vowels are not merged for everyone, especially for people in Scotland, Ireland and parts of the United States. I would have contested the merger of tokens. - Gilgamesh (talk) 03:30, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

The logic of eliminating the contrast is not that they are merged for everyone but that the contrast is rare enough in pronunciations given in dictionaries that it has become an undue burden to try to maintain the contrast in our transcriptions. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:34, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's not too much of a burden for me—as a 37-year-old native English speaker, I still speak it, and I mainly articulate the NORTH vowel as slightly lower and shorter, and the FORCE vowel as slightly higher and longer. So if this template is not going to support a distinct token for FORCE, I'll just add /oʊr/ as an alternate pronunciation wherever it applies, like /ˈbɔːrnioʊ, ˈboʊrn-/ for Borneo, which is already the convention Dictionary.com uses. It really just seems very wrong not to mention the distinction's existence in some way as long as it's still real for a lot of people. - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:35, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Is that what we generally do when there is a contrast that our transcription system doesn't encode for but that some dialects do? — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:15, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
@Aeusoes1: It's not, and I don't understand his behavior. (Redacted) He should've voted on Help talk:IPA/English when the survey was still open. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:46, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
Whoa, let's not escalate things. It seems like Gilgamesh just didn't see the previous discussion. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:06, 27 November 2017 (UTC)
@Aeusoes1: Yeah, blackmail is too strong a word. I forgot about that. Sorry. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:23, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the previous distinction, and I would have voted against if I had. The distinction is still real and actively made by a lot of us, whether or not there are other people who fail to speak or distinguish the difference. I'm not going to treat genuinely different vowels in 2017 as if they're exactly the same—it would be just as absurd as merging all /w/ and /ʍ/ phonemes to /w/, or merging all /ɛn/ and /ɪn/ sequences to /ɪn/, just because a lot of people don't distinguish those sounds either. Even my mother could never tell the difference between pen and pin, but my father can, and I do too. And I myself tend to pronounce words like orange, something, sandwich, forest, mirror, mirage and carrot as one-syllable words (oarnge, so'ing, sounch, foarst, mere, mrage, cairt, many of which form when /VrəC, VrᵻC/ merge with /VərC/), but I still recognize that canonically they are two-syllable words and can enunciate them in clear speech, just as I recognize that the horse-hoarse merger isn't complete yet. I appreciate that there's a possibility that the distinction between NORTH and FORCE vowels is not being passed on to most people a generation or two younger than me, but I'm hardly an old person yet, and I still won't be for decades more. As for Borneo, I intend to restore the alternate pronunciation; it's just too uncouth to treat it like it doesn't exist. - Gilgamesh (talk) 12:46, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

@Gilgamesh~enwiki: I still don't appreciate you edit warring with me on Borneo. The distinctive FORCE vowel isn't covered on Help:IPA/English, and that's where all transcriptions enclosed within the IPAc-en template link to. You can raise the issue on Help:IPA/English, in the meantime I'm reverting you again as your edit is against the consensus. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:58, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
If I recall correctly, two or more reverts is edit-warring. I made one revert as per WP:BOLD. Actually, now that I check WP:EW, it seems that three or more reverts is edit-warring. But I digress.
You have to realize: I am a native English speaker. This is my native language. To not mention such a pronunciation distinction even existing in pronunciation guides...seems extremely wrong, as if someone is telling you that the areas where your speech is habitually polished are some kind of superfluous oddity. It's one thing for a lot of people to habitually merge these vowels when they speak them—all sorts of colorful mergers exist across English accents worldwide. But to completely gloss over it like it doesn't exist when it still very much exists seems like jumping the gun in favor of an excessive simplification. I mean, I tend to prefer descriptivism over prescriptivism anyway, but this doesn't even describe the situation adequately. In situations like these, it at least seems right to indicate two pronunciations—the merged one and the unmerged one, perhaps the unmerged one as a second pronunciation, to recognize that, yes, this is how a significant minority of people still speak it. - Gilgamesh (talk) 14:32, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
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