Help talk:IPA/Czech and Slovak/Archive 1

Transcription changes

Currently, this page offers too narrow a transcription convention. There are a number of things we should do to modify it

1. Use <o> for both long and short o. It looks like the vowel is actually mid to close-mid, and we might as well use the typographically easiest letter (this is how it's done with Spanish, Greek, and Hebrew).
2. Remove the diacritics for the diphthongs so that they are either [ou], [ɛu] and [au] or [ow], [ɛw] and [aw]. I'm leaning towards the former but if Czech makes contrasts between e.g. Cau and Ca.u, then the latter is better.
3. organize the symbols in alphabetical order like they are done in the other IPA for X pages. This also includes not separating sonorants and consonants into different tables.
4. remove the voiceless version of the fricative trill since it's an allophone and requires additional diacritics that we needn't require editors to use.
5. note somehow that /oː/. /f/, /g/, and the two voiced affricates appear mostly/only in foreign loanwords.

Then we can create {{IPA-cs}} and start using this page. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't know whether you can find true minimal pairs, but there are certainly Czech words where adjacent vowels do not form a diphthong, e.g., použít [ˈpɔ.uʒiːt], nauka [ˈna.uka], neustále [ˈnɛ.ustaːlɛ]. These can be also pronounced with an intervening glottal stop, e.g., [ˈpɔʔuʒiːt]. — Emil J. 12:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

All right. That's reason enough to use w rather than u. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 07:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

This needs to reflect what's used in the articles. Currently the voiceless and diphthong diacritics are being used.

I realize the English approximations I just added aren't always very good. Maybe we can add note to the ones that are particularly poor. But this key is for people who know neither the IPA nor Czech, so merely illustrating the IPA with Czech isn't going to do much good.

Some of the articles are going to need normalizing. For instance, Občanský průkaz was transcribed [ɔbtʃʌnskiː pɾuːkʌz]. (I otherwise corrected it but left the flap, which I wasn't sure about.)

I think obvious allophones such as devoicing should be left in. Better a little more work for the editor than to mislead the reader. After all, Czech consonants don't all devoice, and the reader shouldn't need to know which are which.

BTW, I've been through a hundred of these, and none have used w for diphthongs. (Not that that means we shouldn't switch.) I'd rather get the diphthong and devoicing diacritics added to the WP edit window, like on Wiktionary. kwami (talk) 08:34, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Things I've noticed to to look for when auto-normalizing with AWB or whatever: "lax" vowels (ʊəʌɔɑ); also maybe e and short i; tie-bar affrics like t​͡ʃ (with a space) and t͡ʃ (without); oddities for rz, such as r̩ʒ. kwami (talk) 09:29, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

English approximations are a good idea, but I'm still not sure about the voiceless fricative trill and the semivowel diacritics. These aren't so important when giving a general pronunciation on Wikipedia pages and there aren't so many pages using the IPA cs template that we can't fix them based on what we decide. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:37, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

There are about a thousand articles, not all yet linked to the key. If we remove the diacritic from the articles, then we can remove it from the key, but I really think we need to explain the system we use, not the system we'd like to use. (We can always give deprecated alts in parentheses, as we do w IPA-en.)

We reflect voicing assimilation for all other consonants, so it would strike me as really odd to make an exception for rz just cuz it requires a diacritic. It's also a very salient allophone to English ears. kwami (talk) 08:04, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, now I'm on board for the voiceless fricative trill. I think we should mark the semivowel diacritics as deprecated. It should still be pretty easy (though monotonously time-consuming) to change the deprecated forms. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 13:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion on the diphthongs, though I don't see how the diacritic hurts. (I have, however, been removing the tie bars from the affricates, though just my luck these are phonemic in Czech.) We can set up AWB to take care of the diphthongs when we go through to fix up the monophthongs. With a thousand articles, there's probably only a hundred that would be a problem, except for ʊ, which is all over the place. (I've been converting IPA2 to IPA-cs, and fixing the stress and length marks as I go along.)

There are also a few articles which use this template for Slovak names. Can we adjust this to cover both? kwami (talk) 14:54, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Ooh, an IPA for Czech and Slovak (we could even justify "cs" as standing for "Czech" and "Slovak"). What are the differences between them? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Slovak has /ʎ/, /rː/, /lː/, /æ/ (spelled ľ, ĺ, ŕ, ä), the last only in "high" registers, and the diphthongs /ja/, /je/, /ju/, /wo/, the latter spelled ô. The difference between /ja/ and /i.a/ is phonemic. It doesn't have /r̝/.

I didn't add ä, since it's considered archaic, even if official. We can always add it later if needed. kwami (talk) 22:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Final -ov...

..is pronounced differently in Slovak isn't it? Always seems to be [ou] rather than [of]. Wanted to add a word like psov in the diphthongs column but couldn't verify this from the information at Slovak language#phonology. - filelakeshoe 10:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

This is true. Moreover, it does not have to be final and it does not have to involve [o], simply every /v/ in a syllable coda is pronounced as [w]: for example, krivda [ˈkrɪwda]. The nucleus may even be a syllabic consonant: krv [ˈkr̩w]. As you can see, the phonotactics here completely ignores the usual composition of Slovak diphthongs, so it is not a good idea to classify these cases as diphthongs. Rather, [w] is an allophone of /v/ (that is, [v] and [w] are complementary allophones of /v/, with [w] being employed in syllable codas), it should go into the consonant column.—Emil J. 13:08, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, the diphthongs column is missing the Slovak diphthongs [ja], [jɛ], [ju].—Emil J. 13:20, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense, so no that isn't technically a diphthong (I guessed "Tisou" and "tisov" would sound pretty much the same though). The word "spieva" is given next to /j/, which should probably be moved to diphthongs, I guess Czech ě (zpěv) would belong there as well - filelakeshoe 13:29, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Now I noticed the information on /v/ in coda is in Slovak language#Orthography. It turns out the rule is slightly more complicated than I described ([w] is not used before [n], [ɲ]).—Emil J. 13:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

You are right that “spieva” should not be given as an example of /j/. However, in Czech, /j+V/ combinations (as in “zpěv”) are normally not considered diphthongs.—Emil J. 13:39, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

Short vowels

Just a minor point: Czech short vowels tend to be much more open/lax than Slovak ones - no idea whether it's important to note this in the transcription though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.230.32.175 (talk) 18:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If it's not significant, I don't think we need to worry about it. It looks like Czech phonology has a vowel chart but Slovak phonology doesn't. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 14:16, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

The example for Slovak "ɛu"

The example for Slovak "ɛu" is completely wrong. Euro is pronounced ɛ-u-ro (3 syllables), in contrast to the Czech ɛu-ro (2 syl.) !!! 213.151.215.195 (talk) 13:44, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Fixed. Peter238 (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)