Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 25

General American pronunciations of loanwords
How reliable are pronunciations such as for Košice? The majority minority of GA speakers who have the cot-caught merger (which generally means that would be rendered as, which I find unlikely), and our article General American tells us that foreign rounded mid back vowels are approximated with  in North America, unlike RP where both  and  are possible options.

Pinging. Do you usually check whether Americans really pronounce words as you suggest, or do you just go along with the dictionaries? Don't take it as an attack please. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 05:57, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * actually I just check the dictionaries and keep the pronunciations that are possible according to English phonology, because sometimes it looks like they try to just approximate the original even when it wouldn’t sound natural in English (e.g. relying on AHD we would have something like, with as you said but with a final  that couldn’t technically be there). Maybe that is the problem: sometimes you are not sure if it is the actual English pronunciation or just a way to come “closer” to the native one. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 07:01, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Cot-caught-merged speakers strongly prefer over  for stressed foreign $⟨o⟩$, probably because they consider the back  and the central  to be the same sound. The latter sounds absolutely nothing like $⟨o⟩$ in e.g. Spanish. In fact,  is regularly used in the United States to approximate foreign $⟨a⟩$, which is often central.
 * IMO all (or at least most) pronunciations of loanwords with stressed (excluding the  sequence) should be removed. See  and . The pronunciation of foreign $⟨o⟩$ as  is not only counter-intuitive in English (completely so in RP, not quite completely counter-intuitive in GA which has the lot-cloth split) but simply impossible for cot-caught-merged speakers who wouldn't use  but . Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand. Or maybe we could add a note on this help for the speakers with the merger, unless is also very uncommon for those with the split. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 07:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * (The lot-cloth split is always present in those varieties of GA that don't merge cot with caught). I doubt that the way this works is that the speakers without the merger use and those who have the merger use . Rather, I think that a source that claims that an American pronunciation of any given loanword contains a stressed  for orthographic $⟨o⟩$ when not before  and  is simply unreliable and should be dismissed (before  it should be checked in Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, which probably is a reliable source for American pronunciations). It doesn't list an actual American pronunciation, but rather tells Americans how to pronounce that word as closely to the original pronunciation as possible. That's different. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:14, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * what I meant is whether may be used by speakers with the split alongside  or is actually uncommon. But yes, we probably should check more reliable sources on this point. Thank you. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 11:07, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * There's no GA without the lot-cloth split. You're mistaking the lot-cloth split with the cot-caught merger, which neutralizes the distinction between and  and thus reverses the lot-cloth split by merging all instances of  with  (cot-caught-merged GA is an accent without contrastive, rather than one that doesn't have the lot-cloth split).
 * I find it implausible that speakers without the cot-caught merger would use where those who have the merger use . I've never heard of such a distinction in AmE. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:30, 17 August 2019 (UTC)


 * When dealing with English pronunciations of places like this I prefer to see each different pronunciation given in each dictionary as a "data point" cos there sure as hell isn't a standard anglo approximation of "Košice" which everyone would agree on. I would consider such pronunciations reliable, but not necessarily exhaustive. I more often hear English speakers pronounce it with /i/ or /eɪ/ at the end than /ə/ but I suppose all three are possible, same for /ɔː/ x /oʊ/ x /ɒ/ in the first syllable. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * But there is a standard way of approximating foreign $⟨o⟩$ in American English, and it's . GA doesn't have a contrastive vowel, which is the same as  (which is the most common approximation of foreign $⟨a⟩$). In BrE there's usually a choice between  and  - see  and . Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk)
 * BTW, just an idea here and feel free to dismiss it as my OR, but are pronunciations of European placenames in Webster necessarily contemporary approximations of local forms? There are Slovak immigrants in America since the 19th century, perhaps the pronunciation has been in use since before the cot-caught merger was even a thing. For example I notice our article on Lodz gives the pronunciation /luːdʒ/ from Merriam-Webster which might reflect an archaic Polish pronunciation from before the /l/ → [w] shift completed, from the time when the Poles arrived to the US, perhaps... – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:51, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting. My copy of Wells's Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives for RP,  for GenAm, and  for Polish. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 13:24, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * P.S. Maybe Merriam-Webster's doesn't "reflect an archaic Polish pronunciation from before the /l/ → [w] shift completed, from the time when the Poles arrived to the US." Article Łódź says: "In 1839, over 78% of the population was German," so I wonder if the  of German was the decisive factor. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 13:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That could've been the case. To this day I hear many Germans pronounce Polish $⟨ł⟩$ as a plain, which is a much better choice than (Standard German, as we know, doesn't have ). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:48, 17 August 2019 (UTC)


 * The typical pronunciation of foreign and especially first-time-heard foreign $⟨o⟩$ in GenAm is indeed, regardless of the cot-caught merger. Foreign-name examples of this include Barbados, Bogotá, Dodoma, Mogadishu, Skopje, Xhosa, etc. (Notice that the current pronunciation on the page Mogadishu doesn't account for the GenAm pronunciation by listening to how Americans actually pronounce it here.) And by the way, I think most sources on the cot-caught merger agree not that The majority of GA speakers have it but rather that nearly a majority of GA speakers have it: so, in fact, a majority don't have it. Wolfdog (talk) 12:42, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * True, my bad. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:54, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * So from now on we should avoid listing these pronunciations, right? (With the exceptions above, possibly.) [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 13:44, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Which pronunciations do you mean by "these pronunciations"? Wolfdog (talk) 15:26, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * the ones with for $⟨o⟩$. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 15:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What about and  for $⟨or⟩$ and $⟨ol⟩$, wouldn't it be okay in those cases? Like in Olomouc and Córdoba. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 16:02, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's any need to avoid potentially helpful pronunciations (since there are plenty of exceptions to assumed rules of foreign pronunciations). We can certainly differentiate using the templates and  . As to 's point, I'd say yes to the  idea but I'd be cautious with, since Americans tend to pronounce stressed $⟨ol⟩$ as  (like in Angola, Kolkata, Mongolia, Poland, etc. off the top of my head). Wolfdog (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That’s it. We should ascertain in which positions it is natural to have this sound and in which not, e.g. $⟨r⟩$ normally affects the preceding consonant, so it would be perfectly fine to have in such transcriptions. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 16:22, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Does that mean that Amercan speakers who don't merge horse and hoarse have in those loanwords? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:47, 17 August 2019 (UTC)
 * From the words listed at horse–hoarse merger, loanwords seem to go either way. "California" has the "horse" vowel and "Borneo" has the "hoarse" one. I suppose analogy to similar sounding words comes into play. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 17:47, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

What about polysyllabic pronunciations in which most or all vowels are strong? For instance, instead of  for Amarone and  instead of  for Campania strike me as non-English. It seems to me that many of the pronuciations of loanwords in the American Heritage Dictionary and, perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent, in MW are made up prescriptive nonsense that doesn't account for vowel reduction nor for the way Americans anglicize loanwords. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:48, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * yes, in those cases we probably should avoid to transcribe them. Lately I have been trying to avoid them too. [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 10:54, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with your prescriptive nonsense theory... or at least that there are still holdovers from the days when dictionaries subscribed to prescriptive nonsense. (One example that always springs to mind is how American dictionaries give the pronunciation of plantain as when I've never heard any Americans say this and the majority variant is certainly : a form that some, like Dictionary.com, don't even present as a possibility!) As for Amarone, the GenAm assumption probably would include the schwa unless the speaker was being very deliberate, while the Campania pronunciation would also include a schwa or two:  or  strike me as natural, though now listening to the 7 speakers of Youglish I hear an even larger diversity of (frankly, somewhat bizarre) pronunciations, which in addition to the variants we've given also includes variants like the stressed syllable being pronounced  or  ! So maybe there's nothing we can do for Campania. Wolfdog (talk) 11:20, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I've fixed Campania using the RDPCE. It's almost funny how authors of transcriptions such as don't realize that this pronunciation is almost as far away from the original as . What's even more strange is that I've seen transcriptions of Dutch names in the American Heritage Dictionary that have  for both types of ⟨a⟩, even though length is essential (you'll be understood when you use  for the front  and  or even  for the back  but not when you get the length wrong). This is just weird. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the same goes for German words like Bach, German, which is for most English speakers, though short  would be easier for German native speakers to understand. — I think that attempts at foreign pronunciations are rarely made in order to be more readily understood by foreigners, but to gain prestige among the people that surround you. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:21, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the someone just added to Olomouc is a bit strange. While it is true that Americans love butchering Czech by throwing unnecessary diphthongs everywhere (and it is butchering as it leads to the phonemes /o/ and /ou/ merging and no one understands them), surely an "English" pronunciation of a city name would be expected to adhere to English phonotactics which means the weak syllable in the middle here is definitely reduced. I have only recently been won over by the argument that having "English" pronunciations alongside the local ones is necessary and I might be returning to the other side of the fence, for cases where there is no established English usage. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 12:43, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * You can't expect Czech contrasts to be maintained in English. Americans approximate foreign ⟨o⟩ with and it just so happens that Czech contrasts  with, which is a non-starter for Americans ( is probably just as unacceptable to to cot-caught-merging Americans who don't have a phonemic  as it is to native speakers of Czech - another reason to be careful with  in loanwords). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:49, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I am not expecting Czech contrasts to be maintained in English, I was referring to Americans not maintaining Czech contrasts while speaking Czech. I am still unconvinced that every "foreign ⟨o⟩" (in all 6000 odd dialects of "foreign") needs to be approximated as /oʊ/ even in weak syllables, less so that we should be telling people to say /ˈoʊloʊˌmoʊts/ but not /ˈɔːləmoʊts/ just to cater to the proclivities of people with a certain vowel merger. Please consider me opposed to the inclusion of these "English" pronunciations. Where there is no established usage, put the local pronunciation and let people decide how to approximate that in their dialect. This is why we have IPA help pages, with the "Nearest English equivalent" column. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 13:17, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
 * That's something else though. We're talking about English.
 * is counter-intuitive to all Americans, not just those with the cot-caught merger. The default vowel for foreign ⟨o⟩ is, especially in syllables with primary stress. In less stressed syllables it can be or perhaps . As Wolfdog has already confirmed, there's no such thing as speakers without the cot-caught merger using  where those with the merger use . There's no such dichotomy in American English.
 * If "Olomouc" were an English word stressed on the first syllable, the only possible pronunciations in General American would begin with and . The lot-cloth split didn't affect  before  - see English orthography. This is why Mogadishu as  isn't counterintuitive for Americans, but  is (I'd expect  to be spelled A(u)lomouts or something like that, compare Salzburg and Auschwitz).
 * LPD gives as the RP variants and  as the GA variant. I imagine that the second  is weak, prone to be reduced to a schwa (so  ~ ). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:18, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Interesting, so LPD holds out against the Czech /au/ → /ou/ vowel shift, which completed in the 19th century. I think this entire thread proves my point that there is no established English pronunciation of Olomouc. Do Americans really pronounce "Auschwitz" with at the beginning? Surely those Americans just don't know how the word is pronounced, and are taking wild guesses from reading the letters. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:39, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * John C. Wells, the author of the LPD, is aware that the current Czech pronunciation of $⟨ou⟩$ is, and explicitly mentions that Olomouc is pronounced (=) in Czech — for the benefit of RP, GA, and other English speakers who wish to sound more Czech, but less English. (Note that according to LPD, English and Czech have different syllabifications: for RP and GA, the  is the coda of the first syllable, for Czech, it is the onset of the second syllable. I don't think we should indicate syllable breaks, or only do so in exceptional cases, as this is a matter of considerable disagreement among authors of pronunciation dictionaries.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:29, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Pronouncing the last syllable as /oʊ/ or /ou/ rather than /aʊ/ would not make one sound "more Czech and less English", it would make one sound more modern and less like they've quantum-leaped here from the 18th century. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 13:09, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Remember that our is just a diaphonemic notation. In England alone it can signify, , , , , , ,  or other options. Many of these are significantly different from Czech  which shows no such variation (is  or  close to the original Czech pronunciation? The  can also be pre-glottalized or glottalized, which isn't a thing in Czech) Because of that, I see no problem with transcribing the American pronunciation of "Olomouc" as  or , if the latter is an established pronunciation. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:25, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
 * for Radom looks dubious to me. The sequence is very rare in General American and not an intuitive pronunciation of the orthographic $⟨om⟩$. It seems to me that  is just a Middle English variant of contemporary, as in "home" (ME ), so not a sequence that would be used in rhotic English (except for a handful of words).
 * On the other hand, I'd expect e.g. the surname of Saša Ognenovski to be pronounced or at least  in GA.  looks implausible to me, so,  and  seem to be in a kind of a complementary distribution in GA (at least as far as loanwords are concerned), with the first two being mostly confined to environments preceding (certain) consonant clusters (of course,  occurs in pretty much all positions when the spelling is $⟨a⟩$, $⟨ah⟩$, etc.).  can only occur before  and perhaps , but not.
 * I'd say let's just leave the UK pronunciation at Radom. It has an American-style for the stressed $⟨a⟩$, which is good enough. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:47, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * it doesn’t to me, as it may in other cases, and it is reported by Oxford, which is definitely more reliable than other sources. However, considering what you say and since something with is surely more likely, I wouldn’t really mind changing the pronunciation on the page, if you have references for a different one. [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 16:31, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What's the reason you find it plausible, apart from the fact that it's listed in an Oxford dictionary? It's almost certainly a prescribed pronunciation, rather than a report of actual usage (as it kind of must be with names like this, Radom isn't Warsaw or Cracow). I still think it shouldn't be listed. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:56, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * yeah, maybe by analogy with other nasals I felt it doesn’t sound implausible. Leave . [[File:Italy.png]]  イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 18:20, 25 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Will do. And actually, is also a rare sequence and not necessarily an intuitive pronunciation of orthographic $⟨on⟩$., on the other hand, seems to be natural for Americans.
 * IMO, the criteria for including a prescribed (rather than a confirmed, established) pronunciation of a loanword with in a WP article should ultimately be the following: would a speaker of American English without the cot-caught merger pronounce  in that position if this were a native English word, or would the natural reflex be to use  or ? If it's the latter, we shouldn't include it. Let's also not forget that  in New York and Philadelphia can be a centering diphthong  or even . This  (as prescribed by dictionaries) obviously means General American, rather than  in New York and Philadelphia or  in some Inland Northern American English (where it contrasts with front unrounded ). Not to mention that some North American English (notably Canadian) uses  for the cot-caught merged vowel. So there's some overlap between back realizations of the (PALM-)LOT-THOUGHT vowel in cot-caught-merging dialects on one hand and the THOUGHT vowel in dialects without the cot-caught merger on the other. It's my suspicion that  and  are treated pretty much exactly as one vowel in loanwords, even in dialects that distinguish "cot" from "caught". They appear in complementary distribution and there's a preference for  wherever  (which is the primary choice) doesn't fit. It's obviously a different story when the spelling contains $⟨a⟩$, as then there's a choice between  and  (or  and  before ), with  being rarer. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What do you think, ? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:47, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Banning specific derivations of vowels doesn't strike me as a good idea. Determining what counts as an incidence of such a derivation is not going to be easy; some borrowings may have assimilated to the English lexicon and genuinely be pronounced with /ɔː/. (It's also WP:CREEP-y.)
 * An alternative is to ban unnatural/artificial/prescriptive pronunciations more broadly, but this also doesn't seem practicable. The problem is that dictionaries rarely indicate which pronunciations are ones actually used by speakers and which are ones they recommend based on etymology or whatever. Perhaps the best we can do to prevent the latter from creeping in is to make it explicit at WP:PRON etc. that our documentation of pronunciations must be descriptive and that editors are encouraged to exercise editorial discretion when a sourced pronunciation is found to be leaning too much on the prescriptive side (in other words, just because an RS includes a transcription doesn't warrant its inclusion on WP). Nardog (talk) 03:45, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What do you think, Kbb2? Nardog (talk) 17:04, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * (Thanks for reminding me of this). This is gettting a bit too hard for me. Your suggestion regarding WP:PRON is spot on, though. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:43, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

This is a similar link that IvanScrooge98 & I discussed almost 4 months ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Matterhorn#IPA_Pronunciation NKM1974 (talk) 18:34, 03 September 2019 (UTC)

If you need a native GA informant without cot-caught merger, feel free to ping me. For that matter, I wonder if it would make a useful subpage addition to WikiProject Language (or Linguistics, or English) to offer a page where users could voluntarily add themselves under headings listing various regional variants of pronunciation (or usage)? A corresponding Talk page there, could be used to poll users in a given group, when topics like this one arose. Mathglot (talk) 19:54, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * That's effectively a call for OR. Whenever one finds a pronunciation in a cited RS dubious, the only acceptable options are replacing it with another RS or removing it (whether BOLDly or based on a consensus). Nardog (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Not when it's on a Talk page. It's the same idea as having pages, categories, and userboxes which list people who can translate between different languages. It's a volunteer resource to make Talk page discussion more effective. It doesn't change verifiability requirements in any way. Mathglot (talk) 23:48, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that the fact that we should follow WP:RS doesn't mean that we can't omit the IPA where multiple speakers of a given variety of English tell us that it's wrong. Discussing the accuracy of transcriptions before including them in articles should definitely be a thing because we're not required to provide pronunciation. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:43, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I wasn't clear on what exactly Mathglot's suggestion entailed, but yeah, as I said, so long as it's about removing or retaining a sourced pronunciation or replacing it with another sourced one, and not about replacing it with an unsourced one, I don't see a problem. Nardog (talk) 17:48, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

/ɜː/
Regarding ’s, I’d like to open a discussion that I should have opened long ago. What is the point of using ⟨ɜː⟩ only for non-rhotic pronunciations, when it is precisely in those varieties that the contrast with is neutralized? I think it would be more logical to either suppress the phoneme altogether and merge it with the rhotic one (more so as it is a marginal one), or instead only applying it to transcriptions for rhotic accents, where it would contrast (if attested; I’m not going to question whether $⟨œ⟩$ is just a conventional notation or not because I hardly ever heard any North Americans or so pronounce words that contain that phoneme and cannot have an idea). 〜 イヴァンスクルージ九十八 ［IvanScrooge98］ （ 会話 ） 08:45, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No variety of English (rhotic or otherwise) contrasts with . Nardog's reasoning can be found here. I don't care whether we use  as a marginal phoneme, but I don't see any good reason to do so. An r-ful pronunciation of word-final  is impossible in truly non-rhotic (meaning: not semi-rhotic) accents of England. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:08, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'm not a fan of using it, but people generally agreed with its limited usage apparently. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 14:14, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I don’t know, I still think it’s confusing and not for others, as this edit summary recalls from the old discussion. Are we 100% this is not usual in North America? 〜 イヴァンスクルージ九十八 ［IvanScrooge98］  （ 会話 ） 15:40, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * My original suggestion was that it be used for American pronunciations as well, as it is frequently seen in CEPD even for US, but it met with opposition on the grounds that it's not attested in descriptive works. Nardog (talk) 16:44, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * isn’t LPD only descriptive though? (Per our recent dispute about Gérard Depardieu.) 〜 イヴァンスクルージ九十八 ［IvanScrooge98］ （ 会話 ） 16:54, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call LPD transcribing Sexwale as /seˈkwɑːleɪ/ descriptive of English speakers. LPD doesn't transcribe the US pronunciation of Depardieu with /ɜː/, at least not explicity. As described in the preface (p. xiv), LPD shows an American pronunciation only when it differs from the British one. So when there are alternatives before "‖", there is ambiguity as to whether they are alternatives in AmE too. Unlike in CEPD, /ɜː/ is never shown explictly as part of an American pronunciation in LPD. Nardog (talk) 17:17, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I’m sorry, I thought transcriptions such as this, which we cite in the article, are based on pronunciation works (I don’t have LPD physically for the moment, so I still have to rely on the internet). In any case, I think we all agree that even if such sources are not completely descriptive, they don’t prescribe pronunciations that are highly unlikely to be realized. 〜 イヴァンスクルージ九十八 ［IvanScrooge98］ （ 会話 ） 17:30, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The pronunciation in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is under a different editorship than Wells. One way in which it differs from LPD is the use of double-decker symbols. The theoretical bases of LPD are well documented in its preface, Accents of English, Wells (1990), and his blog, so if he considered /ɜː/ to be part of the vowel system of the American English model we would have known it by now. Nardog (talk) 17:58, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * /ɜː/ and /ɜːr/ may not contrast, but reliable sources show that /ɜːV/ and /ɜːrV/ contrast, as CEPD, LPD, and RDPCE transcribe Auteuil, fauteuil, feuilleton, oeil-de-boeuf, trompe l'oeil, etc. with /ɜːi/ or /ɜːɪ/, as Maczkopeti pointed out in the RfC. Nardog (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

Question
Why is [ɹ] transcribed as [r]? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 23:16, 4 December 2019 (UTC)


 * It isn't. Rather, the English phoneme that is pronounced in most accents is transcribed as.
 * is the usual phonemic transcription in specialized literature. Moreover, IPA principle 4 (a) stipulates that "[o]rdinary roman letters should be used as far as practicable" (Handbook of the International Phonetic Association, p. 159). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:43, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Actually, on English dialect articles (certainly American English dialect ones, following a discussion I had some months ago), [ɹ] is transcribed as [ɹ]. (See examples of that at American English, for example.) However, your concern is one that gets brought up from time to time (or should I say over and over again), most recently, in fact, by myself! See Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 24. So far, editors have agreed to let he English "r" sound be phonemically (which is different than phonetically) represented using /r/. Several editors, including myself, have voiced our reservations about this. Wolfdog (talk) 00:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hey all, thanks for the quick replies! I just wanted to clarify that I don't have a strong opinion on how to transcribe the English rhotic phoneme, I really was just wondering about the reasoning. :) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 01:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The reasoning is WP:RS. If scholars were to create a phonemic orthography for English today, based on General American and contemporary Received Pronunciation, there's a higher probability that ⟨ɹ⟩ would be used instead. in traditional RP has a wider range of allophones, more like Scottish English. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:13, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Pretty sure the reasoning is readability. It's one fewer symbol to learn by those for whom the IPA is new. It certainly helps that it's common among reliable sources (and those probably do so for the same reason) and that the IPA makes explicit allowances for this practice. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:14, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Is 'lj' in the IPA
I'm new to learning IPA, and was looking through this page, often going to other pages for more words for pronunciation. One of the consonants representation, lj, with the pronunciation example of lute, I can not find on any other lists of IPA symbols. I was curious as to why this was.

--Paelias (talk) 15:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
 * The chances are you won't find any combination of consonant + /j/ on this guide on any other list of IPA symbols, because they don't represent single sounds. /lj/ represents a situation where it is pronounced as /lj/ in some accents and /l/ in others, before /uː/ or /ʊər/. See the "Dialect variation" section and the second footnote for more. Nardog (talk) 12:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

How to make this list more accessible
This list uses a variety of uncommon words that many English speakers have never heard of. Can we please use more common words? This list is supposed to help Wikipedia readers understand the basics of the IPA and what each character stands for. Using words like "caff" and "wye" won't really help them. Most readers on the English Wikipedia are not experts at phonetics (me included). I tried to edit the list to include more common words, but then my edits were reverted hours later. This list is supposed to be like the pronunciation key on a dictionary. I'm pretty sure that when we say that "f" is the sound of the "ff" in "off", anyone who knows English can understand what is meant. Sanjay7373 (talk) 18:31, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Common words are better than less-common ones insofar as their spelling and pronunciation are intuitive to readers. Although caff is not a common term, its pronunciation is intuitive, especially in regards to an example word with English . Meanwhile, wye is possibly not so intuitive. Some of the word choices seem motivated by the desire to have a minimal pair. In the case of wye, you get a minimal pair with why We could probably pick a different pair (wine/whine for example). — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:07, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick response. The pronunciation of "caff" may be intuitive, but the use of an uncommon word instead of a common word may be confusing. People reading this may wonder: Why are we using the word "caff"? What in the world does "caff" mean? There are plenty of common English words with the sound "f". Most English speakers will have heard of the word "off". At the same time, many English speakers probably will not have heard of "caff". According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, "caff" is used only in British English. Being an American, I have never heard of the word until I read this page. Similarly, instead of using a not-very-common name like "Ernesto", we could use a word like "earn". I really don't know why we would need seven examples for a single sound. Sanjay7373 (talk) 19:43, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Can you explain to me the motivation for using words like "caff" as opposed to "off" and "if"? Using uncommon words instead of common words won't help our readers, it will just make them confused. Similarly, can you explain what "NURSE", "LETTER", and "COMMA" mean? I am not an expert at phonetics, I simply edited this page to remove confusing/uncommon words that some English speakers may not be familiar with. Can you explain the reason why there are seven examples for the ɜːr sound? What about "coir" - are there any more familiar examples for the ɔɪər sound? Sanjay7373 (talk) 02:44, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That's not really a compelling reason to change it. Still, we could think about creating a minimal pair with, like calf/calve, half/halve, leaf/leave, or surf/serve. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Editors keep slipping in alternative examples with different spelling of the sounds. These are extensively treated in English orthography and do not belong on this page. This page is meant not to deal with spelling, but only pronunciation. A few example words suffice, with phonetic variants as to the position of the sound, like initial, intervocal or final for consonants, and in an open or closed syllable for vowels. We should remove all additional examples that do not represent sound variants. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:11, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Ernesto, justiciable, etc. are there not necessarily to illustrate the sounds per se but to help editors choose the right symbols. They prevent editors who merge /ɜːr/ and /ər/, and /ʌ/ and /ə/, from mistakenly choosing the latter, so those should stay. Nardog (talk) 08:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Sanjay7373 asked: Similarly, can you explain what "NURSE", "LETTER", and "COMMA" mean?
 * That is explained in the Notes section right below the tables. Follow the link. — This is not a social media forum; Wikipedia users are usually expected to read the entire page before starting a discussion. This page has subpages that are archives of previous discussions, but that's probably too much reading stuff. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree with Sanjay7373. Trying to read this article or use it is impossible for a regular person ( lay person). Not only is it written really for some kind of academics in the field of language, but it is far too complicated. It needs simplified and streamlined and rewritten to the level of average readers not familiar with your field of study. Not only that, but i saw some obvious errors such as, some person claiming that we use o and au as the same sound in the usa and canada. NO we usually don't. So it needs corrected as well. i am also strongly recommending a separate page for each different group, ie Brit english, American, Australian, etc. Because it is very confusing to have to read about all of these different pronunciation variations in some sort of big Linguist Academia convention DISCUSSION all in one page. We need our own pages for our different groups. so, please don't trouble us with having to sort thru your linguistic academic orgy, we just need to read it set out in an orderly fashion, for our own country's language group of english. Being such a far flung lot of colonies or former colonies, we hardly speak the same language any more. so unlike other languages, we need our own page for each continent or similar usage group at least. Linked from this article. Meat Eating Orchid (talk) 06:37, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
 * You can list the rest of those errors here. We're not saying that o and au are pronounced the same in USA and Canada but that the o in lot (not in code nor go) is often (though not always) the same as au in autoplay. In most of those dialects, the a in spa also has the same vowel. In England, Wales and Australia, lot, autoplay and spa all have different vowels. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:45, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

vj Sound
I added the sound vj as in view but somebody removed it, not sure why? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logan Sherwin (talk • contribs) 01:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Because unlike in new,  is always pronounced with a yod (unless you speak with a strongly non-standard accent). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 02:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Right. In other words: is always a sequence of two sounds while there is a phonological rule that the initial that precedes the vowel in new is one sound for many. This yod-dropping is quite regular after certain consonants, and  is not one of them. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Separate pages for English Dialects?
I know I’ve brought this up before but it’s worth another try... Why don’t we leave this page, but add more pages for dialects? Maybe we could call this page “Broad English” or something to signify that it is there to reflect all the dialects in a certain way, but make more pages with more specific intent? I think this would be quite useful. Does anybody agree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logan Sherwin (talk • contribs) 03:21, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The short answer is that we have one transcription that accounts for most dialectal differences. We already allow (with limitations) for dialectal transcriptions when they're notable or not derivable from our "broad" transcriptions, but we haven't so far seen much merit in encoding dialect-specific conventions. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:45, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We don't really cover American or Australian English any more. I'm tempted sometimes to add parallel US and UK pronunciations so they'll at least be accurate. Of course, then we'd need to add all the other accents, which is impractical. — kwami (talk) 01:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Schwi merged into schwa and unstressed FLEECE merged into HAPPY
I just noticed Nardog did bot change of all schwis to schwa back in aug 2017, but we still present them as distinct in this key. I'm changing it to indicate that schwi may be written as either schwa or as the KIT vowel. — kwami (talk) 04:23, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Also unstressed FLEECE vowel (as in PEDIGREE) bot merged into the HAPPY vowel. So I've noted that the FLEECE vowel may be written either iː or i, and the RABBIT vowel either ə or ɪ. — kwami (talk) 04:40, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you're talking about. Sounds like you're saying I did a blanket change from ⟨ᵻ, iː⟩ to ⟨ə, i⟩, which I never did.
 * If an unstressed preconsonantal vowel is pronounced with in accents that contrast it with  (Lenin, rabbit, edition, valid), we should transcribe it with ⟨ɪ⟩. If it is pronounced with  in those accents (Lennon, abbot, addition, salad), we should transcribe it with ⟨ə⟩. North American accents indeed tend to realize both of these vowels with a quality higher than, but that's irrelevant because they don't contrast  and  in this position (Flemming & Johnson 2007). Our key is diaphonemic.
 * Likewise, if a final or prevocalic unstressed vowel is tenser or longer than in accents that allow such a contrast, it should be transcribed with . If it is pronounced the same as  in those accents, it should be transcribed with ⟨i⟩, regardless of the etymology. Nardog (talk) 09:32, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, and it would've been fine if you'd done that. You perhaps didn't change all instances of unstressed ⟨ᵻ, iː⟩ to ⟨ə, i⟩, but you changed many. You also messed up the hyphenation in the respellings, so they now often no longer correspond to syllabification. An example of FLEECE and hyphenation is here. (You later fixed the mistake with the schwi.) — kwami (talk) 00:50, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with Nardog. Our guide includes “schwi”. It is spelled with [ɪ], exactly like the KIT vowel (as explained in a footnote). In our “diaphonemic” standard, it is alway spelled like that, so it is wrong to say that it can be “ə or ɪ”. Also, the FLEECE vowel is alway spelled as [iː], so it is wrong to say that it can be “iː or i”. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 11:50, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

No, not "always", just sometimes. Nardog used AWB back in 2017 to mass change unstressed FLEECE to $⟨i⟩$ and often schwi to $⟨ə⟩$, and those errors are still there. I've fixed some, but god knows how many there are. So it the meantime, FLEECE indeed is spelled either “iː or i” and schwi may be spelled “ə or ɪ”. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * If there are erroneous transcriptions, then it is these transcriptions that should be changed, not this guide. This guide cannot describe erroneous transcriptions that might happen to be used in our articles. As per MOS:PRON, it is not only descriptive of what is being used out there, but also a practical guidance how to write English IPA transcriptions. Therefore, a wording like “iː or i” for the vowel would be harmful. A person with a background in the American IPA tradition might take this as a license to transcribe the  vowel as /i/ (e.g. /flis/).
 * Maybe we could add a footnote to the vowel /i/ that some editors use it for unstressed /iː/ as in “pedigree”, and to the  vowel that some editors use it for unstressed /ɪ/ as in “rabbit”, due to dialect differences? But that might already go to far for the advocates of our “diaphonemic” system. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 19:59, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I still think it's a mistake to conflate phonemes across all of English just because they're conflated in RP. The result is that sometimes schwi is transcribed as if it were schwa (per e.g. MW) and sometimes as if it were KIT (per e.g. OED). As a result, our transcription is no longer (dia)phonemic. Perhaps we should merge schwi with schwa instead of with KIT. That might be more accurate for more of the world. — kwami (talk) 00:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Are you saying unstressed /ɪ/—or /ə/, which unstressed /ɪ/ merges to as far as AmE goes (Flemming & Johnson 2007:95)—contrasts with a "schwi"? If so, what are some minimal pairs? And in what varietie(s) of English? Nardog (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

English -or- table
Editors interested in the topics on this page may also be interested in helping to resolve a dispute at Template talk:English -or- table. Thanks! Wolfdog (talk) 12:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Length marks (again)
The postvocalic ⟨r⟩ in our transcriptions makes them look a lot more American than British, especially given the fact that we use ⟨ɛ⟩ and ⟨oʊ⟩ instead of ⟨e⟩ and ⟨əʊ⟩. We may as well go one step further and get rid of the length marks, per American dictionaries. The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English also doesn't use the length marks for AmE (though it does for BrE).

In the US, becomes a free vowel regardless of what it merges with. In New England, it merges with the free whereas in the rest of the US (with very small exceptions) it merges with. In neither case does it remain a British-style checked vowel like.

We suggest that (which aren't even phonemes) contrast with, whereas  and  aren't even transcribed with the same symbols, even though it's precisely those pairs that participate in phonemic length contrasts in many (non-rhotic) varieties of English. Also, is frequently as long as the free vowels before voiced consonants, at least in General British English. By that logic you may as well write it with ⟨æː⟩.

The vast majority of native speakers of English are -tensers, so a separate ⟨i⟩ symbol is anything but useful for them and using it makes the slashes around our transcriptions even more confusing than they are. I know, -tensing is variable in Scotland - but don't they have two or three separate vowels and a contrastive  vowel? They do. So we can't say that we cover Scottish English here, because we don't. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:08, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * We have discussed this three years ago, see Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 20 My opinion has not changed. I still oppose dropping the length symbols.
 * The point of our transcription system is not satisfying our preferred phonemic analysis, but matching reader’s expectations. In dictionaries that use IPA transcriptions, the use of length marks appears to be more common. I do not think this has changed in the past three years. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 10:50, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Phonemic analyses aren't that important here (though of course, mostly belongs to the  phoneme). Anyway, I think that I've come up with enough fresh arguments in favor of dropping the length mark to make my proposal not look like just a repeat of what I said in the past (I am saying that - I'm not saying that you're accusing me of that). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * What on earth is the point of making it look more like "American dictionaries" when most of them don't even use IPA so the only situations where most non-linguists encounter it are non-American/EFL dictionaries, most of which use quantitative–qualitative notations, anyway? Get out of your ivory tower and think of the practical impact. Nardog (talk) 12:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I got "descriptions of AmE" and "American dictionaries" confused in my head when I was writing the post. I guess I should've slept longer. I also believe that omitting the length marks usually coincides with using ⟨e o⟩ for and, and that's something I forgot about. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:46, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * You're missing my point (and Mach's). I'm asking what practical benefit your suggestion would bring. Nardog (talk) 22:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * We'd show a close relation between, and  in AmE.  becomes a free vowel like  and  in all regions (save for New York, where it can be distinct). I don't believe that ⟨ɒ⟩ and ⟨ɑ⟩ are too similar to drop the length marks. If they were, Jack Windsor Lewis would surely know that and retain the length marks in his blogposts.
 * We'd show a close relation (actually, *no difference*) between and  and AmE. Again, I don't believe that ⟨ɜ⟩ is too similar to ⟨ɛ⟩.
 * We'd show that is unambiguously  in the -tensing accents, which is the majority. This also means that readers who wish to use American dictionaries would simply write ⟨i⟩ in all positions. I mean, if we don't differentiate  from  we may as well drop the distinction between  and  (which many speakers don't have anyway, or it's variable). It's overkill anyway, for a system like ours (like the ⟨u⟩-⟨uː⟩ distinction - or indeed, like flapping in LPD and CEPD (not an overkill in itself but *here*), which we don't show). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:49, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Unless you have empirical evidence to back those claims up you're wasting everyone's time. Nardog (talk) 08:22, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Which claims specifically? At least a half of what I said falls under WP:CAPTAINOBVIOUS. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * First, we're not including the length mark to show which vowels are checked and which ones are free or because some letters look too similar. Gimson introduced the quantitative–qualitative system as a compromise between the two camps, and (most likely precisely because of its being a compromise) it has since gained wide acceptance. We're including it because it's widely used.
 * Second, you have yet to demonstrate why removing the length mark would "show a close relation between, and ". ⟨ɒ, ɑ, ɔ⟩ look different anyway, so the fact someone with the father–bother and/or cot–caught merger has to learn the value of each symbol in order to know that some of them might represent the same thing in their accent wouldn't change at all. Same with NURSE: ⟨ɜr⟩ suggests no more similarity to /ər/ than ⟨ɜːr⟩ does.
 * Third, and above all, let's say you did demonstrate with empirical evidence doing away with the length mark would indeed have said effects, then you would still have yet to demonstrate why those effects are significant enough to justify throwing away the current system, which largely mirrors the only IPA notation for English non-linguists are used to seeing. Nardog (talk) 09:10, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with Nardog’s reservations. --mach &#x1f648;&#x1f649;&#x1f64a; 10:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Triple merged in parts of the Southern and Northeastern US
In most of the United States, /ɒr/ is merged with /ɔːr/. In some parts of the Southern and Northeastern US, it is always merged with /ɑːr/. Does that statement mean that in some parts of the Southern and Northeastern US there's a triple merge? --Backinstadiums (talk) 23:20, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
 * No, "some parts of the Southern and Northeastern US" are the rest of the US not referred to by "most". The full quote is: In most of the United States, is merged with, except for a handful of words such as borrow, tomorrow and sorry, which instead have . In some parts of the Southern and Northeastern US, it is always merged with. "Always" is clarifying that it is merged with not just in those handful of words but in all words. Nardog (talk) 04:16, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrong letter bold?
Under weak vowels, I, the E in edition is made bold. Must be an error? I am not fixing this as I am neither familiar with IPA or an English native speaker. SilicaQuartz (talk) 10:38, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
 * is pronounced as /ɪˈdɪʃən/ or /əˈdɪʃən/, so the  being pronounced as /ɪ/ poses no problem. However the second vowel is also pronounced as /ɪ/ as is not bolded, which is strange. I have gone ahead and bolded the first  as well.--Megaman en m (talk) 11:16, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, had no idea it could be pronounced that way, but that makes sense! Issue resolved. And thanks. SilicaQuartz (talk) 13:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

==Discussion at Talk:Ghost of Tsushima § Inclusion of pronunciation respelling and inaccurate (impossible!) IPA key in lead sentence== You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ghost of Tsushima § Inclusion of pronunciation respelling and inaccurate (impossible!) IPA key in lead sentence. Nardog (talk) 18:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Justiciable
Any way we can replace this absolutely bonkers example word with something a bit more... actually a part of the typical English language? Is there some reason I'm missing as to why such a bizarre word has been selected? Wolfdog (talk) 00:46, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * You can see the edit that added the word in question here. Presumably there's a reason the word was chosen over another more common word (like justice), but I don't know what that reason is. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 01:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Hm, yeah. Weird. Well, I'm going to replace it with "justice" with full intentions of being criticized later (and yet full desires that this change will just be accepted without a struggle). Wolfdog (talk) 12:21, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The more I think about it, the more I'm willing to bet it was chosen because of having in the first syllable immediately followed by a second syllable that is stressed. This probably has to do with highlighting the occasional free variation of /ʌ/ and /ə/ in certain unstressed contexts. If this is the case, a more common word would be appreciated. Wolfdog (talk) 12:28, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * See Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key/Archive 4 for why it was added. I've replaced it with trustee. Frustration is probably a more obvious example, but it's analyzed to have /ə/ in GA by RDPCE (and optionally so by Merriam-Webster). Nardog (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * (: That's an interesting archived discussion you linked. I would've personally been on 's side; I've long been in favor of that double-consonant respelling. No native English speaker would mistake that for gemination [something unheard of to most English speakers] except maybe the Welsh.) Wolfdog (talk) 21:30, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Dialect variation
The section has grown to 1877 words, which take over 10 minutes to read. Let's remember that this is the help page for English in general. For more information, we have the dedicated articles already linked at the top of the section. A reader simply looking for “Help:IPA/English” is best helped by following the instruction stated above the tables: "If the words given as examples for two different symbols sound the same to you (for example, if you pronounce cot and caught the same, or do and dew, or marry and merry), you can pronounce those symbols the same in explanations of all words. The footnotes explain some of these mergers."

Why should that not be enough?

I therefore propose to delete this section, keep all detail information in the appropriate articles, and change the footnotes so they point there. ◅ Sebastian 10:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Forgot to include the count for the footnotes. They amount to 1857 words, or another 10 minutes to read. ◅ Sebastian 10:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I generally agree, the section has grown too detailed while most of it overlaps with the footnotes anyway. I'd say go ahead, except the last paragraph of the section should be kept somewhere. Nardog (talk) 08:38, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You mean the one that starts with “Note that place names ...”? I agree that that merits mention here as it centers more on the particular transcription used here than on generalities about dialect variation. However, I find the wording unnecessarily complicated. At the same time, it is unnecessarily narrow, since there are other words that may lend themselves to a dialectal pronunciation. Wouldn't it be more helpful to simply add a footnote to the part quoted above along the lines of “This rule is generally employed in our pronunciation guide, even for local terms such as place names. However, be aware that not all editors may have followed this consistently, so for example if a pronunciation of an English town ending in ‑ford reads /‑fəd/, it doesn't mean that the /r/ would be absent in a rhotic dialect.” For a reader wanting to to recover the local pronunciation we could explicitly refer to the IPA chart for English dialects, which in its lede lists all major dialects, but since that is already linked from the previous paragraph, and the choice to consult information about the dialect in question seems quite obvious, I'd rather leave that out. ◅ Sebastian 12:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

“pronounce those symbols the same”
So, I wanted to start with this project as outlined above, but I realize that it was based on a wrong assumption. The statement “If the words given as examples for two different symbols sound the same to you, you can pronounce those symbols the same in explanations of all words”, which I liked for its simplicity, is not correct. If it were, then someone who pronounces “ladder” like “latter” should also pronounce “dye” like “tye”, which is obviously wrong. Can someone  think of a way to fix that problem? Generally, we seem to make far more distinctions in the footnotes than our examples provide.

Another problem with that statement is that it uses examples which are not among the examples in the list.

So, should we put “do” and other distinguishing words in the list for ? I think it will be very hard to come up with a minimal pair for each of the C (apparently under the unspecified condition /_) cases. +, anyone? Or, maybe we should, instead of listing all possible C /_ for all C, just list /C_ and  /C_ (without distinguishing C)? ◅ Sebastian 11:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Can we not just provide brief (perhaps one-sentence-long) descriptions with links to relevant phonological articles that already do the explaining? For example... For dialects that realize “ladder” and “latter” as homophones, see Flapping. For dialects that realize "do" and "due" as homophones, see Yod-dropping, etc. Wolfdog (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, of course, reducing the text was already implicit in my proposal in the previous section. As you can see from this edit, that's what I had in mind, but I also learned that it's not quite as simple as it may appear at first glance: Sometimes we need to do more than that, since this article is also the appropriate place for at least mentioning differences to other pronunciation guides the reader may have gotten used to. Still, that's not what I'm asking about; I can handle such problems as I encounter them.
 * Now to the more urgent and important topic of this subsection: What about “... you can pronounce those symbols the same”? This is a promise to our readers, which we're not keeping. Is there any way to keep that promise? Or can we replace it by a similar elegant and simple explanation of dialect variation? Or do we have to remove it without substitution? What implications for the organization of the article does this decision entail? This promise functioned a program for the article, which determined how we treated dialect variation in the main text, and should also have impacted the footnotes. We'll really have to think about how to solve this problem. Should we abandon the whole idea of writing the main text so that it easily makes sense to speakers of different dialects, and instead relegate everything that has to do with dialects to the footnotes? In that case, we will have to find our path between the extremes of repeating the same information in many footnotes, forcing readers to continuously skip between main text and footnotes, or giving up discussing dialect variations altogether. ◅ Sebastian 19:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Just found that this promise came from none other than (already back in 2014). That gives me some hope that we should be able to keep it. ◅ Sebastian 20:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, don't have time to respond now. Can you ping me again when you have a solution? — kwami (talk) 21:00, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, kwami, it doesn't make sense to maintain a promise if even the one who wrote it can't give a hint of how to put it in practice. Sadly, the only solution I see for such a case is to remove the statement in question. ◅ Sebastian 13:41, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I gave it a shot. It's important that we have some explanation, because historically people have complained about symbols not reflecting their accent, and we need to be clear that we're trying to cover everyone (except unfortunately the Scots) and that it therefore won't be a perfect match for anyone. — kwami (talk) 21:05, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this is great! It cuts through the Gordian knot of the problems I listed before I invoked you. ◅ Sebastian 09:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

This means drastic cuts
Per the above, it seems undisputed that this article is TLDR and that we need to drastically cut it down. But while we're here preparing to put that in practice, people (pinging Wolfdog, Æµ§œš¹, Nardog) further discuss details as if this didn't affect them. That is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. (BTW, I found this interesting essay on this phrase, which well expresses my respect for the attentive chair-master. We need to keep in mind, though, that we are not specialized chair-masters here, but all “editors”, and everyone's opinion on the overall course of our ship counts.) So, does everybody stand behind those drastic cuts? I am willing to invest considerable time into them, but I need reassurance that they won't be simply reverted per WP:BRD by someone who wants to preserve their arrangement of some deck chairs. ◅ Sebastian 11:45, 3 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I am not sure what "this" in the title of this section exactly refers to, and also have no idea why anyone could think that the article is too long. It contains only a few small paragraphs of text. The table cannot be shortened because it needs to contain all relevant phonemes. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 14:45, 3 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I am also not at all convinced of the need to shorten this article.--Megaman en m (talk) 14:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I understand the impulse to make things more accessible to readers. But when I think about the experience of someone who clicks on one of our IPA transcriptions and is directed here, the first thing they see is the IPA key with roughly ~250 explanatory words preceding it. For a lot of users, this will be enough and they are not compelled to read the section in question to understand the basics of the transcription system. As such, I don't think that the need to trim down has the experience of most of these people at stake. I would not be in favor of removing the whole section.
 * Still, the OP is right that this is a pretty long section, and I suspect that some information isn't as necessary (in the lens of helping readers understand our transcriptions or editors making them) as we've been assuming. Let's be clear here: trimming down this section means we are removing examples, in which case we would have to decide which examples are worthy and which are not.
 * Here are a couple of anecdotes to consider. My girlfriend's family (and my girlfriend around the holidays) clearly exhibit /æ/ raising, but they barely notice at all unless I point it out to them. Another example, I met a fellow from Scotland who didn't realize he contrasted merry, marry, and Mary until I pointed it out to them. It may be the case that the latter half of this section can be trimmed down because a lot of these examples are similar in that speakers who exhibit these unaccounted for contrasts are either already familiar enough with standard varieties to have come to terms with their salient local feature not being represented in pronunciation guides or consciously unaware of them anyway. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:44, 3 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Woodstone: “This” refers to the cuts discussed in this section – see above.
 * Æµ§œš¹: I take ecxeption at your suggestion that these cuts are out of a mere “impulse”, when they are the fruit of diligent considerations and discussions. But thank you for seeing the problem with the section's overall length. Also, I think your anecdote expresses well the intention behind the “pronounce those symbols the same” statement discussed in the last subsection. It is amazing how the synapses we form as a baby prevent us from hearing the obvious; we'd do well to remember that in other walks of life.
 * A fundamental problem we have is that each of us has to rely on our intuition to assess how the average reader will read, perceive and understand what we write. That's a problem with Wikipedia as a whole (which may be why we have no guideline (at least to my knowledge) as to how to treat readers, while treatment of other editors is one of our pillars). But it's particularly grave in the case of this page, because those of us who edit it most will rarely feel the need to click on one of our IPA transcriptions, which means that we're further removed from the reader's needs than when we edit an article like English-language vowel changes before historic /r/.
 * Anyway, I see from the reactions that my concerns were justified: There are objections to the sweeping changes I had planned, so I will refrain from them. ◅ Sebastian 01:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I suggest you create what you're proposing in the user namespace and then ask for opinions. Without seeing what it is that you're actually proposing we can neither approve nor veto it in any practical way. Nardog (talk) 00:36, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I fully second Nardog's suggestion. And a hearty lmao to Sebastian's outrageously flamboyant Titanic analogy. Wolfdog (talk) 00:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

/i/ and /u/
, you've mentioned elsewhere that the Help:IPA/English key defines /u/ and /i/ as weak vowels that can appear only in unstressed prevocalic or word-final positions. Actually, I don't see the prevocalic bit anywhere on this page, and it didn't automatically occur to me. If that's what users have agreed upon, can we add it to a footnote? Wolfdog (talk) 02:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing this up. /Archive 22#/i, u/ is probably what was on my mind when I said that. AFAIK no dictionary besides LPD uses /i/ (that is distinct from /iː, ɪ/) in because etc. so the current wording effectively already implies that, but for clarity's sake the note on /i, u/ can be reworded as something to the effect of ⟨i⟩ represents variation between and in unstressed prevocalic or morpheme-final positions. ... ⟨u⟩ likewise represents variation between  and  in unstressed prevocalic positions. provided, of course, there are no objections. Nardog (talk) 04:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

what the hell is /ɒ
How does one say /ɒfiˈjuːkəs/ -- is /ɒ sound like OH? what's the / indicate? GenacGenac (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It indicates the vowel of LOT. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 23:43, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * See an explanation of the slashes here. Wolfdog (talk) 02:23, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2020
Change: In the Consonants, the IPA "k" has two examples "sky, crack" - "sky" should be removed, as the 'k' sound is sky is not the same as the 'c' or 'ck' sounds in crack. The 'k' sound in "sky" is almost like a 'g' sound in comparison, when spoken. 90.246.5.94 (talk) 15:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * ❌. Please familiarize yourself with what a phoneme is before making such requests. Sky is listed there precisely to illustrate the breadth of sounds /k/ may represent. Nardog (talk) 15:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Rationale for /ər-/
I notice that in our diaphonemic system we render a word like camera as rather than. Can someone please explain, or just direct me to a previous discussion explaining, the rationale behind this? Wolfdog (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As the note explains, /ər/ is subject to compression to /r/ before weak vowels, so in those environments (e.g. your example) there's reason to favor . When followed by a full vowel, however, chances are /ə/ and /r/ are better analyzed as heterosyllabic and do not form a syllabic consonant even in accents where that's a possibility, so I'd use  . Nardog (talk) 12:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, OK, I see that now in the comment-in-question's final sentence: When not followed by a vowel, /ər/ merges with /ə/ in non-rhotic accents. Should we then add a sentence along the lines of: However, when followed by a full vowel, we transcribe /ə/ and /r/ as separate phonemes? Wolfdog (talk) 16:25, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd find that WP:CREEPy. The current final sentence is just a statement of fact that helps readers and editors alike whereas your suggested sentence is an instruction, and its presence or absence has no effect on the truth of the former whatsoever. Nardog (talk) 16:35, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I see your point. I guess my thinking is "Where do Wikipedians (like myself obviously) go who want to edit using the diaphonemic system but are trying to follow the many, many rules/compromises that editors have previously agreed upon? Wikipedians, that is, who want to learn about those rules so they can follow them carefully." Is this not that place? Wolfdog (talk) 16:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

/ǝr/ Phoneme
Shouldn't /ǝr/ be included under syllabic consonants? Matthewmorrone1 (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In a way, yes. But things are complicated enough with that listing it separately from the other syllabic consonants is more helpful to our readers. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  18:14, 27 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The of history should. The  of letter and forward is subject to r-dropping in non-rhotic accents. We should make a clearer distinction between the two. Sol505000 (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)


 * The recommended pronunciation of history in Wells's pronunciation dictionary is rather than  or, for both RP and General American. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Rationale for /ɜːr/ versus /ər/
The page reads: Word-initially, /ər/ never occurs, giving way to /ɜːr/. Where there is a free variation between /ɜːr/ and /ər/ in RP, it is acceptable to transcribe only the more common variant (e.g. /ər/ for persona). Can someone please explain, or just direct me to a previous discussion explaining, the rationale behind this? Wolfdog (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is the edit that introduced it and /Archive 24#Unstressed NURSE seems to discuss what inspired it. I don't remember an explicit consensus being built for it, but I nonetheless find the instruction reasonable. Nardog (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the links. I don't think that archived discussion really applies to word-initial /ər/. 's edit may apply, however, he at that point said nothing directly about how Word-initially, /ər/ never occurs. That's what I'm specifically asking about. Where did we get that rule from? Wolfdog (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, you were asking about that part too? Those two sentences are talking about separate things. Obviously /ər/–/ɜːr/ in persona is not word-initial, and if /ər/ never occurred word-initially it could not possibly be in free variation with /ɜːr/ word-initially. AFAIK Kbb added the first part simply based on observation of dictionary entries, as discussed here. I think he was trying to help editors correctly choose between /ɜːr/ and /ər/, which is not easy when all you've got is unstressed [ɚ] in a rhotic accent. But if you think it's OR I don't mind it being removed. Nardog (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'll read that discussion soon. I appreciate all the digging for my sake. Wolfdog (talk) 07:01, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Edward Elgar
Could watchers here take a look at Talk:Edward Elgar? Nardog (talk) 21:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. Wolfdog (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Urdu
In article Urdu the name of the language is given as with diaphonemic  as in tour. That seems to suggest that the word is pronounced with in certain styles of RP, but Wells's dictionary only indicates RP pronunciations with  and. Which is wrong: My understanding, the explanation of our transcription, or Wells's transcriptions? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:10, 9 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The cure–force merger is clearly lexically conditioned. See e.g. Wells (1982: 287–8), Collins et al. (2019: 98, 170), Cruttenden (2014: 156), Lindsey (2019: 48). Mourn originally had /ʊə/ but that's now archaic. /ʊə/ after /Cj/, as in cure, was resistant to the change but it no longer is. But this is reverse in Singapore English, where cure, pure more often have [ɔ] than poor, tour.
 * So the change is clearly gradual and varied, and the merger may never be complete in any accent at all. So we can either say /ʊər/ in transcriptions may or may not merge with /ɔːr/ and not explicitly include /ɔːr/ variants, or indicate the variants wherever applicable. The former may defeat the whole point of documenting pronunciation and providing guidance, while the latter may be impossible to do consistently since it varies both by word and by accent. Perhaps the most practical approach is the middle-of-the-road one, i.e. saying /ʊər/ might represent /ɔːr/ in some words in some accents while condoning explicit inclusion of /ɔːr/ variants subject to editorial discretion and consensus.
 * (In addition to /ʊər/, yod-dropping has also been on my mind as possibly challenging the stability of the diaphonemic system. LPD reports 84% of BrE speakers preferred /sj/ in assume yet 72% preferred /s/ in suit. CEPD and LPD do not agree on whether yod-dropping is more common in leukaemia, lewd, lieu, lucid, lure, lurid, etc. To a lesser extent, /ɪ/ vs /ə/ and, to a lesserer extent, /ʊ/ vs /ə/ also pose a challenge; I bet few British speakers, even those who distinguish Lenin and Lennon, still maintain /ɪ/ in system, diet, etc. or /ʊ/ in beautiful, regular, etc.) Nardog (talk) 01:18, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
 * (Language is so annoyingly (and wonderfully) fluid. Wolfdog (talk) 02:11, 10 January 2021 (UTC))

ð as in "thy"?
That's what shows up on articles such as Wythenshawe when you mouse over the IPA pronunciation in the lede. Would it not be better to use an example word that's in current, everyday use in standard English, rather than one that's restricted to literature and regional dialect? Better examples I point to include "the", "them", "those", "that", "this", "than", and "then". What do you think? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Probably the person who chose that did so because "thy" vs. "thigh" is one of the very few minimal pairs for the voiced-voiceless contrast in English. (The others tend to be by grammatical function: "wreath" noun vs. "wreathe" verb, etc.) AnonMoos (talk) 18:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * ThunderingTyphoons! said "when you mouse over the IPA pronunciation." In and almost any other transcription users don't have access to both "'th' as in 'thy'" and "'th' as in 'thigh'" as a tooltip, so minimal pairs don't seem to make much sense there. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:08, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. I also don't even see the relevance of such a pairing when the pronunciations in question are the ones featured in articles, usually placenames but not always. When I try to find out the pronunciation of Wythenshawe, I don't care if "thy" is a voiced version of "thigh", I want to know how to pronounce Wythenshawe! If the use of a particular word in an explanatory balloon makes it more difficult to understand a pronunciation, then regardless of any other reasons for using that word, the word should be changed. Use a word that everybody even semi-proficient in English knows what the correct pronunciation sounds like, like "the" or any of the others, and there are no problems at all.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 09:14, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Changes to the tooltips are effected by editing the phoneme data of template at Module:IPAc-en/phonemes, and the place to discuss that is Template talk:IPAc-en. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 14:56, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and changed it to this. Seems uncontroversial. Nardog (talk) 09:35, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

apparent typo?
under Weak Vowels

ɪ	edition

should be:

ɪ	edition

AdamChirnside (talk) 18:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That is not an error. Weak vowels are always unstressed. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In the word "edition" the weak ɪ is stressed. Moreover, the e in edition does not make an ɪ sound, but the first i does. AdamChirnside (talk) 00:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Depends on speaker/dialect. Some say . Some say . Some say . etc. To clarify in case of confusion and to make sure that editors know which way to transcribe so that our IPA transcriptions are consistent across the project, this example illustrates that we are transcribing this vowel as ⟨ɪ⟩. That is what this example is showing. So it's not a typo. It's a deliberate choice. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of any accent where people say but fair enough I guess. AdamChirnside (talk) 09:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Wells transcribes the initial vowel of edition with the symbol of the vowel ⟨i⟩ in the LPD, and a variant pronunciation with the symbol of the  vowel ⟨ə⟩, but if he can be trusted it is not the case that the word starts with an  that is not the result of variation of the  vowel. Words like begin and effect are treated similarly, though the order of the  and  vowel symbols is not always the same. Perhaps we'd better take a less controversial word like inert to illustrate weak . Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:25, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That would negate the contrast with addition, which is the sole reason edition is listed in the first place. Wells started using ⟨i⟩ preconsontantally only in the third edition of LPD (2008), and nobody has followed suit. Nardog (talk) 17:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Does the /kh/ sound as the voiceless velar fricative in English?
I do not know — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agustin Sepulveda Venegas 2004 Fan (talk • contribs) 14:06, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

Northern Ireland
It’s odd to see no mention of the SQUARE-NURSE and NOW-NIGH mergers when it comes to Northern Ireland, especially considering that the article suggests the ‘PUT vowel’ and ‘LOOSE vowel’ are fully merged in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, which is blatantly untrue, as the merger is only partial in Northern Ireland, in particular, and Scotland. Other than that an excellent article (though I’m also of the opinion that as far as the ‘STRUT vowel’ and ‘schwa’ are concerned, that’s a distinction in need of a difference)Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:45, 7 April 2021 (UTC)