Help talk:IPA/English/Archive 9

code switching
from a user's talk page addressed to Kudpung:

''In order to continue, I need to know whether you have linking or intruding ar or not, something you've so far refused to say. Without that, I can't evaluate your claim. So, would you, speaking your best (snobbiest?), say "Worcester is home" (or any appropriate linking environment) with an /r/ before "is"? If you don't, would it be considered correct to do so? Then, take "Anglia is home" -- is there an /r/ there? If there is, is that considered correct? kwami (talk) 12:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)''

First and foremost, to set the record straight, the claims are not mine; several  Wikipedians, among  them the micromanagers of Wikipedia Projects,  have suggested on  this discussion  and on  other talk  pages that  there may  be some weaknesses in the way  the Wikipedia assumes that  British  place names should be transliterated into  the IPA, and because they  are probably  not linguists, it  has not  been possible for them  to  express their concern in a way  that  the linguists here can understand and address in  simple, non lingo-technical terms.

For the benefit of readers of this thread who  are not  linguists, and to  answer the question  in italics above: My  best, snobbiest  RP does NOT pronounce the linking  r at  the end of Worcester when the next  word begins with  a vowel. There are in fact several kinds of RP and they have all changed over the last  60 years since I started speaking  and was educated in  awfully rather posh schools. That 'posh' unlinked r is how BBC newscasters spoke in  the 50s and how the Queen still speaks when reading  from  a prepared script - such as her speech  at  the opening of the parliamentary  session,  and her Christmas speech  to  the nation,  and on other formal occasions. In more private circles and when on  a walk-about, her speech has become a tiny  bit  more laid back,  while two  generations later, her grandchildren William  and Harry  speak much the same as any reasonably  well  educated kids of their generation. The accent of their father, Prince Charles, is still in many ways, more affected (snobbish) than that of his mother, the Queen. Contrary to some popular ideas expressed on this encyclopedia and elsewhere, nobody  in  Britain is in a hurry  to speak with the same accent  of the Queen. A form or RP, or regionally and socially devoid accent, is becoming exponentially  widespread in  the land, and regional accents among the younger genrations are becoming barely  discernible.

However, in TESOL, for example, we expose our students to  a wide variety  of English  accents to  enable them  to  even distinguish  words from the worst  American slur, to  perfectly  fluent, but  educated, native Indian  English, and Thai and Chinese English gibberish (Tinglish  & Chinglish). What I teach them is a more modern RP without  the awful  affectations of the 40s and 50s, but  they  very  often have to  learn the bulk of their pronunciation  from  either their indigenous non-native English  speaking teachers, or from  native English  TEFLers who  may speak with a strong  American or British  regional or cultural  bias, and are not  capable of code switching to  any  form  of RP. Generally, the IPA is only of interest  to  those who  need a pronunciation reference across several langauges. Anyone just learning  one second language just  has to 'listen and repeat'  in the traditional  way, with some help  from the teacher in the physical aspects of producing  some sounds that  may  be new to the learner. Very few second langauge learners will ever achieve even a near native pronunciation, it's rarely  necessary, and their utterances will allmost  always be coloured by  traces of their own first  language accent. You can be in  a conference room full of mixed nationalities all speaking perfectly  fluent French for example, but  you  will  notice their origins from their accents. In TESOL, (outside the US), frequent  use of the IPA is made because many  exams, including TESOL certification, demand it. (just so  you  know, in my  university I taught phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax in  the Graduate School). Unlike some of the IPA specialists that  contribute to the IPA articles in  the Wikipedia, they  are not  expected to  become perfectly  fluent  in their use of it. They will however, be able to look at  a word of up to,  say, three sylables, and recognise quite accurately  how it  will sound. One side effect of learning the IPA is that  because it  is a script, it  can be an immense help in preparing  learners how to  use non  Roman scripts. Musicians score quite well when learning the IPA because they  have already  learned to  read a language in a non  Roman script that  represents sounds: that  of music. Generally, the IPA is a working tool for teachers, linguists, and students learning  several  languages simultaneously. It does not  demand total understanding of it as a stand-alone subject, any more than I  speak  fluent  Thai, without  a university  degree in it, for running my  business here. One of the problems in this discussion has been as far as I  can see, is that  the non  linguists here have been brushed off and scared away  by  a lot  of technical gibberish by IPA specialists who consider any  non IPA experts as complete idiots, failed linguists,  and trolls.
 * 1) It has been my suggestion that  the IPA transcription  of British  place names should represent  as closely  as possible, the natural way that  most  speakers in  that  country would pronounce it, or at  least  most  easily  recognise it  wen hearing  it. This means that  more attention  should be given to  the questions of Who are the readers of the IPA articles? and What  are their needs? Too many  editors think  the only  people who  read the Wiki  are the one who  write it.
 * 2) It has been my  suggestion  that  a Standard Global English is a fallacy. Alone in the United Kingdom,my  homeland, I  do not  understand one word of very broad Scots. As a lexicographer, and author  of an American-British bilingual dictionary  and grammar, I can vouch (I can't  supply  citations here for obvious reasons) for the fact  that  there are hundreds of fundamental differences between General American, and modern, common  RP.
 * 3) It has been my  suggestion  that  where differences between AE and BE are great, then two  pronunciations of a place name should be shown.
 * 4) It has been suggested by those who opposed dual entries  that this would mean every  pronunciation  in  every  accent of  English  would also  then have to  be shown. That  is, IMHO, a silly  argument  to use in  opposition.
 * 5) Notwithstanding the current  discussion, some editors have deliberately antagonised the debate and stretched the GF of participants by carrying out  a programme of disruptive editing, by  turning  non rhotic place names into  rhotic place names.
 * 6) Serious editors who started the discussion felt  they  were not  getting  satisfactory  explanations to their enquiries. They either gave up trying  or they took  their discussion  elsewhere.
 * 7) Finally, after all these weeks, the dicussion has been reviveed albeit through a particularly  nasty echange,  and we have a detailed explanation that  could have been provided if Good Faith from  its author had been demonstrated weeks ago.
 * 8) I partly agree with that  explanation, but  do  not  agree to implement  it  on the Wikipedia for the reasons stated in the preamble to this message.
 * 9) This thread is far from closed. Any suggestion  to close this discussion  prematurely  is because the issue is too embarrassing  to  those who don't want  to  waste their time addressing  questions from  non IPA specialits. No  consensus has been reached, and if it  were it  would represent  my  White House analogy.
 * 10) Because of constant incivility, I'm not  going  to  answer any  questions on the above. If you  can be bothered to  read it (and some of you  have admitted that  you  are not  interested in reading  every  post  in  detail), and you  find it  in any  way  helpful,  please dicuss it  amongst  yourselves and leave me out of it.--Kudpung (talk) 22:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Great! I think I finally understand what your objections are. If you had answered such simple questions when I'd asked them months ago, it would have saved a lot of frustration on all sides. I'll ignore your repeated and I can only assume knowing misrepresentations of what's going on here, and skip to the useful bits. (Yes, I've previously skimmed some of your missives, as I'd found them overly long and generally devoid of content. I'm glad we're back to the point where it's profitable to read what you have to say.)


 * It is true that our IPA conventions were not designed with the ESL student in mind. This is certainly worth discussion. How much should our transcriptions be targeted to the reader who knows English, and how much to the reader who's learning it? If we target the ESL student, should we then pick a representative dialect or dialects for WP, say just RP or just RP and GA, and ignore the other dialects of our native speaking readers? Should any of this be the job of the Special English WP maybe? Or is that inadequate for it?


 * We do use conservative RP as the basis for our pronunciations. For example, we maintain the hoarse, horse distinction, which is now merged among most RP speakers. This is because it's easier to make a merger than to undo one, if the distinction is not made in the transcription. Of course, this is also s.t. we can revisit.


 * We did use to have multiple transcriptions of a word, RP, GA, and Oz. It started to become a mess, and general consensus is that we should use a single transcription where possible. True, as you point out, there are numerous cases where this is not possible, as in the alt pronunciations of "graph", but it works the vast majority of the time. This is also s.t. that can be revisited, but I for one have no desire to go back to the mess that we once had. Of course, it would make a difference if we only used RP for English place names, but I can already see the objections to that.


 * We do, and always have, supported the inclusion of local pronunciations. No-one has ever had any problem with that, except in trivial cases. But although it's quite useful to know how locals pronounce the name of their town in their own dialect and accent, it's also useful to know how one should pronounce the name in one's own accent when talking with one's compatriots. If two Torontans are talking, and one of them mentions "Yawk", the other might not recognize that he means "York". Even if it were recognized, it might sound pretentious. So both are important, both are desired, and IMO where they differ, both should be included. Your POV would seem to be, based on your deletions, that only the local pronunciation should be provided. I find that unfortunate.


 * As for "Global English" being a fallacy, no-one has said that this is how people should speak. In fact, we've been careful to say just the opposite: the IPA is a key that enables the reader to decode the pronunciation of a word in their own dialect (within what we support; we have unfortunately not been able to support Scottish). Nowhere do we say that they should try to imitate our transcription as their pronunciation. If we've implied that, please point out where, and we'll change it. That is not our intent.


 * Once again, you say that we all need to carefully consider your opinions, and discuss them among ourselves, but that you have no intention of actually defending them or answering questions if we find them unclear. This is not due to any incivility, but has always been your approach. It's difficult to take you seriously as an editor with such an attitude. kwami (talk) 22:31, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Based on this post in my talk page, I think your interpretation of Kudping's stance is correct.
 * While Kudping may not be returning here, I'd like to point out that Kwami has shown that using multiple systems actually requires a more thorough knowledge of the IPA and phonology than a single system. People complain enough about our using IPA without us making it more complicated.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  04:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Coming from the opposite POV from Kudpung, I just got an objection that paradigm should have the "merry" vowel rather than the "marry" vowel, because that's how it's pronounced by most North Americans, and therefore by most English speakers.
 * And why haven't people objected to Hampshire having an /h/? kwami (talk) 07:14, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The "paradigm" objection came from me. After having read the "IPA for English" page, I think I have a better comprehension of what you're trying to do here, and I applaud your efforts.  I am still concerned, though, that you may be fighting a losing battle against people who simply do not understand the problem, simply will not go read this page, and will continue to insist that various IPA transcriptions in Wikipedia are just plain wrong.  And I'm not totally sure that readers should need to become dialect experts in order to understand pronunciation notes in WP — though I realize you've all been dealing with that question for a long time now, and I'm not sure if I have any useful suggestions that you haven't already thought of.  Richwales (talk) 17:09, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps the "Understanding the Key" section should always be completely visible
It's pretty clear and well-written, and might help with some of the confusions. Even though I come to this page constantly (mainly to cut and paste), I wouldn't mind seeing it every time. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:15, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, let's try that. I hid it assuming that it wouldn't be needed after the first visit.


 * Do you not have the list of IPA symbols under your edit window that you can click on to place IPA in text? kwami (talk) 21:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, but it's so hard to find the symbols that I need among all the jumble there that I find it much easier to copy/paste from this page. Grover cleveland (talk) 22:50, 1 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd even propose to keep the list of symbols itself hidden, with an instruction to read the "Understanding the Key" section first near the [show] link. ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 16:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you want to try that out? kwami (talk) 21:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's a good idea. If we're expanding the "understanding the key" box because we think people might be missing it, we don't want to compliment that by hiding the actual key since there will be people who miss it.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  23:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps there is a way to set user preferences so that regulars can default to hidden while newbies default to visible? Grover cleveland (talk) 07:51, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone understand this?
This phonetic alphabet uses characters, that I'm afraid most are unfamiliar with. I prefer the pronunciation provided by Merriam Webster over the IPA. Can we incorporate both into the articles?

For example: Washington Merriam Webster: "/ˈwȯ-shiŋ-tən" is easier for me to understand than IPA: "/ˈwɒʃɪŋ.tən"

99.73.184.21 (talk) 08:16, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That depends on your education. For most people, the IPA is easier. But yes, the other can be added; it's just that few editors are going to bother, for the same reason they don't bother with pounds or inches in an article. kwami (talk) 08:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, despite my (colorful? to put it kindly) protests on the main IPA talk page, I would not argue that IPA is less suited to this purpose than some other form of pronunciation guide... wȯ-shiŋ-tən is really no easier to interpret than anything else: either you know what the silly glyphs stand for, or you don't.

Point is that, either way, some people are actually just going to have to look it up. The question I would raise is whether or not it would not also be beneficial to include, inline, the explanation of the symbols found on the IPA-EN key page (this thing, I guess), since a lot of readers are going to be forced to look it up anyway. (Otherwise, why is this page linked?)

I can concede that space and flow may be issues. In response I would suggest that maybe pronunciation doesn't belong inline in the first paragraph of an article to begin with; if there isn't enough room to do it right, there just isn't enough room to do it there at all.

Other than that, my biggest gripe about the guys running this IPA stuff is that the articles where I most want to see a pronunciation guide don't actually include it. :(

J.M. Archer (talk) 17:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, it is done right. That's like saying we shouldn't use kilometers "if we can't do it right" because some people have to look up what a km is. An encyclopedia cannot be responsible for the educational deficiencies of its readership, whether it's the metric system, IPA, standard abbreviations, big words, dates in the Common Era, spelling conventions from across the pond, etc.


 * We do have a mod to the template that enables hover-over keys, but it will be a while before we can roll it out. But if we don't have the IPA where you'd most like to see it, tell us, and if we can confirm the pronunciation we'll provide it. kwami (talk) 19:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether or not a project like this is "done right" often depends on what exactly the goal is. If all you fellows are interested in is shoehorning a given set of characters into a given set of paragraphs, then--by all means--bravo, mission accomplished, this is the end of fighting in Iraq.


 * However, if the point is to help people to pronounce words they've not heard, then, I would argue...


 * Bah. You prally get my point by now.


 * And please don't be so disrespectful as to misrepresent my position. I did not claim that something other than IPA should be used. In fact, above, I stated the opposite. I only argued that it would be nice if information from the key (the pronunciation guide, found here, for the pronunciation guide) could be transposed to the article pages. I had actually been going to suggest the onhover thing you mentioned above, but I figured if anyone cared enough to implement it, someone would already have been working on it.


 * My point, as I felt I presented it above, was that if the stuff found here at this key is good enough to be found here at this key, it should also be good enough to appear in the articles themselves. Either it's accurate and effective or it isn't.


 * Oh, and my most recent annoyance was Aristeia, which I can't remember clearly from my classics courses. Tragically, the top zillion search results on Google are mirrors of the Wikipedia page, which does not include what I was looking for. Short of writing my old prof to ask how they pronounced it back when he was young (and Homer was in his sixties), I seem to be up a creek without a paddle. I don't remember any others at the moment, but I'll let you know if I run across any. :)


 * J.M. Archer (talk) 20:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * By the way, I feel that equating other pronunciation guides to non-metric measurements is utterly ridiculous; people develop an instinctive understanding of "miles and "gallons," but the average person (for whom newspaper articles are written at a junior high reading level) is probably just as confused by Webster's pronunciation symbols as by any other form of rocket science. J.M. Archer (talk) 20:56, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, it depends on what you learned at school. A lot of US kids learn s.t. like the Webster's system in elementary school, so they think that's what we should use, not realizing that it's gibberish to most of the rest of the world.
 * I'll take a look at Aristeia. kwami (talk) 21:04, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Until I get my OED back, I'm going to assume that it can be predicted by blending aristocracy and oresteia, so that's what I added. kwami (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah; I distinctly remember learning that Webster's gibberish in about second grade. It was only ever useful in second grade. Completely irrelevant to the usability issues that bug me about Wikipedia itself--and my contention with regard to pronunciation is about usability, not which pronunciation guide would be the more useful.


 * Thank you for looking into that funny Greek word. It's very useful, to the extent one can use it at all, in certain (rare) kinds of discussions--which happen way too often in certain lines of work.


 * J.M. Archer (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I nearly edit-conflicted with you, Kwami. I went the other direction and tried to resurrect the Ancient Greek pronunciation, which, happily, seems to agree with your English one. This reminds me: we really need WP:IPA for Greek, ideally covering the Classical, Byzantine, and Modern phonologies.  That will be quite a chore.  — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Ugh! It's not so much that it'd be a chore, but the Greek 'pedians who would edit war over it, claiming that Classical Greek pronunciation is an English conspiracy to deprive Greeks of their heritage. (You do know that Classical Greek was pronounced identically to modern Athenian, don't you?) Well, maybe those editors have given up on WP by now. kwami (talk) 02:25, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

CLOTH group
How are these words to be categorized? With THOUGHT (as in the U.S. and Conservative RP), or with LOT (as in most of the U.K., and I presume, the Southern Hemisphere)? 82.124.231.186 (talk) 14:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Since we don't have a special letter for this vowel, we need two transcriptions. kwami (talk) 07:16, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Does that go for BATH as well? I note that Bath, Somerset is simply given as . Lfh (talk) 10:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes. That is the local pronunciation, and should be labeled as such. (Any GA speaker giving it that pronunciation would sound pretentious.) There was a semi-serious proposal to use for the BATH vowel, but given the low frequency compared to how often that's erroneously used for, it was thought best to avoid it. kwami (talk) 10:37, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, I see the explanation now, above the key. Lfh (talk) 10:54, 29 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, that makes sense. 82.124.231.186 (talk) 14:13, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Kilogram vs. omission
For me, the o in kilogram is a schwa, whereas the o in omission is not, even if reduced. The note seems to imply that this sound may be absent altogether in some dialects, but doesn't hint at the fact that those that do have the sound may disagree about which words fall into the omission category.

I suspect that a majority of North Americans would agree with me on these two particular words, and the Merriam-Webster would seem to support that. 82.124.231.186 (talk) 14:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What vowel do you have in omission when reduced? Lfh (talk) 16:14, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't know. Probably a centralized version of [o]. I'm willing to believe that the [ɵ] suggested by the table is accurate. My main point is that there's no rounding for me in kilogram. 82.124.231.186 (talk) 21:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * OK. Kilogram has been removed now anyway.  Lfh (talk) 07:45, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Pronunciation help
I don't know where to ask this, so I apologize if this isn't the correct place. Someone added a rough pronunciation to the ONEOK Field article (pronounced "wun ok"). I was hoping somebody here could provide a more accurate IPA pronunciation. Its pronounced "one oak" or "won oak" (its an Oklahoma based company). Thanks.—NMajdan •talk 17:56, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh dear, still...
It is salutary to note that all those previous contributors who had a degree of academic distinction and knowledge about this subject have long since left, driven to distraction by the repetitive, rambling and plain wrong assumptions/assertions/new interpretations of IPA by Wikipedia's 'editors'. Maybe it's time to wrap this one up. Fortnum (talk) 16:41, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have anything to contribute, or have you just posted on this page in order to tell everybody not to post on this page? Lfh (talk) 16:53, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Merely an observation and suggestion, indeed one of the more useful contributions, I feel. I'm certainly not suggesting that people do not post on this page. People are quite at liberty to post comments on this 'talk' page, in much the same way as they are quite welcome to shovel sand from one heap to another, and then back again.  Fortnum (talk) 17:16, 26 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If anything I've said has been in error, rather than simply at variance with your opinion, I'd like to know, as long as you're prepared to put it in polite terms. Lfh (talk) 19:46, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Let's not feed the troll. kwami (talk) 20:05, 26 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Lfh, Kwami, this is not a 6th  grade dispute. To anyone who  has complained that  the more intelligent discussion on this IPA topic has been spread around several  user talk  pages rather than here, I think  Fortnum sums it  up  beautifully  succinctly. it's just  a question of some people being intransigent and not  even prepared to entertain  the idea that something  somewhere might  need some formal,  structured discussion, significantly  rewriting, or in  the worst  case scenario, abandoning  completely. No one wants that  to  happen  to  something  they  have spent  hours working  on  in  good faith, and it  takes a heck of a lot of courage to accept without  pouting, getting  upset, and throwing  one's weight  and/or authority  around. The closing  lines of this posting will  summarise  what  I  mean. I'm  firmly  convinced that  if everyone were to  approach  this with  as much  good will as the the ones you  have forced off this discussion, the problem would have been well on  the way  to  being  resolved.  Some people seem  to  be forgetting that  this is an encyclopedia -  we are not  writing  articles for ourselves, we are producing  a work  of importance for the global  community, and doing  it  voluntarily. However, I sense that many  of the editors tend to think the whole thing  is either a joke or a cheap  Internet  forum. When I suggested doing  an RfC on the IPA issue, the idea  was met with  what  looked like bad faith  comments  by  an editor who  looks as if he/she deliberately does some specific edits knowing that  it  will cause friction based on  something that  is already  under discussion. Finally, it  looks as if it  could be a case for ANI  or ARBCOM, but  I don't  go automatically  running  to seek  protection  behind  Aunty Ani's skirts when someone, even an admin, 'accidentally'  treads on  my  toes,  like many  do.


 * Look, I'm  a linguist, but for a hobby I write Wikipedia articles about people and  places in Worcestershire,  Warwickshire, and Herefordshire, which  ironically  are among the targets  for those possibly disruptive edits, and is the reason why  I  was dragged into all this in  the first  place. I'm  also a lexicographer, but  unlike others in  these discussions, although the IPA is a daily  tool  in  my  work, it is not  my major discipline; I write, among other things, dictionaries (published), and EFL textbooks (published)  and the  IPA interpretations and the studio recorded DVDs of both  the American and  English pronunciation used in  our books are considered to be a fair representation  of what  we  teach, and teach  others to  teach; that  means RP and not Cockney or Geordie for BE; and General American and not  Bronx, SAE or AAVE, for AE. By  the same token, I would expect the IPA for American place names in  the Wikipedia to  be based on  General American and not  on  British  RP or some minority  dialect  of North  America; and I would obviously expect the IPA for British place names in  the Wikipedia to  be based on  RP and not  on  Brummy, Scouse, or New England.


 * One thing is absolutely  incontrovertibility sure however, (because enough  editors have 'complained'),  the  IPA of British  place names in  the Wikipedia is being  changed away  from  their standard pronunciation. Merely  explaining  this away in this MoS does not work if editors blatently  refuse to  implement  it as it  was probably   intended, (vague, confusing  explanation) and just  continue to  systematically  go  through  British  articles and unilaterlly  change things according to  their own interpretation.


 * I've tried to make it so  clear, in long  postings and in shorter messages with  bulleted lists for clarity, that  what I  suggest  the English  Wikipedia and readers want, is an IPA transliteration  that  fairly  represents the most  commonly used form of pronunciation in the respective country  and culture.  I've tried taking  part in the discussions above but I  was edged out by  craftily  composed side issues used as smoke screens to hide from  the   the WP:NOT  that  the IPA in  this encyclopedia has become (compare the  IPA entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica).  I stand accused (bordering  on WP:CIVIL by  an admin) that I don't  bother - if that  were true I wouldn't  keep  wasting  my  breath  on  this issue, and I  wonder just  how many really  do care. If  the Wikipedia IPAists remain  intransigent, I won't however  bother wasting  my time getting  more deeply involved, and they can believe they  have a consensus.


 * In a nutshell,  I  am trying  to  resolve not  one, but  two  clear issues: First, something  that several  editors contend is an error in  the Wikipedia IPA transliterations, and second, the right  for us to  defend that  opinion without  risk of being  assumed to  be  uncaring, unbothered trolls,  and suffer possible disruptive editing that  we can't  complain about  because they  have been done by  admins.  It  may  be of interest  to  read  THIS on  this  subject by User:Jamesinderbyshire. Too  many  editors on this encyclopedia project  are more concerned with using  the anonymity  it  affords to  act  completely  stupidly, than  in producing  quality encyclopedic material.


 * To sum up what I have already stated sooo many  times before, here and on  other threads and article or project  talk  pages, and to answer Kwami's various questions once more that  he maintains I  have evaded, although they  were often addressed directly  on  his and other users' talk  pages:

--Kudpung (talk) 12:29, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) Both WP:IPAEN and International Phonetic Alphabet are in my  opinion, in flagrant conflict  with  WP:NOT.
 * 2) WP:IPAEN would, in my  opinion, be OK if Wikipedia would keep out  of telling people how to  use it. Don't  ditch  the article, just  ditch the drop-down 'How To', and leave any  OR out of it.
 * 3) International Phonetic Alphabet is, in  my  opinion, just  simply far  too  exhaustive and goes way  beyond  the remit  of an encyclopedia. If the article's author(s),  feel(s)  strongly  enough about  it, they  should go  into  a huddle and write and publish a new book  about  it.
 * 4) Manual of Style (pronunciation) is, in my  opinion,  inherently  flawed because General American and RP are sometimes so fundamentally  different  that ESOL learners are totally  confused, therefore at least both  pronunciations should be shown where appropriate - this is in  fact recommended, with instructions how to do it, but  disruptive  editing  is being done instead.
 * 5) Some stats: WP:IPAEN edit count: one main  editor 202, next editor 37; IPA: edit  count same main editor  289, next  editor 171, two of the other major contributors have retired from  editing; Manual of Style (pronunciation): edit  count (same main editor)  44, next  editor 25.
 * 6) I am suggesting that everything in the encyclopedia on IPA and pronunciation  may not perhaps reflect a very wide diversity  of authorship.  However,  in retrospect I suppose I  could equally be accused of squatting  all  the Rhône wine articles.
 * 7) I don't have the slightest personal agenda in  any of this, whatever some of my  comments or those of other commentators might  suggest.
 * 8) In Wikipedia's own official words: The current "pan-dialectal" English convention at Wikipedia:IPA for English is arbitrary/unreferenced/original research, and is therefore invalid.
 * 9) See THIS comment by User:Jamesinderbyshire.


 * Can you be more specific? Which parts of WP:NOT does WP:IPAEN violate?
 * WP:NOTHOW specifically states that it does not apply to project namespace (i.e. when it's relevant to editing Wikipedia itself) and "describing to the reader how other people or things use something." In this case, WP:IPAEN instructs the editor how to indicate how words are pronounced and the reader how to understand the transcription.  Both perfectly appropriate.
 * That should probably be brought up at Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet. If it's too long, there are ways of dealing with it without removing information from Wikipedia.
 * The key word is "sometimes." Those instances are so few that we needn't accomodate for them.  The disruptive editing comes when people don't want to edit according to WP:IPAEN because they disagree with it but don't feel that they should try to change it (for whatever reason).
 * Edit counts should also include those in the talk pages. In my experience, Kwamikagami has put forth a great deal of effort in creating consensus about use of IPA and indicating pronunciation and I don't doubt that his edits reflect the opinions of more than a few editors.
 * Something else to consider is that silence is often taken for consensus. You may have primary authorship for Rhône wine articles, but it's not clear that your edits are controversial unless someone starts complaining.
 * Okay
 * It's already been said that WP:OR doesn't apply to project namespace. I would also like to appeal to WP:IAR.  In so doing, I must explain why the rules of WP:OR should be "ignored".
 * Most of the contrasts that this pronunciation guide reflects, independent of how they're represented (that is, which specific characters are actually used) can be found in many different and widely available dictionaries.
 * Because they're found in third party sources, the WP:OR concern is one of WP:SYNTH, that is the guide indicates a set of contrasts that incorporates those of two more more different dictionaries but the actual synthesis is unique to (or originating from) Wikipedia and not implied by either.
 * The synthesis itself does not take a great deal of expertise to understand or accept. If, upon looking up marry & merry in two dictionaries that represent different dialects, you get  &  in one and  &  in another, then it's clear even to non-experts that the first dialect makes a contrast that the other does not.
 * The synthesis also becomes even less significant when we go outside dictionaries and find sources that talk about dialectal variation (this may be something we can look into).
 * Because these dictionaries choose one dialect over another, WP:NPOV concerns behoove us to actually conduct this synthesis.
 * WP:NPOV concerns also behoove us to use characters in a way that doesn't favor one dialect.
 * I believe this is the logic of Wikipedia's diaphonemic representation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aeusoes1 (talk • contribs)

Kudpung, you claim you're answering my questions, while once again evading them. Also, as a trained linguist, you should know that several claims you are making are false. Why should "York" have an /r/ in RP? Why should "Warwickshire" not have an /r/? Until you're willing to support the claims you make, you're not engaging in honest discussion, but only standing on a soap box.

"Warwickshire" has a final /r/ in RP. If you disagree, we can discuss what phonemes and allophones are, though I really would expect that you should understand this. (I've tried to engage in this discussion with you several times, but you have adamantly refused.) "York" does not have an /r/ in RP. If you disagree, we can discuss that as well.

If, however, your objection is that we should transcribe names in the local pronunciation, then let's stick to that as a philosophical issue, rather than making up spurious linguistic arguments. So far the consensus has been that we use a diaphonemic transcription and add the local pronunciations where beneficial. I don't know any editors who would object to you adding local pronunciations to place names; the problem is when you delete the broader pronunciation that gives non-locals access to the article.

If you think the WP IPA is American cultural imperialism forcing itself on England (despite the consensus of English editors in crafting the IPA key), then please tell us what is American about it, since everything in it is found in English English.

If your objection is that we shouldn't have a diaphonemic transcription at all, then that is yet a fourth discussion, one that we've had several times, though we can always have it again.

If your objection is that the IPA should be accessible to ESL students, then that is yet a fifth discussion, and one that AFAIK we have not had. It is true that our English IPA conventions are designed for the native or near-native speaker rather than the ESL student. This is in contrast with the IPA for other languages, which does not assume any ability in the language.

If your objection is that we "shouldn't tell people what to do", but rather allow an idiosyncratic transcription for every article, then I don't think compromise is possible. People have a hard enough time following the IPA without it meaning something different each time they see it. We do need guidelines and standards. You're not going to see different transcriptions in the OED depending on who edited that particular word, but rather a consistent system for the entire dictionary. WP should be no different. kwami (talk) 23:28, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, I don't see me mentioning  York in this context, in this or any other discussion. Is this, with  again  accusing  me of making up  spurious arguments,  another of your smoke screens?  :"Warwickshire" does not have  a final r in RP. The only  exception is when it  links to  a vowel.  YOU have adamantly refused to acknowledge my  insistences and those of other editors,  and all you  do  is deliberately  make disruptive edits which you  know will cause polemic that will not  take this issue forward to solutions. A point  which  you  may  still be possibly  missing  is that  not  everyone wanting  a quick reference to  the reasonably  accurate pronunciation  of a place name, wants to  plod through all  your lengthy  lessons and contradictions on  its use and still  be left  nonplussed.


 * Of course I'm standing on a soapbox - in  spite of your personal  innuendos, you're quite right! Q: Why do people stand on soapboxes? A: To get  the listeners to  sit  up  and absorb what  is being said, think about  it, then hopefully do something collective and  positive about it. And that's the whole point isn't  it? I'm asking you, the self appointed IPA gurus to  listen to  what  people are telling you, and stop  making a walled garden of your Wikipedia passion. Nevertheless, I'm not  going  to  start contributing to  your IPA or pronunciation articles. Even if when you open the gate,  I could do  so with some academic foundation.


 * There has been no consensus -  except the one you  admittedly consider to  be that  of the assent  of a silent  majority. That's great, so if ten Americans vote for me to become president  and 359,999,990 don't go to the poll,  I get  to  move into the White House, right?


 * Anything that  introduces an intrusive r where there shouldn't  be one in normal British  English, makes it  rhotic, which if I  remember rightly in one of your other articles in  this encyclopedia (I  have noted it  somewhere in my  office), you  clearly  and unambiguously  state that BE is not  a rhotic language! To  make it  rhotic, in my  ears, makes it sound American. You, sir, are an American, and have never even been to Britain, so I  naturally, quite naturally, put two and two  together and accuse you  of linguistic hegemony. It's nothing personal,  its's a logical conclusion. In fact the only other thing anyone knows about you  here, apart from  the fact  that  you have a truly  excellent knowledge of the IPA - which doesn't mean you are also  an expert on the  sociolinguistic implications of its (mis)use -   is that  you  come from the US. You  clearly  contradict  yourself where you  have on occasion stated that  the Wikipedia's interpretation of the IPA is based on RP,  while somewhere else you say that  everything  about  it  is American? Please make up  your mind which side of the pond you  are on, before accusing me anew of not  being direct.


 * Yes, people do have a hard time using  the IPA -  the American people. In Europe and Asia the IPA is as common as Worcestershire Sauce, as is the European talent  for being  multilinghual  Bit  of a paradox really, with the USA being such a multi-ethnic nation.


 * I have never denied that Kwami  is the major player on the Wikipedia in  all  things IPA & pronunciation -  in fact I even pointed it  out. I  might  have primary  authorship  of the Rhône wine articles (in fact I think actually Tomas_e does), but  nobody  has complained. In Kwami's case however, people are complaining, or rather not  so  much complaining  but asking  rather pointed, embarrassing  questions, and getting  disruptive edits to  their articles in response.


 * Now, in the last 5 or so postings on  this thread or on your user talk  pages, I seem  to  repeating  my Hyde Park Corner show, so please do  not  try  to  draw me into this thread again by  posing more questions  which good faith  would force me to  acknowledge and repeat  my  answers yet  again. If  you  are all so  keen to make any sense out of all this, then It's really  up  to  you guys from the IPA to  get this train crash  of a discussion  back on track. When you  finally  come up with some suggestions for some changes to your Wikipedia proprietary  'use of IPA' policy, and hold a straw poll on them, don't  worry, I'll  be watching, I may  help  with  some suggestions for the poll  question(s), and then and I'll come back  to add one of two  words: support or object. Unless of course it turns out to  be yet another fiasco like the current  talks about BLP, and citation  templates..
 * --Kudpung (talk) 06:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Ah, after months, you finally answered a basic question! Now maybe we can get somewhere! (I'll ignore your misrepresentations of what I've said as unimportant here.)


 * "Warwickshire" does not have a final r in RP. The only exception is when it  links to  a vowel. Since you're a trained linguist, I shouldn't have to point out that you've just agreed with me that Warwichshire has a final /r/ in RP. For the others in the audience, I'll explain:


 * The WP convention for transcribing English in the IPA is based on meaningful speech sounds known as phonemes. Now, let's take another language, as distance sometimes adds clarity. In Spanish and Italian, there is an en sound /n/ rather like English /n/ (we write these sounds between slashes to show they're meaningful speech sounds, not minor detail), but there is no independent eng sound /ŋ/ as in English sing. Therefore a Spanish or Italian speaker may have difficulty pronouncing the English word sing. However, the sound [ŋ] (we write phonetic details which are not independent sounds in brackets) does occur; whenever /n/ occurs before a /k/ or /g/ it is pronounced [ŋ], as in banco [baŋko]. That is, the speech sound /n/ is pronounced [ŋ] before /k/ and /g/, and [n] elsewhere. (More or less.) In linguistic terms, we say that [ŋ] and [n] are allophones of the phoneme /n/. Therefore, if we were to transcribe Spanish or Italian banco phonemically, as we transcribe English words, it would be /banko/ with phoneme /n/.


 * Now let's go back to Kudpung's example of Warwichshire in RP: before a vowel in ends in a sound [r] (let's not worry for the moment exactly how that [r] is pronounced; that's not important here). However, before a consonant or pausa (pause, end of a sentence, etc.) it ends in [] (that is, null, silence). This is somewhat more abstract that the Spanish & Italian example, but the idea is the same. We have two different pronunciations of the r depending on what follows, just as we have two different pronunciations of Spanish n depending on what follows. These two pronunciations are [r] and silence; they are two allophones of the English phoneme /r/. That is, in RP, English /r/ is pronounced [r] before a vowel, and [] before a consonant or pausa. Thus when we transcribe Warwickshire phonemically, we must write this final /r/.


 * You might ask, Why write r instead of nothing, since it's often silent? Because if we write /r/, you as an RP speaker will know that it's silent in certain contexts, but if we don't write it, you won't know whether there's an [r] sound before a vowel or not. (Of course, you can always go by the spelling, but English spelling is not always a reliable guide to pronunciation, especially in place names.)


 * For example, let's take the words bar and baa. One of them is pronounced sometimes, sometimes , depending on its environment. The other is always pronounced . Now, if we were to write bar , as Kudpung proposes, then you wouldn't be able to predict that it has an [r] sound before a vowel. You'd think it's just like baa. That is, the transcription would be missing information necessary for you to correctly pronounce the word. (I'm assuming of course that these words are unknown to you, just as place names are often unknown to people.) If however we transcribe bar as , then the pronunciation is obvious: You know that in your dialect, words like this (car, far, gar, jar, mar, par, tar, etc) drop their ars when not followed by a vowel. Therefore the transcription is the correct one, as unlike the other it tells you how to pronounce the word in all circumstances.  is the phonemic transcription;  is just the realization of the word in a particular environment, not a complete description of it. For the same reason, Warwickshire should be transcribed with a final /r/ even if we are only concerned with RP. Or in linguistic terms, final r is phonemic in RP. (This is not true for all non-rhotic dialects; some drop their ars entirely. But RP does not.) kwami (talk) 08:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Kudpung has just informed me that he doesn't want to discuss this with me ever again. Since I'm part of the discussion here, I suppose we can now consider this thread closed? Unless perhaps Fortnum has something to add? I think I overreacted in calling him a troll, and I apologized on my talk page, as he does seem to be sincere. Fortnum, do you have anything to add? kwami (talk) 09:54, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, I'm happy with the apology, and thank you for it. As for the matter in hand, it does seem to have reached a conclusion, and I don't feel it profitable to add any more to it. Fortnum (talk) 13:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)


 * No, "Warwickshire" in RP does not have a final /r/. What is being described above is linking r. AFAIK, a transcription of a single word does not include linking r, e.g. "car" in RP is /kɑː/, not /kɑr/. 92.40.12.2 (talk) 04:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If you have linking /r/, then car is /kar/. If it were /ka:/, that would mean there is no linking /r/. (See allophone.) The question is whether any RP speakers actually have linking /r/; it appears that some do after certain vowels but not others. But regardless, convention on WP is to transcribe a word AFAP so that speakers of all dialects can pronounce it from the transcription. kwami (talk) 10:33, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Car" in RP is /kɑː/, not /kɑr/. Linking r (r liaison) is completely irrelevant when transcribing a single word, it definitely is not included in a phonemic transcription. AFAIK, linking r in RP is random; some people sometimes say it after some words and at other times they don't. Please name a dictionary which has RP pronunciations that include linking r. OK I can see that the convention on WP is to transcribe according to rhotic English and that non-rhotic English users just have to ignore the syllable final /r/, but let's not pretend that in RP car is /kɑr/ or Warwickshire has a final /r/. 92.40.211.182 (talk) 21:10, 22 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "when transcribing a single word" - you still don't know what an allophone is. Please read that article. kwami (talk) 00:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * My Oxford English-French-Spanish-German dictionary (which transcribes in RP with a few "US" pronunciations) transcribes car as . It is not the case that linking or intrusive r is "random" it is the case that you don't know what the context is that triggers it. For many speakers, it is triggered by a following word that begins with a vowel.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  04:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * "Please name a dictionary which has RP pronunciations that include linking r." - I have a Collins French/English in which the English pronunciations are non-rhotic - and presumably based on RP - but linking R is included. That said, the linking R is indicated not with, but with an asterisk, which is the same symbol it uses to show absence of liaison in the French section. Lfh (talk) 08:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It is not completely "random" but it's not completely determined, either. Robert Plant sings the line "Valhalla I am coming" in "Immigrant Song" without an R on Led Zeppelin III but with an R on How the West Was Won, for example. But what Æµ§œš¹ described is the environment where it's most likely to be pronounced. ― A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 12:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Kwami, what you write about the phonemic status of linking /r/ is not correct. Your account is fatally confused about the meaning of the term phoneme, and the difference between surface and underlying forms (or phonemic and morphophonemic representations; label according to theoretical taste). The whole discussion on this page seems to be driven by your non-standard interpretation of what a phonemic representation should consist of, and by a reluctance to engage with the standard academic consensus on this matter. C0pernicus (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see what you're talking about. What has Kwami gotten wrong? — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  15:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I do - what's the problem?--Kudpung (talk) 07:20, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The only thing I think Kwami has gotten wrong about linking-r is that it's the justification for our transcribing with r's in the syllable coda. We do it to represent the phonemic contrast in rhotic dialects, not to represent linking-r.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  20:43, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, he's certainly got something very wrong there, but that's not  all.--Kudpung (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Does a list of English words written in IPA exist?
Is there a list of basic English words written in IPA? The reason I ask is that I was just on the page for word I know how to pronounce and I saw the IPA. This made me realize that it might be easier to pick up IPA instead of looking at bare symbols and finding out which phoneme they represent, but instead to chunk a word, which is a string of phonemes, that I already know how to pronounce and I can store the IPA in my head. Does that make sense? THanks, --Rajah (talk) 05:56, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, actually, it does make sense. Maybe we could transcribe the example words on this list into IPA? kwami (talk) 14:10, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
 * yes, that would be a good idea. Also, the new Template:IPAc-en template is great, we need a bot to go through and replace all Template:pron-en templates with that one. and also break the word up into phonemes. e.g. : becomes  (mouseover both to see the difference.) . The mouseover on individual phonemes is so awesome! --Rajah (talk) 04:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That list is a good idea, but where to put it? The page is getting quite cluttered.  Maybe a separate page, or a hover-over? Lfh (talk) 11:16, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Most quality  dictionaries (at least the ones from British  publishers) include IPA transcriptions for their headwords. The Wikipedia on the other hand, is an encyclopedia, and is not intended to  be an exhausitve, authoritative work on any  subject. neither is istsupposed to  be a handbook  for use of the IPA, although  the Wikipedia IPA and pronunciation articles may  leave a reader with  that impression. Most  important  before a bot does any  mass changes, is to  be absolutely sure that the Wikipedia is correct in  its implementation  of the IPA - something  which however, is still  very  much  open to  debate.--Kudpung (talk) 07:27, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

rhotic diacritic?
We have in some place names which are locally non-rhotic. Is this something that would be worth extending to other vowels, say ? The /r/ seems to be the thing people most object to. (The /j/ after alveolars is perhaps just as objectionable, but much less common.) Of course, it might be a little silly to worry about the /r/ and not /h/ or /j/, but we could also mark them too, perhaps as Hartford,  New Mexico. This would only be for place and personal names. IMO, it would be a choice between introducing more IPA characters for people to have to learn, and having people object that "that's not how it's pronounced" (locally, that is). In the key we could gloss them "not pronounced in the local dialect". That would also reduced the number of redundant transcriptions. Or is our current approach of generic vs. local English good enough? kwami (talk) 21:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's also problematic in that it's not IPA. Superscript  indicates palatalization, not an optional palatal glide; superscript  indicates aspiration, not an optional glottal fricative. Similarly,  is an  with retroflexion, not one with a following rhotic.  We've got enough trouble getting people unfamiliar with the IPA to acquire our system, we don't need to also make it difficult for people who are familiar with the IPA.  — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  00:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Indeed someone recently slipped in again. In my opinion we are trying to define a system for transcription. We should not make it confusing by allowing all more and more alternatives. Writing the /r/ is good enough and allows to add a simple line that it is optional in many dialects. Let's keep it simple. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think a line should be drawn at the symbols, because sometimes the /r/ is not appropriate, particularly in names. --58.165.2.250 (talk) 12:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by "particularly in names." Do you mean orthographic r is less likely to be present phonemically in proper nouns or do you mean that  is more likely than . — Æµ§œš¹  [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * What I mean is that place names that may include a rhotic vowel in its pronunciation, but have a majority of speakers that are non-rhotic (ie, Australia, most of England, NZ, etc), it would therefore be inappropriate to use an , so the use of the r-coloured vowels are an appropriate compromise between  and, because there is a need for rhotic vowels to be included, even when native speakers don't use them.  The same can also be applied to the pronunciation of a non-rhotic speaker's name. --58.164.107.103 (talk) 08:25, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand why writing r-coloured vowels would be better than adding an r as in  for a proper name of someone/thing from a non-rhotic area. What could be simpler than the general rule: "for non-rhotic dialects omit any r following a vowel in the same syllable". Not having these duplicate representations with special symbols makes applying IPA more straightforward, without losing accuracy or generality. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 10:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Mainly because a minority of editors gets really upset by transcribing the /r/, even though they don't mind /h/ and other differences. Take a look at Kudpung's subpage on the debate for an extreme example. They don't object so much to transcribing them as rhotic vowels. Okay, that's not an academic reason, more of a political one. kwami (talk) 10:09, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's just be absolutely  clear on this before anyone decides for me whether my  argument  is academic or political (which  it is neither - it is a practical one and based on the real use): "There is growing concern that the IPA spellings of English place names, particularly those of the shire counties, and other names that end in an R that is generally not pronounced, are either not correct or do not represent the way in which the majority of British people pronounce those names. IPA Wikipedians have commented that the board-wide system they have designed and are in the process of implementing is phonemic and not phonetic, and that the r must be shown due to the fact that some speakers may introduce a linking r when the next word begins with a vowel." Furthermore, I believe one of the confusions throughout  this entire debate is the use of the word local, which may  or may not  have a slightly  different  connotation on different continents of the English  speaking world, and may  in fact be one of the root causes of so much  conflict and misunderstanding in this entire issue. I also believe that  the majority  of readers a re neither interested in, or do not  understand, the highly  technical  linguistic explanations they  have been given. Before any discussion  takes place, it needs to  established what  is meant  by  local, regional, national, and global, as these words themselves appear to be being interpreted differently.

Most likely  in  the United Kingdom they  would mean:


 * local = in the city, in the  immediate area surrounding the city, and possibly  the rest of the county.
 * regional = the rest of a county that  covers a particularly  large geographic area, and its neighbouring  counties.
 * national = the country where the language is spoken. In  this case, England, where a neutral RP is more commonplace and/or widespread than say, for example, Scotland and Wales where their national accents a re the accepted educated accents of the majority.
 * global = worldwide, or in the case of this issue, the regions of the world where whre the two main versions (AE & BE) predominate, such as for example, The Philippines where AE predominates, and Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent  where BE predominates.

We also need some qualification regarding the statement: ...a minority of editors gets really upset.... I don't  think anyone gets  upset by  the transcription. To put it correctly, firstly the number of commentators  equals or surpasses the number of major contributors to the various IPA articles, keys, and guidelines - all of which would appear to  be primarily  the work of one major editor; and secondly, people are not  upset (yet) by  the use, but  are simply  trying to explain that  the prescriptive use practiced by  the IPA author(s) may  be red  for a rethink. And thirdly, and most importantly,we must  differetiate between Wikipedia editors (aka Wikipedians), and visitors to the encyclopeia who xanted to look  something up, and then signed on to be able to  suggest that  the said prescriptions do not  match the view  they would expect. This is not insignificant, and should not  be brushed of with a flick of the wrist. --Kudpung (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * If I might, I'd like to offer one correction to "the r must be shown due to the fact that some speakers may introduce a linking r when the next word begins with a vowel": if that's the argument, then it's likely to be misinterpreted as many dialects produce an intrusive r that's similar to linking r; if we were accomodating for intrusive r (which is a lot more common) we would have to put a final r in transcriptions for nigeria and draw. The more agreeable (and consistent) justification for putting coda r's is that this marks a phonemic contrast that speakers of rhotic dialects still make. Just as with many of the vowel system we implement, there will be dialects that don't make such a contrast (i.e. most non- rhotic dialects) but we're trying to be inclusively accomodating.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  18:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Kudpung, for bringing this to a centralized location for discussion. You've heard everything I have to say, so I'll chime out now. kwami (talk) 18:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's an example of an English name that shouldn't be transcribed with an /r/: Matthew Le Tissier. AFAIK, rhotic speakers wouldn't have an /r/ either. — kwami (talk) 00:54, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * The Tissier example is off-topic - the name is French.--Kudpung (talk) 07:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not off-topic at all. The given pronunciation is how even English speakers of even rhotic dialects pronounce it.  Who cares of the name comes from French? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  07:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Matt Le Tissier himself is not French, and there are millions more English-speakers with names of French or other foreign origin.  Are they all off-topic?  And there are assimilated French words as well, e.g. sommelier, which even rhotic speakers pronounce without . Lfh (talk) 08:12, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * ...which even rhotic speakers pronounce without . Gotta laugh this time ;) That's the best  example yet  of you  IPA folks not  reading  what  I  wrote, and thinking  that  you  have contradicted me, you  have actually  agreed with  me! --Kudpung (talk) 17:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Marvellous, it's always nice to agree. Lfh (talk) 18:31, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Be nice if it were intentional, but  it just goes to  demonstrate yet  again (sigh) that  the IPA and pronunciation articles are dominated by  a bunch  of semi-intelectual  clowns pretending  to  be linguists. What have they  been smoking this time?--Kudpung (talk) 18:50, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * As I understand it, Kwami was pointing out that the current key distinguishes between final orthographic r's that are pronounced by no-one at all, and those that are pronounced by rhotic speakers only. And I was agreeing that "Le Tissier" is a valid illustration of this - i.e. not "off-topic". Lfh (talk) 19:14, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I don't get how "The Tissier example is off-topic -  the name is French" could be construed to mean anything like what I and others have said in response.  I'm getting the feeling that either Kudpung has himself not read what others wrote or that we are using the same words to talk about different things.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  19:40, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Precisely, and there's the practical joke played on  Kudpung  that's backfired on you  all by  trying  to be clever and re-invent  the IPA  for use in the Wikipedia to  support  a silly  claim. So having  said that, you  can also now go  ahead and agree that  there are a lot more final r's in  British and rest-of-the-world  English that  are never pronounced, and that  it's time for the Wikipedia readers to  get  some accurate pronunciation  guides, instead of  a hypothetical construct that  tries to cover too  many, widely  differing  accents in  one go, among  which there are confusing examples that  simply  just  don't exist.--Kudpung (talk) 19:43, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * In non-rhotic dialects there are many final (orthographic) r's that, essentially, are not pronounced. As intrusive r occurs even without an orthographic r in words like Nigeria and draw, we could even see this intrusive r as avoiding a certain form of hiatus. This phenomenon occurs quite frequently in utterances by speakers that exhibit them.  Would you agree with this? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  19:57, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If Kudpung honestly thinks that our IPA conventions were drawn up to play a practical joke on him, I'm doubtful that rational debate will be of much use. If he doesn't think that, but says it anyway, I have the same doubts. — kwami (talk) 23:01, 3 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, the rational debate will have no success unless people read what  other people post. Your comment  above is totally  off topic, wrong, and another dig. Are you  now completely  unable to follow the comments made by your henchmen too? If  you are unable to  comment  sensibly  in a mature manner why bother? The other thing  is, why  should I  continue to  respect Wikipedia civility  guidelines, when you, as an admin to  boot, don't give a hoot  about  them and still  continue to harrass me?--Kudpung (talk) 00:48, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * When have you ever respected WP civility guidelines, except to tell other people to follow them? And how is calling you out on your nonsense "off topic"? You make it the topic. You come here and call us all idiots, claim other editors are my henchmen (I assume they're my henchmen and not the other way around because you first came into conflict with me), and accuse us of playing a great practical joke, simply because you have so far failed to present your case coherently. That's not a swipe at you, but an explanation of my frustration and why I've "twisted" your words. (I find it difficult to paraphrase someone or respond to their arguments intelligently when I can't follow those arguments.) You've made things so unpleasant around here that we now have other editors throwing up their arms in disgust and saying they've had enough. Why should anyone take you seriously? If you want the English IPA conventions to follow multiple national standards, fine, make a straightforward case for that. It's a simple enough case to make. — kwami (talk) 01:09, 4 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Kwami, Check the diffs to  see at  whom the editors are 'throwing their arms up at  in disgust',  and who does not  observe policy, and why  editors are afraid to defend themselves in this unpronounced 'r' business.--Kudpung (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

Please help with Sarah Jarosz
I noticed that the articles for both Sarah Jarosz, and for Philip Lynott (the second of which pronounced his surname as LYE-not, both need IPA help for their names. Jarosz already has a "sounded out" name next to her spelled name that someone else left behind. Could anyone take a look at the two of these musicians and see if you can improve with an IPA rendition of their last names? Thanks. --Leahtwosaints (talk) 17:39, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Done. — kwami (talk) 18:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * So does that mean Jape are wrong (or joking) in the song "Phil Lynott", where they pronounce it "LINN-ott"? Lfh (talk) 18:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Me, I have no idea. I'm just an IPA drudge. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you greatly. You folks with IPA are a real blessing. Both sounded out sound correct. :) --Leahtwosaints (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

maintenance w AWB
Some of you may have noticed that I've been regularizing & maintaining the IPA with AWB. I've worked out some regex expressions that do a pretty good job - turns out there are a fair number of transcriptions with Cyrillic rather than Latin < a >, for example, which would make searches bafflingly difficult. Since it took a lot of head-scratching at bugging other editors to get the expressions figured out, I thought I'd post them on the talk of IPA-en and pron-en, in case anybody's interested in fixing the IPA for this or other languages for themselves. — kwami (talk) 00:01, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Syllable split
Recently a lot of syllable splits have been indicated in the IPA renderings. I wonder if the way to do that has been discussed and what the scientific basis for it would be. One of the remarks pertaining to it in the article is in a footnote, converted to a table here. I wonder if these should be analysed as indicated in the third column:

&minus;Woodstone (talk) 07:57, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This is an example of a set of contrasts that not every dictionary encodes but that we accomodate for in our diaphonemic transcription. Help:IPA conventions for English is supposed to elucidate which dictionaries encode which contrasts, though it's not quite finished.
 * Your alternative of using semivowels in the onset to contrast the two may appropriate, but I notice that this then makes /a/ into a monophthong of English when it isn't as such. We would thus have to convert that into another low vowel phoneme of English (either, , or ), the choice of which may depend on dialect.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  08:44, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * In the examples, the diphthongation of the vowel may be considered induced as a glide to the following semivowel. But my remark was meant in a bit more general sense behind all these (and more) cases. Many of the syllable splits I see being introduced en masse, seem more based on orthographic conventions of line breaking, than on a phonological principle. Line breaking would create break-ing, whereas in speech it is more like . &minus;Woodstone (talk) 15:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I see what you're saying. I believe line-breaking is based on morphology, which it seems the syllable splits in question may also (arguably) be based on. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  19:57, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I've been adding syllable breaks in names like Nuxhall, so people don't misread the sh as. Likewise. I've also been more consistent with sequential vowels, adding a dot between all except after and in the common ending. I know when I review other people's transcriptions, I'm never sure what "ng" is supposed to be, so this should hopefully clarify it. — kwami (talk) 18:03, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't just about always be ? In which case, do we need the syllable separator? On another note, I'm not sure how I feel about indicating one syllable break in a (trisyllabic-plus) word without indicating all of them.  Not doing so seems to imply that the unbroken sequence is a single syllable.  I know when I'm adding IPA for French, and feel a dot is necessary, I go ahead and mark all the breaks—which is much easier for French than for English (damn ambisyllabicity...)  — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 21:37, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's the problem, they almost always are. So when they're, as it Vancouver and Feingold, it's hard to tell whether they're really /n/, or if the transcriber just made a typo. (Okay, I guess I'm using the dot as more of a morpheme break there, but I think it gets the idea across.)
 * Personally, I'd go with Wells's ideas on syllabification, but I've had nasty fights with editors who insist that English is phonemically V.CV, never VC.V. And it's a hard call to make in many cases, even for Wells! (I'm not convinced myself that "mattress" is really /matr.ess/.) — kwami (talk) 21:59, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Is Wells's idea of syllabification maximization of the onset? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi] 22:15, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing from that example that it's maximization of the stressed syllable, though is not an acceptable coda cluster otherwise, so I don't know... Actually, I think I may have read Kwami's comment wrong, but in any case, my intuition is that English stressed syllables "pull" consonants towards them, but still have the same phonotactic restraints (more or less) as monosyllables.  Thus marble, but mattress .  — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I should be done will all AWB-parsed transclusions of IPA-en and pron-en in a bit. If anyone sees non-canonical IPA that I've missed, please let me know and I'll try coding it in to my next pass with AWB. (On my list so far: syllable breaks and tense vowels before engma and ar.) — kwami (talk) 21:21, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and here's an illustration of why we need to mark stress on monosyllables: Stow cum Quy. — kwami (talk) 22:01, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Morphology is a conceivable base, but I think trying to sing the word on long notes brings out the phonological split better. That leads often to CV.C, or indeed a maximised onset. I could not possibly sing, but I must confess that isn't very musical either. The examples above with n.g show ambisyllabicity best, try . &minus;Woodstone (talk) 23:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Wells presented it a lot as Xyzzyva said. I'd always felt that a following consonant became the coda after a short vowel, but not after a long one, but Wells makes a convincing case that it's a coda after either. Clusters as codas as well, and they're not ambisyllabic but simply codas, as in self-ish. The matr.ess thing comes about in an effort at parsimony of phon rules: tr behaves as an affricate, affricates become codas after stressed vowels like any other C, therefore tr is the coda. Well, a bit more sophisticated than that, but at that point I balked.
 * Ah, here we go: It's a fun read. — kwami (talk) 08:07, 1 May 2010 (UTC)
 * So, going back to Woodstone's original post, it seems that if we're maximizing the stressed syllable then even if we interpret employer as with a semivowel, this system proposed by Wells would put the semivowel in the coda of the stressed syllable.  — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  17:13, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

Foreign a
I'd like to point out a problem with the table. For many Canadian speakers, baht and calm are not pronounced with the same vowel. Namely, calm is something like [kɒːm] (same vowel as cot and caught), while baht is [bɑːt], with a special vowel used in foreign words. (These words include taco, pasta, Mazda, etc., for those Canadians who don't pronounce these words with /æ/. However, while I can easily imagine taco, pasta, and Mazda with /æ/, this seems unimaginable for a word which has a graphical ah.) This vowel is in fact very close to British and American realizations of baht. It is the Canadian realization of calm that is different. I know that the following paper (to which I don't have access) talks about foreign a in Canadian English: The emergence of a new phoneme: Foreign (a) in Canadian English. 82.124.97.111 (talk) 15:07, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Not an answer to your question, but I seem to have access to that paper, in case there is anything in it that you're wondering about (within copyright of course). Lfh (talk) 13:59, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I've managed to access the PDF. Don't know what the problem was.

It seems I may have been a bit off in my phonetic description of the vowels above.

In any case, for the purposes of the discussion here, the important point is that for many Canadians, there are words which belong neither to the PALM category, nor to the TRAP category, but to an intermediate one. The best example of this given in the article is the word plaza, pronounced by 38% of Canadians with the TRAP vowel, 18% with the PALM vowel, and 44% with something between the two, low-central for most of them. (According to the article, the PALM/LOT vowel of Americans is already low-central, whereas the PALM/LOT/THOUGHT vowel of Canadians is low-back.) An intermediate pronunciation was also produced in 41% of cases in each of the words lava and façade.

For 9 of the 20 words with "foreign a" tested, an intermediate vowel was more common among Canadians than was the PALM vowel.

This kind of pronunciation was not rare among Americans either, particularly for Colorado (27%) and panorama (23%). For panorama, it was more common than the PALM vowel (5%).

The article suggests that there may be a phonemic contrast between laggard/lager/logger, rack/Iraq(i)/rocky, stab/Saab/sob, sad/façade/sod, dally/Dalí/ dolly, and suggests the notation /ah2/ or /ahf/ (with f for foreign) for the intermediate phoneme.

Naturally, Britons already make these distinctions, but that is because they haven't merged the PALM and LOT vowels.

For the current IPA guide, the inclusion of baht and palm under the same heading is problematic for the likely 40 or 50 percent of Canadians who would pronounce them differently, and a smaller percentage of Americans. At a minimum, a note about the problem should be inserted.

But I would go further and propose using the symbol /aː/ or /äː/ to transcribe words like baht. Speakers who pronounce baht and palm with the same vowel sound could simply ignore the distinction. The choice of /aː/ (understood to refer to a low-central, rather than low-front, vowel) would have the advantage that it is phonetically accurate for both Americans and Canadians. 82.124.103.148 (talk) 06:47, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

newbie in edit war
An editor is giving contradictory pronunciations for Chichester, Pennsylvania and edit warring over any attempt to resolve them, including deleting my comments on the talk page. He's a newbie, so I don't want to have him blocked, so maybe s.o. here can speak to him? — kwami (talk) 03:10, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

/ær/ vs. /ɛr/ in names of living persons
In the article on Caroline Dhavernas, the transcription of the pronunciation of her first name was recently changed from /ʼkɛrəlɨn/ to /ʼkærəlɨn/.

Now, I understand (and, despite some earlier misgivings, am willing to accept) the general premise that /ær/ is intended to be a dialect-neutral rendering that should be equally meaningful to readers who have, or have not, undergone the "marry-merry merger" in their own speech. My concern in this case is that Caroline Dhavernas, herself, pronounces her own name as /ʼkɛrəlɨn/ (based on her self-introduction in the voice-over commentary for the pilot episode on the Wonderfalls DVD set). And I confess I feel pretty strongly that, when describing the pronunciation of a person's name, preference should definitely be given (where possible) to the way the person him/herself pronounces his/her own name — even if this pronunciation happens to reflect a specific regional dialect or is otherwise "nonstandard".

I know the /ær/ pronunciation is common in Montreal, where Caroline is from (i.e., the "marry-merry merger" is not characteristic of the English spoken in and around Montreal) — and, frankly, I was surprised when I listened to the way she pronounced her name in the DVD commentary, because I was mostly expecting her to say /ʼkærəlɨn/ — but she unquestionably did say /ʼkɛrəlɨn/, and no matter what people working on the IPA for English project are doing with this particular phoneme, I'm having trouble feeling good about consciously and explicitly transcribing someone's name in a manner that contradicts how they say their own name.

If necessary (and if it would make any difference to the argument here), I'm willing to try putting up an OGG or WAV file of Caroline Dhavernas saying "Caroline Dhavernas", so the rest of you can listen. It happens that my own speech has not fully incorporated the marry-merry merger, so I am very conscious of the difference and am pretty certain of what I heard.

Comments? Richwales (talk) 00:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with you, assuming of course she has the distinction. I had assumed this was due to the merger. If she makes the distinction but still says /ɛr/ then yes, IMO that's how we should transcribe it. It might be a good idea to add an inline comment to the coding ( < ! --- > ) mentioning this, so it isn't reverted later by some doofus like me who doesn't know any better.
 * BTW, what would you do with "Marylander (sometimes )"? Since /ær/ does not appear before consonants, I suppose it would have to be /ɛər/, but I hesitate to change it. — kwami (talk) 01:00, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Dhavernas spoke with a General American (US west coast) accent when talking as herself in the special features on the DVD. Assuming she had an anglophone Quebec accent as a child (essentially the same as the southern Ontario accent), this would suggest she completely "lost" her native accent and intentionally acquired General American speech — a dialect which has undergone the Mary-marry-merry merger (i.e., she doesn't make the distinction any more at all, even though it's likely she did as a child).  I'm still not sure I go along with your reasoning that her pronunciation matters only if she makes the distinction with other words.  As for "Marylander", I've never thought about that word before; I'm inclined to use /ɛər/, but I've never had a distinction between "merry" and "Mary" in my own speech, and I'd prefer to hear opinions from people who do have a full threefold "Mary-marry-merry" distinction.  Richwales (talk) 02:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think either approach would be fine, but that we should notify the reader which one we're using. As it is, the key specifies that the transcription is diaphonemic, so IMO an unmarked transcription should be diaphonemic. For a local pronunciation (in place names) or a personal one (in personal names), we should alert the reader that that is what we have done, and not randomly use sometimes one and sometimes the other and leave it to the perhaps puzzled reader to decipher which one it is this time. — kwami (talk) 04:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I've added a phonemic transcription in French. I'm dissatisfied with the French template, because it uses brackets, making the narrower more appropriate.
 * As for the English, I don't see the point of using . Either she never makes the marry-merry distinction, or she is pretending not to. It seems unlikely that she would normally make the distinction, but not for her own name. I think it should remain.
 * Also, I think replacing with  deliberately seems unlikely. "General American" is broad, and a person who uses  doesn't stand out by any means. 82.124.101.170 (talk) 08:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Anon, do you think you could go to Wikipedia talk:IPA for French and make a case for adding the length marks? We've gotten flack for using a transcription system that is largely (but not completely) phonemic while using brackets but I don't know of very much French allophony.
 * Richwales, the logic goes something like this: In dialects that distinguish between and, Caroline (a common name) is pronounced with the former. If Ms. Dhavernas doesn't make the distinction between the two, then her pronunciation with  is not different from the usual pronunciation.  If she does make a distinction between the two, then the pronunciation with  is not reflective of the merry-marry merger. If it's not reflective of this merger, this would mean that any speaker who distinguishes  from  shouldn't pronounce her name in the usual fashion (that is, as the former) and we should transcribe it with.
 * The best thing to do to figure out if she makes that distinction is to check her pronunciation for the distinction in the same conversation that we hear her pronounce her name with . — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

remove "a mission" as a sample for ə
I suggest that "a mission" be dropped as a sample for the pronunciation of ə. The pronunciation of the indefinite article "a" is rather variable and context dependent. The other two samples for ə,	Rosa’s and comma, don't have that problem and should be sufficient. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.75.255 (talk) 23:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It's meant to be a minimal set, to illustrate the reduced vowels. — kwami (talk) 00:45, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the variably-pronounced indefinite article a is context dependent, but a mission gives a rather clear context. Outside of a stilted reading voice that produces "ey mission", how else would it be pronounced? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  04:43, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Template conversion proof of concept
If you have a moment, please feel free to take a look at User:Grover cleveland/IPATest. It's a little slow, unfortuately, but it seems to work mostly. Let me know whether this is something you think is worth doing some more work on. Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:15, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's an sample of what the template does: given only the IPA-en format as input it now generates both RP and GenAm output.  For example:
 * The idea here is that perhaps we could get out of the diaphonemic squabble by generating both RP and GenAm output from the current diaphonemic input. The end result would be similar to a pronouncing dictionary like Wells's LPD.  Many more examples on the link given above. Please -- any comments, positive or negative, will be welcomed!  Demo is at User:Grover cleveland/IPATest.  Cheers.  Grover cleveland (talk) 06:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The idea here is that perhaps we could get out of the diaphonemic squabble by generating both RP and GenAm output from the current diaphonemic input. The end result would be similar to a pronouncing dictionary like Wells's LPD.  Many more examples on the link given above. Please -- any comments, positive or negative, will be welcomed!  Demo is at User:Grover cleveland/IPATest.  Cheers.  Grover cleveland (talk) 06:09, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I had a look and indeed it's intolerably slow. But aside from that, it shows that in many cases there is no difference. This should at least be filtered out to avoid duplicate transcription. In most other cases it takes a while to actually notice the difference. In all, I think the added value would be nil or negligible and create additional clutter. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 08:25, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If Kudpung et al's RfC comes about, this might be mentioned so that the community can discuss this as a feasable possibility. I suspect that most users wouldn't even care about the difference but the only way to really know is for an RfC, right? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  16:05, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi Woodstone: thanks very much for your input.  Here are responses to some of the issues you raise:
 * Slowness yes it is indeed very slow at the moment, but I can work on fixing this.  I have already had some ideas on how to improve the speed.  Working with string manipulation using the tools Wikimedia makes available is definitely challenging -- rather like climbing a tree with one hand tied behind your back :)  But I have had very little experience in working with these tools until now and I have already had some ideas on how to make things considerably faster.
 * Duplicates: definitely they can be filtered out.  That will be easy (but see the next item).
 * Clutter: As some have discussed above, it might be possible to use user preferences to show only the accent (RP or GA) that the user selects in their user preferences.. If the user doesn't select a preference, or for IP users, we could either default to showing the current IPA-en format, or show both RP or GA, or do something else (not sure what right now).
 * Potential: If I get skilful enough in the templates, I have dreams of allowing the user to select respelling format instead of RP or GA, which should theoretically be able to be generated from the current input. Because of the difficulty of working with the Wikipedia String tools, however, I am not sure how practical this will be.
 * Motivation: While I am personally very happy with the current diaphonemic IPA transcription format, and I commend everyone who has worked on developing it, it is evident that some users are not so happy. The idea behind this little project is to allow users to see whatever format they prefer, while also allowing editors to continue to add pronunciations in the diaphonemic format.  There are also some (don't know how many) users who object that the current format constitutes Original Research.  Without taking any position on the merits of this objection, I think that it would be good to allow such users to choose to see either RP or GA (or both) formats, so that this objection would then presumably go away.
 * Cheers. Grover cleveland (talk) 19:00, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, Grover. I appreciate your attempts and realised the speed might be improved. But a while ago a similar debate raged about UK/US/International date formats. There it became clear that the vast majority of readers is not logged in, and so cannot have preferences. Guessing their preference is fraught with difficulties. Even if you might be able to guess their location, that does not imply a preference, especially outside places where English is the native language. So the only option would be to show both (all?) dialects or just the diaphonemic form. So either there would be (a lot of) clutter or no progress. The same effect crushes your dream of automated "other" representations. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 20:30, 21 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Anyway, I have now changed the template so that the template converts to RP format only if the user has set "en-GB" as his/her "Internationalisation/language" user preference:  otherwise it leaves it in diaphonemic format.  Unfortunately Wikipedia does not provide a specific "en-US" language setting, which otherwise might have been appropriate to use for GenAm.
 * I appreciate your point about most users not being logged in. However, I suspect most of those who raise a ruckus about the current scheme are logged in users.  Wouldn't it be useful if, when a non-rhotic user starts complaining about the IPA format being "American" or whatever, we could reply to him/her: "Just set your user preference to en-GB and you'll see everything in RP?" Grover cleveland (talk) 21:10, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Same reasoning goes as for the date debate. Implementing this template for logged-in users, would hide to them what ordinary readers would see. However, entering pronunciations correctly is most likely dependent on logged-in users, which would be hampered if they do not see the same thing as most readers. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 21:51, 21 May 2010 (UTC)


 * This idea seems worthy of further investigation to me. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

A minor example of the problems hard-formatting dialectical differences can do: at germen, there is both a generic term and an English place name. Since the transcription is marked as phonemic, if we were to use /r/ in one but not the other, we would claim that the pronunciations differ, which would be false: any individual speaker would pronounce the two the same. — kwami (talk) 07:18, 24 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Kwami -- does this comment belong in another section? Grover cleveland (talk) 01:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * A method of automatically displaying the possibly most  appropriate transcription  system for non  logged in  users, would be regional  IP identification. This has been mentioned before but  appeared to  receive little or no comment. It  would seem to  be the technically  easiest  solution  to  implement. One would assume that  this being  an encyclopedia, the majority of visitors are looking for information and not  seeking  to  become Wikipedia editors. Thus a probable majority of visitors have no  intention of ever registering and logging in. --Kudpung (talk) 00:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It did receive a comment from Angr, which I hereby echo. It seems extremely crude to attempt to deduce someone's pronunciation from his or her IP address.  In addition, I disagree with the claim that this would be "the technically  easiest  solution  to  implement".   We would almost certainly need help from members of the Wikipedia developer team to make it possible, and their time is extremely scarce.  Consider that even getting access to the "internationalisation/language" setting, a comparatively easy task, was only feasible because of a hack that a template expert told me about.  Grover cleveland (talk) 01:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Deducing an Internet  user's location  from his  IP is a common feature of web design. It's used all  the time.--Kudpung (talk) 02:44, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think they're arguing its feasability, just its appropriateness. What are some of the things websites do with this sort of deduction? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]  04:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are two kinds of feasibility:
 * If we had full access to the Wikipedia source code and configuration then, I agree, IP deduction would be trivial. However we do not have such access, so we would have to request help from the Wikipedia development team, which as I mentioned above, is extremely busy, and additionally might not be inclined to give us this kind of access.  (I am certain they would not allow us to get IP information for logged-in users, because only CheckUsers are allowed that power).
 * Assuming that we do not have help from the Wikipedia development team, then I do not think that Kudpung's suggestion is feasible. I admit that I have not investigated this extensively, but I base this on the fact that even getting a user's preference in a template is not, in general, possible.
 * I should also reiterate what I said above, which is that I don't think that this use of IP addresses would be appropriate, even if it were feasible. Grover cleveland (talk) 05:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Using IP to  identify  an Internet  user's location is an extremely  easy  and common technical  process. Wikipedia does it  all  the time,  that's how we know the IP  numbers of unregistered editors. It  is clear however, that  if one has  have never used the Internet  from  outside one's native USA, one  will  never have noticed how website content changes according  to  one's location. Google, for example, automatically renders its page in  the language of the country one is  surfing  from, while online shops, such  as the Apple appshop, display  the currency  of the country one is in. One  may also  see  notifications such  as  'The service you  have requested is not  available in  your region;', or 'This software is not  available for download in  your region;', or 'Please wait while we transfer you  to  our web page for your region.'
 * Wikipedia is more than a bunch  of people creating artticles and arguing  about  policy. Whatever solution  is eventually  adopted it  will  have site-wide implications, thus it might probably  not  appropriate to  suggest  that Wikipedia's web development  team cannot/will not  have time. In  fact  it's precisely  what they  do.  They  do  as  they  are told based on  consensus and feedback.--Kudpung (talk) 00:36, 29 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There is little I hate more than websites trying to guess what format, language, currency and regional news I want to see. They get it wrong too often. I am not able to learn the language of all countries I travel to, nor do I want to be charged 100 euro for things that cost 100 dollar, or be barred from downloading on economic or political grounds. When I want local information I can go to a local site. When I am on a global site, I expect it to behave the same globally. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 11:46, 29 May 2010 (UTC)