Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 4

"balm, father, pa"
All three of these words, "balm, father, pa," have the same vowel? In what dialect of English? Furthermore, isn't the A in "father" the same vowel as the Spanish /a/ (in American English, anyway)? If so, IPA for Spanish says that the correct symbol for that vowel is [a], not [ɑː]. Even if it's not, [a] isn't anywhere on the chart, just [ɑː] and [æ], and I do believe that English and Spanish both have the [a] noise... RobertM525 (talk) 05:53, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * You're right. For some dialects, balm and father are [a]. (They're all [ɑː] in RP and GA.) kwami (talk) 07:09, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But in those dialects, pa has the same vowel. I don't think there's any accent where pa and father have different vowels - except those where the hypocoristic is "paw" rather than "pa". —Angr 16:11, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Maybe we should just remove pa then? kwami (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think so; it's very unstable. Spa, bra, and shah might be better examples. —Angr 20:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would not be happy with bra- I've heard it spoken with what sounds like the first vowel in father (my idiolect0 but also to rhyme with Shaw.

Kdammers (talk) 10:33, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

r vs. ɹ
I have reviewed a made in 2005 on the IPA main page, is it just outdated, because it clearly makes the distinction between the alveolar approximant, ɹ, and the alveolar trill, r, which is represented by the spanish rr dipthong( as I was discussing with kwami on his talk page). Bugboy52.40 (talk)


 * When the discussion is restricted to English, it is acceptable to use "r" to stand for the alveolar approximant as no confusion can arise. Eminent, well-respected phoneticians like Peter Ladefoged and John C. Wells do so in their published materials. —Angr 20:26, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As I just said on my talk page, you could make a similar argument about every symbol in the chart. (Angr, can you think of a single symbol that is inarguably correct?) When using [brackets], there's a question of how precise the transcription is. However, symbols between /slashes/ are even less defined, as they stand for abstractions and have no fixed correlation to sound. We could write the seven pure vowels /♠♣♥♦¶¤₪/ if we wanted (though that would be highly impractical). There's a convention to use ASCII and other typologically simple symbols when this causes no confusion. In English, this includes /r/ for ; for Hindi, it includes /c/ for ; and for Japanese, it includes /u/ for a sound which has no IPA symbol. kwami (talk) 20:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Inarguably correct? I suppose people can argue about anything if they put their minds to it, but I can't think of a way to improve upon [p], [t], [k] as symbols for the second consonants of spy, sty, and sky respectively. And [s] itself for the first consonant of those words is probably about as accurate a transcription as you can hope for. But otherwise of course you're right; the significance of phonetic symbols is relative to the other symbols used for the language in question, not absolute. (From time to time people come to Talk:Irish phonology to complain that the sound transcribed isn't the same as the French and Spanish sounds transcribed with the same letter. It never seems to bother them that the sound transcribed [i] in English isn't the same as the French and Spanish sounds transcribed with the same letter, either.) —Angr 21:00, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah yes, ess. And a few others too now that I think about it. But spy sty sky are either the same phonemes as in pie tie chi, which we could write, as in by die guy, or archiphonemes . kwami (talk) 21:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Though, I might not completely understand you, but I can still argue that making exception to avoid confusion, in itself, may be still confusing. for example, someone who is Spanish and is learning English. And what about other IPA characters, like ɔ, it looks more like an up-side down c that would be an spelled witho in English. Well to conlcude what I have to say, for a phonetic alphabet, making exceptions defeats its purpose. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bugboy52.40 (talk • contribs)
 * There is no such thing as a truly phonetic representation of any language--every phonetician makes generalizations. Such generalizations are actually quite necessary or else the overall transcriptions would be unreadably complex (I've seen attempts and they aren't pretty).  Indeed, these generalizations must take into account the infinite variations found among individual native speakers and even with the same speaker from instantiation to instantiation.  Vowels are especially prone to this.  Vowels are really not points on a format chart, but ranges on that chart.  During my fieldwork on Timbisha, I heard the same speaker pronounce /ɨ/ as [ɪ], [ɨ], [ə], [ʌ], and [ɯ] within the same word.  All phonetic transcriptions of a language with more than one speaker uttering one word must include generalizations.  Using r instead of ɹ or (my) ɻ or ɹʷ or whatever else is an acceptable generalization.  If using r for English /ɹ/ means that Spanish speakers are not comprehensible when they say [kɑr] instead of [kɑɹ] then there is a problem, but that is not the case.  My wife speaks Russian natively and rolls all kinds of r's in her speech, but everyone comprehends her just fine.  Granted, a perfect English transcription system might use /ɹ/ (even though Scots speakers use [r]), but perfection is not always practical or attainable.  (Taivo (talk) 20:56, 21 January 2009 (UTC))


 * [e.c.; responding to Bugboy] In English the sounds [ɹ] and [r] (perhaps in a Scottish accent) are allophones; the two represent a single phoneme. We usually provide a single phonemic representation of a word in an article, rather than enumerate it phonetically in a half-dozen English varieties, certainly in an article which is not about English phonetics.  In such a case, it is clear and sensible to choose the simple letter /r/.  This is a common convention, not novel to Wikipedia. —Michael Z. 2009-01-21 20:58 z 


 * Bugboy, you mean, if we represent with /r/, why don't we represent  with /o/? Because /o/ is used for  and  in various traditions, and so would be confusing to native English speakers. We decided to avoid the basic vowels /a e i o u/ altogether due to the conflict between quantity transcription, where /a e i o u/ represent, and quality transcription, where /a e i o u/ represent . A lot of entries would be screwed up if we chose either one. kwami (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * As you can see, I was trying to reason with your reasoning that it is less confusing to use r instead of ɹ, so I thought, why not use an actual o to represent an o for English, because it is much more simaliar. But I never considered what you brought up, but leaves the question, why is it called an international and a phonetic alphabet, meanwhile it is niether truelly phonetic (not taking into consideration that how complex an actual phonetic alphabet would be), nor international if it varies to consider generalization for each language and dialect? Now, not to stray(or bother you/waste your time) but the |IPA chart shows to use ɹ.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bugboy52.40 (talk • contribs) 22:14, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Read broad transcription. kwami (talk) 22:37, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Whatever chart you are linking to, Bugboy, doesn't exist. English is not the only language to use r as a convenient (and ASCII friendly) substitution for [ɹ], [ɻ], [ɺ], etc. in a "phonetic" transcription.  In Numic language transcriptions, we use r for [ɾ], and across Australia, it is used for [ɻ].  It is just quite convenient and is, in many respects, international.  (Taivo (talk) 00:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC))

"ʔ" in cockney and jafaican
It should perhaps be noted that the glottal stop appears in these dialects around London. I have no sources for this, but I think it should be mentioned.--86.168.120.171 (talk) 13:57, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that we can do without that information. This is an attempt to represent a pan-dialectal phonemic inventory and the glottal stop is not only allophonic in Cockney and Jafaican, but such speakers are very likely to understand speech that does not incorporate such allophony (e.g, an intervocalic  where they would have the glottal stop).  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]  17:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Agreed. This isn't an exhaustive article about English phonology which should cover every accent.  It's just a general quick reference. (Does it belong in the Help namespace)? —Michael Z. 2009-01-24 17:11 z 
 * It's bounced back and forth between WP: namespace and Help: namespace. Someone said the Help: namespace is just for help with using the MediaWiki software and markup language. Help:IPA for English still redirects here, in case anyone is looking for it there. —Angr 17:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Good enough, thanks. —Michael Z. 2009-01-24 17:54 z 

Allophones, Dark el, Retfolex Consonants
Does anyone here not think that it would be most useful to:
 * Indicate that when transcribing English, the r which is shown acctualy reperesents an ipa ɹ in a way which is more clear than just a small footnote at the bottom?
 * Mention the differences between dark and light els (to avoid confusion when people see the left and ball in the l pronounciation?
 * Mention about retroflex consonants somwhere in the article?
 * Explain why it is sensible to use an r for ɹ (it just confuses Spanish and Slavic people who are learning to pronouce English)
 * Explain how one is meant to transcribe Scottish dialects when English and Scottish people are now being forced to use the same r?

I realise that allophones are not covered, but then why is ʍ shown (some southerners seem to fail to pronounce it).

One could even argue that θ and ð are becoming allophones of either each other, or of f and v. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spacevezon (talk • contribs) 19:58, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This isn't an article about English phonology. This is a guide to how the IPA is used to transcribe English words at Wikipedia. /r/ stands for whatever sound you use for the initial consonant in a word like "red", regardless of whether it's, , , , [w], or anything else. Likewise /l/ covers all the relevant allophones; we don't need to mention here because it isn't (or shouldn't be) used in the pronunciation guides in Wikipedia articles. The same goes for the retroflex consonants (which apart from  are used only in Indian English).  is shown because it is a distinct phoneme, not an allophone of another phoneme, in dialects that distinguish "which, whine, whether" from "witch, wine, weather". I don't know of any dialect of English where /θ/ and /ð/ are at risk of merging into a single phoneme, nor any dialect outside England where they're at risk of merging with /f/ and /v/. —Angr 20:25, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * First of all, is not the only retroflex which is used outside Indian English -  is used in all dialects which I know of, including RP. Second of all, should we not at least mention the differences between l and ɫ and indicate that they are both transcriped as l in wikipedia? That way people will get less confused.


 * isn't a retroflex, it's a labiodental. And why would anyone get confused about [l] and when they're allophonic and the distribution is predictable? If we say that /l/ represents both the sound of light and the sound of bell then people will realize that the one symbol covers both sounds (and I bet very few people even notice that they make two different sounds in those words). —Angr 21:53, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with Angr. This isn't a catalogue of English phones, but a quick reference chart for readers, to the simplest possible phonemic representation to help with pronunciation guides in articles.  It should be pared down as much as possible, not exhaustive.


 * Explanatory notes which are not critical for its use should follow the chart, and rationale should probably be on a different page altogether. A list of phones which are covered by each phoneme may be recorded, but this is supplementary. —Michael Z. 2009-02-09 22:16 z 


 * And IPA chart for English dialects is the place for dialectal information. —Michael Z. 2009-02-09 22:19 z 

ʍ → hw, (h)w
I believe most wh- words are pronounced with /w/ in most dialects, so this symbol is rarely used. Instead of using the unfamiliar m-looking glyph in these few entries, why not make it easier on readers and use the extremely intuitive /hw/? This would also make it easy to indicate variation with /(h)w/. OED does exactly that. —Michael Z. 2009-02-09 20:56 z 
 * I'm in favor. I always thought using the symbol "" was dumb. —Angr 21:23, 9 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm also in favor of /hw/, but not /(h)w/. Since the difference is automatic to the speaker, it's not an optional distinction the way say 'vase' may be or, and we don't place other letters in parentheses when they are automatically dropped in some dialects. (For example, we don't transcribe 'house' as *.) kwami (talk) 00:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I changed it on 8 articles that began with wh. There are probably a few proper names where wh appears in the second word, but I'm not going to bother looking for them. Then there are longer lists that will have it too, but we can clean those up as we come across them. kwami (talk) 00:56, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Also in the articles Fortition, Digraph (orthography), Hawaiian language, Kingdom of Whydah, List of names in English with counterintuitive pronunciations, 


 * /hw/ and /ʍ/ are distinct sounds (voicing) and the standard English phonologies I'm familiar with do not permit an /hw/ in any position. The OED doesn't use the IPA, hence the use of the digraph. Using /hw/ and calling it IPA is inaccurate. 'Whale' and 'wail' in some dialects would not be minimal pairs—and they are—if /hw/ were used.  Can we give this a little more thought?Synchronism (talk) 03:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)


 * We're defining /hw/ to be, so unless you can think of words that contrast /hw/ and , this isn't a problem. The sound is historically /hw/, and some analyse it that way today. It's really no different that /hj/, as is hue, which phonetically can be a voiceless approximant. kwami (talk) 03:12, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Uh, they (/hw/ /ʍ/) and don't contrast in English, but they may elsewhere.  Nonetheless they are still distinct sounds.  There is also a phonemic argument in favor of upside-down em, thus the point about minimal pairs.  /hj/ is similar in terms of a shared limited distribution but I think they ([ʍ] /hj/) are quite different in that the onset of 'hue' is /h/ and that/ju/ is parsed into the nucleus. Synchronism (talk) 04:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if /hw/ and /ʍ/ may contrast elsewhere. We are only defining this for English.  Using /hw/ for this actually makes infinitely more sense than /ʍ/ because there is an ongoing process which started with /hw/, /hn/, /hl/, and /hr/ and has been losing the initial /h/ ever since.  The modern dialects which have /w/ for this are just the leading edge of the continuing process of losing the /h/.  (Taivo (talk) 05:14, 10 February 2009 (UTC))
 * The purpose of IPA for English is primarily to assist pronunciation in a uniform manner, not to document language change or be true to Old English. Initial /h/ is lost. We're trying to be descriptive not prescriptive, right?


 * "Infinitely more sense" reads like an exaggeration at best considering the initial arguments for the proposed changes included "using the symbol "ʍ" was dumb". Synchronism (talk) 05:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Assisting in the pronunciation is correct and since most English speakers easily recognize /hw/, then it serves the purpose, just as /r/ instead of /ɹ/ does. (Taivo (talk) 06:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC))

Hmm. Broad transcriptions are preferred by the MOS, but I don't think this is about broad or narrow. Yet, for most speakers, those without the sound in their inventories and use it artificially, their pronunciation would be more like /hw/, or even /həw-/ incorrectly. I am still not convinced that the use of /hw/ is an accurate transcription for the communities that do have a voiceless labio-velar approximant contrasting with a voiced labio-velar approximant in their present speech or that ʍ is confusing or over the head of the average reader.Synchronism (talk) 06:52, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Phonetically, the difference between /hw/ and /ʍ/ is only voice-onset time. I seriously doubt that there is any language that distinguishes the two.  Ladefoged and Maddieson state, "No language that we know of contrasts a voiceless labial-velar fricative and a non-fricative ʍ, just as no language contrasts the voiceless lateral approximant and the voiceless lateral fricative."  While this says no language contrasts [ʍ] and [xʷ], it seems to be a reasonable extension to [hw], especially since Germanic *hw started out as *xw.  In one of the languages I specialize in (Timbisha), both /hʷ/ and /hw/ are found at the phonemic level--there is an underlying morphological boundary between the segments in the latter.  Phonetically, however, they are identical.  (Taivo (talk) 07:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC))
 * Speaking as someone who uses /hw/ natively and non-self-consciously, I must say (1) I have always intuitively felt it to be a consonant cluster, /h/ + /w/, not a single consonant, and (2) in my accent at least, it's a voiceless approximant, not a fricative, so if anything we should be transcribing it, not . And speaking as a linguist with a fair amount of experience in the field of English dialectology, I must say I've never seen proposed as a phoneme of English (as opposed to the surface realization of /hw/) anywhere but Wikipedia. Saying "I always thought using the symbol  was dumb" may not have been a particularly strong argument, but there are reasons behind it. —Angr'' 07:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 * to a page with name "User:yourname/monobook.js". &minus;Woodstone (talk) 23:18, 11 February 2009 (UTC)


 * That is pretty cool. Does it work on all the main browsers?  Should we see if we can add it to everyone's JS? —Michael Z. 2009-02-11 23:46 z 


 * I don't get it. What do I have to do to get it to work? I put it in my monobook.css, but I don't see any effect.


 * Anyway, we can't ask every reader to add this into their account, and I doubt it would be kosher to add it into everyone's, including anon. IPs. kwami (talk) 00:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Reload, then hover over any unlinked text formatted with class=IPA. It will add the non-alphabetic characters to the tooltip.


 * Of course if it performs well across browsers then it could be added to MediaWiki:Common.js or as a gadget in the user Preferences. —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 01:36 z 


 * Nope, nothing. The code is visible in my css, and I tried on the IPA on this project page, but all I got is the standard popup saying it's in the IPA. I even tried just IPA class w/o the IPA formatting template (here: ɪʊəɛɔɑɒ ) and I get nothing at all. kwami (talk) 02:43, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Woodstone, you only see 8 letters hovering over which part of the key? That might be all there is. kwami (talk) 00:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (I did not realise that every coloured letter in the key has its own different pop-up. That is rather unusual for pop-ups. How many people would find out? Anyway the selective script seems to be the way to go. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:35, 12 February 2009 (UTC))


 * Okay, I see it now. Might be best to display only the IPA key, rather than the whole notice. If we can put this in by default, so that the casual visitor benefits, and those of us who want to can override it (maybe a toggle in gadgets), that would be perfect. Plus a few if-then lines for the rhotic vowels. kwami (talk) 03:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've modified a copy at User:Mzajac/IPA.js. Changed the text format slightly, added some more characters to the key.  I think I'll remove the craZY cAps – readability suffers, especially lAW and mAId.


 * It occurs to me that the tooltip appears over IPA representing any language, but this set of symbols is intended for English. Ideally, we would add HTML language metadata to IPA (  for English); then we could have the appropriate key for the content appear (or not).


 * What exactly about the rhotic vowels? —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 06:53 z 


 * There are tens of thousands of articles with IPA formating. How are we going to go through and encode each for the proper language?
 * The IPA-en should add a class ("IPA-en"?) that the tool can recognise. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I suppose s.o. here knows how to format the class, maybe by transcluding from class IPA? I wouldn't even know where to start looking. kwami (talk) 10:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The IPA templates should apply language attributes which can be used in modern CSS (and a class attribute for formatting in poor old MS Internet Explorer). Since they all inherit lang="en" from the page anyway, the default should be set to the more-specific lang="en-fonipa".  An optional language attribute would take a language code like fr, and set lang="fr-fonipa" (as well as changing the class to IPA-fr).


 * Ideally, the CSS and Javascript would respond to the language attributes (with supplementary code for MSIE). In practice, I suppose it will just use the class.


 * This would be a major infrastructure update. If we like this idea, we should write it up at WP:IPA and post a note at MediaWiki talk:Common.css and Template talk:IPA. —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 15:18 z 


 * Rhotic vowels are transcribed on different principals than non-rhotic vowels, so they all need to be listed separately. But if a symbol comes up for a rhotic vowel, I imagine we wouldn't want it to come up again for a non-rhotic vowel which doesn't occur in the transcription. kwami (talk) 07:08, 12 February 2009 (UTC)


 * So, e.g. if a transcription contains /ɜr/ her, then the tooltip shouldn't also display /ɜ/ deux, right? It already works that way, because it always displays a two-character key, in favour of its first character in isolation.  Just have to add the right data.  It doesn't currently support 3 or more character keys, like /ɔər/ boar, or brackets for optional sounds like /ɔ(ə)r/, but these could be added. —Michael Z. 2009-02-12 15:18 z 

← Cool, but few people would realize that each letter is a different key, so we could use just one, such as IPA, or some tweak thereof? --A. di M. (talk) 01:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If you actually read the discussion above, you'd realize that most of it is spent on dealing with the problem that some browsers have a (rather short) limit on the length of the displayed part of the tooltip. That's why it was split to three pieces in the first place. — Emil J. 13:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No, A. di M. is right. I made the letters different colors to draw people's attention, but most readers will probably just wonder why they're different colors, without ever discovering the key. Nohat's javascript is the superior solution, IMO.


 * One potential problem: does it force the browser to use an IPA-compatible font, or are some readers just going to see a bunch of boxes? (I think that will be a problem with my approach as well.)


 * Is there any way to add Nohat's js to the IPA-en template? kwami (talk) 23:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

improper reference
That's in Gimson that 'r' used for run. IPA uses ɹ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.236.56.74 (talk) 11:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It isn't just Gimson. Lots of well respected phoneticians and phonologists use /r/ to represent the English r-sound, especially (as here) at the phonemic/broad-transcription level. —Angr 20:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)