Help talk:IPA/Hindi and Urdu

English approximation for ɽʱ (ढ़)
Apparently there is "no English equivalent" for ɽʱ (ढ़). Surely the "rdh" sound in "birdhouse", "hardhat", etc. is a good approximation? Rajdooot (talk) 02:01, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Alphabetical representation
A user has recently added a "Devangari representation" to the table, do we really need it? I'm guessing someone down the line will add an "Urdu representation", and then for the vowels as well, and it will just become a giant mess.

Personally, I don't think it should be included, but I didn't want to straight up remove it. نعم البدل (talk) 02:55, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * We have a handful of other keys that also list the letters that are used to represent the respective sounds (e.g. Help:IPA/Korean, Help:IPA/Bulgarian); some keys even entirely rely on presenting letters but not sample words (e.g. Help:IPA/Hebrew, Help:IPA/Georgian, Help:IPA/Albanian). So there is no real standard here. But obviously, listing Devanagari alone is wrong, and adding Urdu letters will render the table impenetrable.
 * However, our best keys only rely on sample words (e.g. Help:IPA/French, Help:IPA/Japanese, Help:IPA/Tamil), including keys with two scripts (Help:IPA/Serbo-Croatian, Help:IPA/Punjabi). So I agree to remove the Devanagari letter column. We have other pages that cover the important topic of how sounds are represented in the respective script; it's not the purpose of this pronunciation key. –Austronesier (talk) 10:58, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I would say the examples suffice! I've gone ahead and removed the 'representations column'. نعم البدل (talk) 03:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Compound English approximations for aspirated consonants
@Kwamikagami Hi! You reverted my edits in which I changed the example for /tʃʰ/ and /kʰ/ from "achoo" and "cab" to "hitchhike" and "backhand". My thought with those changes that it would make the aspiration stronger and clearer for American and British English speakers who are attempting to approximate these sounds; we have similiar compound words as examples for the murmured consonants (birdhouse and clubhouse), and so I didn't think the change would be controversial. Additionally, as "achoo" is onamatopoeic, it's pronunciation can be less than consistent, so I think another word would be more suitable there in any case. What do you think?

If there is consensus for this change, I was also planning on changing the examples for the other aspirated consonants to words such as courthouse, whitehead, and loophole.

I also added a dental diacritic to d, dʰ, and n for consistency with t̪ and t̪ʰ. In my opinion, we should either consistently include the dental diactric for this consonant series or consistently not include it, but this mixture seems to me to be confusing as it implies a phonemeic distinction in the place of articulation for t̪ and t̪ʰ as compared to d, dʰ, and n.

Indigopari (talk) 13:57, 25 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Nardog @Austronesier @نعم البدل I know y'all have opined on this page before, so I'm pinging in case y'all are interested. Indigopari (talk) 14:15, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * As long as English equivalents are availble, we should use them. The initial consonant of 'cab' is aspirated in all major natively-spoken varieties of English, so it's ideal. The approximation with clusters of final voiced obstruent + /h/ is only necessary because English lacks equivalent sounds.


 * The inconsistent diacritic with dental t was stealthy added in Feb 2024. Our long-standing version has plain IPA symbols which we generally use for dental/alveolar consonants, unless there are two sounds that can only be distinguished by means of diacritics on the same symbol, e.g. the two S sounds in Basque. –Austronesier (talk) 15:21, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Alright, that makes sense. I'll remove the dental diacritics on the t in that case, since there is pre-existing consensus against that. Indigopari (talk) 15:43, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The problem with compound words is that they're not good approximants [they're not single segments] and are confusing to naive English-speakers - how are you supposed to start a word with the coda of a syllable? — kwami (talk) 01:26, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
 * BTW, I came across this kind of comparison when I was in highschool, e.g. that Ancient Greek phi was pronounced like the ph in 'top hat'. I was completely confused as to what that was supposed to mean, as you obviously can't start a word with that sound. — kwami (talk) 20:54, 28 April 2024 (UTC)