Help talk:IPA/Spanish/Archive 3

r is also wrong
It's only trilled when it's spelled rr, or at the beginning of a word. It's a /ɾ/ flap in both places in amor eterno; even our page Help:IPA gets this correct, with actual Spanish examples, no less. (It's sometimes trilled at the end of a word like amor), but this is only for special contextual emphasis, not part of normal word pronunciation.) So this should probably read something like:

With the "amor eterno" example moved to the entry below that, if we need to retain it at all.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The trill also appears after (source: this paper, page 258, and Fonetyka hiszpańska by Wiaczesław Nowikow (PWN 2012, page 37)), most probably because it is analyzed as starting the next syllable. The word-final  does vary between a trill and a tap, depending on the circumstances and the speaker (Nowikow (2012:37)). Peter238 (talk) 14:06, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * There is some dialectal variance on this. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:12, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with SMcCandlish (although the trill is not wrong). I think it would be better/easier to transcribe final /r/ as [ɾ] in all instances (like in Catalan and EP), as [r] is too emphatic and it's not as common (and neutral) as [ɾ]. In my opinion [ɾ] (which is totally accepted in the standard) denotes more an intermediate pronunciation between those who use the trill and those who omit or merge final /r/.   — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 16:41, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * you're talking about "heavier" accents I suppose?
 * I support switching final to . Peter238 (talk) 16:45, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I think he means that as well, and he's entitle to support /r/ as it's standard; however I think [r] is not as engaging and conciliatory as [ɾ] : ) — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 22:47, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * My main point was that he seemed to ignore the occurrence of the trill after (AFAIK, pronouncing the tap there sounds foreign). Peter238 (talk) 19:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That's correct. /ɾ/ can't occur after /n, l, s/ in the standard. A strange user tried to add those pronunciations in Catalan but I substituted them for [ɹ] ([ɹ̠]), which can occur as an allophone of coda ([ɾ]) and pre-vocalic /ɾ/ and /d/. From my own personal experience I have never heard [ɾ] in those cases, and I think this pronunciation (if exists) could be regarded as a farther fluctuation like [ʁ] (or [ɣ]). — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 02:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The term you're looking for is probably rhotacism. Peter238 (talk) 02:51, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes, which is similar to betacism (although betacism is regarded as standard in Spanish) — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 02:58, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It's only similar as far as spelling is concerned. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:39, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

POV / Rename
Based on the previous sources, I request to rename this page to IPA for Castilian Spanish — Jɑuмe (dis-me) IMO it's not right to label this as a universal Spanish variety that represents all of us (I use Los Fruittis standard) and although Spanish is also synonym of Castilian, it clearly seems to go against the Spanish Constitution since it doesn't equalise Castilian and Spanish
 * I disagree with this proposal. The dialectal differences between Spanish varieties are not significant enough to warrant separate IPA guides. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:23, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Neutral: In Spanish, terms español and castellano are, to the best of my knowledge, used more or less interchangeably - some prefer one term, some the other, perhaps some people don't even care. I'm not sure what's the situation in English, so I'll let other editors comment on that. Peter238 (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I know Spanish and Castilian are synonyms, but it is also synonym with Murcian and other varieties. Also you don't just label languages, but also dialects, see Mandarin (Standard) and Cantonese Chinese. And in my opinion there are great/noticeable differences between varieties, I personally don't understand many Murcians and Southern Peninsulars when they speak fast, do you? Besides that, I think this guide (which is based only in one dialect [Castilian Spanish]) seems to exclude many speakers and also it seems it goes against the Spanish constitution and the reality of this language.  — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 16:19, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Chinese varieties are an extreme example of mutually unintelligible "dialects" considered the same language, so they're not a good example. This is intended to apply to most dialects of Spanish, particularly regional standards. There is some wiggle room in transcription, most prominently the dental fricative and palatal lateral, which are features of Castilian Spanish but not much of South American Spanish. I'm not familiar with Murcian Spanish, so I don't know how different it is. Our article on Murcian Spanish isn't clear enough to help me understand these differences. For example, it has a vowel chart of vowel phones, but no clarification on vowel phonemes. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:46, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Can't our transcription system be mapped onto every existing dialect though? E.g. estar, our transcription, Buenos Aires - both are broad transcriptions.


 * I'm not the best person to ask, I've already told you. First, I'd have to know Spanish better.


 * I think it's just that: it seems to exclude many speakers when, in reality, it probably excludes only some of them (as probably every guide of this kind). The best example that I can think of is the Andalusian vowel harmony, which, AFAIK, in itself is not a completely uniform phenomenon. Centralization of unstressed vowels can and should be ignored by not applying diacritics to unstressed vowels. Can you list anything more?


 * The Spanish constitution (and why just Spanish? There are 19 more countries with Spanish as their primary language...) is not relevant here (and it's even less relevant if it doesn't have an official English version - I don't know that). This is English Wikipedia, we're using terms that are most recognizable in English. Peter238 (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Aeusoes, AFAIK, the palatal lateral is actually more of a regional South American pronunciation (Bolivia, Paraguay, northern Argentina). If you want to read about Murcian, see the JIPA article that I posted above. Peter238 (talk) 16:55, 30 January 2016 (UTC)


 * To Peter238:
 * With the Spanish constitution I just wanted to prove (as I said above) that in Spain; Spanish and Castilian are not legally equal terms (although both terms can be regarded as synonyms in other contexts). To be honest I don't know about the legislation of other Spanish-speaking countries, so I can't say how they view or call this language in those countries


 * I also mentioned the Spanish constitution because you named this article IPA for Spanish but you just use Castilian Spanish, and for many Spaniards the term Spanish could also include other varieties (like Murcian) which differ a lot from the variety you're using


 * Regarding the Murcian-Eastern Andalusian vowel harmony I don't think it's so variable as you think, especially compared to the Valencian vowel harmony (which varies from town to town, see the Valencian vowel harmony map, ), both types of vowel harmonies are very different


 * With concern to your last question: If you're using terms that are mostly used in English, why do you use Mandarin instead of Chinese? Chinese [Standard Chinese] is mostly synonym with Mandarin in English, the same than Castilian is synonym with Spanish, am I right? Why can't you do the same here?


 * To Aeusoes1:
 * Well, in my opinion there are intelligibility issues between certain varieties; I personally don't understand all the Spanish accents and dialects; I understand more Peninsular Spanish than Latin American. I particularly don't understand many Bolivians, Argentinians, Chileans, Caribbeans, etc. And sometimes I also struggle to understand some Southern Peninsulars. Do you understand them and think everybody speaks the same? I think some phonetic differences between dialects can be radical like Murcian/Andalusian (Southern Peninsular) vs Castilian (Northern Peninsular), perhaps they are more intelligible than Mandarin and Cantonese but still they're not fully intelligible


 * If you want to learn more about Murcian (which is also regarded as a separate language due those intelligibility issues I mention) you can have a look at the Murcian language website: www.llenguamaere.com


 * Further questions to you both:


 * 1) why don' you use the name sources call the variety you're representing here and try to avoid conflicts?


 * 2) if you don't want to use the name I propose (because you're probably biased), how would you combine all the Spanish varieties, or better what solution would you propose to the neutrality issue? — Jɑuмe (dis-me)
 * It's my understanding that Spanish dialects are largely mutually intelligible. As with any language, there are going to be some dialects that are less intelligible. Murcian may be one of these. But focusing on a national standard when there are regional variants is not unusual. This is what we do for German and Dutch, despite the vowel continuum that exist in these countries.
 * If you can find something that says there are serious or irreconcilable phonological differences between Spanish varieties or national standards, I'd like to see it.
 * On top of this, the IPA for Spanish page is not exactly "Castilian" since we allow for transcribing seseo and yeísmo pronunciations.
 * I think the Spanish constitution is a red herring here. The term for the language as a whole is typically "Spanish" and that is what we should be transcribing here. Rather than rename this guide to say that it's for one Spanish dialect, if it's too focused on one national standard over others, we may instead need to alter how we transcribe Spanish. If we were to do that, what changes would you like to see, Jaume? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  04:30, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm concerned, it wasn't till long ago when you proposed to add features like seseo and yeísmo and I think you did that because other users also complained :) To be honest, this guide still represents Castilian too much, and that's a bit boring and not very objective. I think we should allow to transcribe /x/ as /h/ in some local trancriptions (e.g. mojito [moˈhito], a Cuban drink), represent all the vocalic phones of Andalusian and Murcian (e.g. Las Torres de Cotillas [læˑ ˈtːɔˑrɛˑ (ð)e kɔˈtiˑʎæˑ]), add certain assimilations (Islas Canarias [iʱlːaʰ kːaˈnaːɾjaʰ]) and /s/ lenition (Caracas [kaˈɾaːkaʰ]) for certain dialects, use final obstruent devoicing with fricatives in Central and Northern Peninsular (e.g. Madrid [maˈðɾiθ]), indicate ð elision when required (as in Granada [gɾaˈna]), use ʒ/ʃ for places in (or people from) Argentina and Uruguay (Nueva Pompeya  [ˈnweβa pomˈpeʃa]), etc. Btw, you didn't respond to my statement about the title (i.e. "Castilian Spanish") of the sources you're using here :) — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 02:41, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Originally, this was indeed a more strict rendering of Castilian Spanish, with the logic that other dialects are derivable from it. This is why the one source cited uses that term, though it's clear from that source and others that Castilian Spanish is a dialect of Spanish.
 * Personally, I see those as problematic. Transcribing, for example, the sound of $⟨j⟩$ differently will simply appear inconsistent and might lead readers to believe that they are different phonemes. Transcribing a language differently in general can be highly confusing to readers. It should be motivated by something more than just whether it's "boring." Focusing on a standard variety or varieties can be a bit prescriptive, but an IPA pronunciation guide in an encyclopedic article is going to necessarily be oversimplistic in this regard. We do tend to allow "local" pronunciations, but those would be in addition to a standard pronunciation. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 14:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It should be motivated by the reality and acceptance of Spanish as a pluricentric language and by allowing users to transcribe different standards and dialectal features like I'm trying to do in Catalan... I reaffirm what I said previously, and I think you live in different planet than me by the way you answer... For me this guide is very subjective as it is, it's tedious, lacks honesty (transparency), neutrality, comprehension, intelligence and many other things... And I don't think anybody cares whether /h/ is a different phoneme or not (I think a good explanation will always avoid confusions), they care about the real pronunciation (like certain user who said the most genuine pronunciation of mojito is with h)... And also aren't we transcribing allophonic variants, why not dialectal segments like in Greek? If you oppose to this, you can't oppose to rename this to Castilian Spanish and split Murcian/Andalusian and perhaps also Latin American Spanish — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 17:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Neutral with tendency to agree to the move: I don't have knowledge to contribute with these IPA helps, but since it's using brackets instead of slashes, used in English IPA help, this help is representing a phonetic transcriptions instead of a phonemic like the used in English transcriptions. As Jaume said, if we're giving a transcription of Uruguayan places in their own country, to use a different dialect for represent them would make it be not "a transcription of places in their own country".
 * On the other hand, there is also a problem with the term "Castilian" that apparently the meaning varies from place to place. At least in Portuguese, "castelhano" is the same of "espanhol", though "espanhol" is much more commonly used. I've also listened that Argentines call their language as "castellano", but I'm not sure if that's true, one of the places I've listened that is from this file, so I think this move could imply that "Rioplatense" is not "Castilian".--Luizdl Talk 02:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That it's phonetic doesn't mean we should parse different guides for different Spanish dialects. Again, these dialects are largely mutually intelligible, so it doesn't make sense to have a guide for just one Spanish dialect. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 08:34, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your opinion Luizdl and you're not wrong at all. I also noticed most Argentinians use castellano (IPA-Rioplatense Spanish (narrow transcription):, I think vowel centralization is optional or depends on the speaker) like my childhood dentist and some former classmates. They probably prefer to enhance the real origin of their language, which I think is genuine from them and is totally acceptable. Their modern variant, however, is independent from Castilian Spanish; as it has absorbed other influences, especially from Italian and Southern Peninsular Spanish.
 * In my opinion all the Romance languages from Iberia are more or less mutually intelligible. As a Valencian, I understand most of them but I still struggle to understand every aspect of all the variants, including Catalan [Central Catalan] and Balearic (e.g. Majorcan) (from which I share a common origin). Also, on what level of intelligibility are you basing your statements Aeusoes1 (see Czeck and Slovak)? And also isn't Judaeo-Spanish or Ladino mutually intelligible with modern Spanish too? — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 00:00, 7 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Wouldn't it be sufficient to say in the lead that this is based on Castilian Spanish? I don't see much utility for readers in actually moving the page to a different name. Especially since it's likely to inspire the creation of the bunch of variant pages for different dialects, which we don't need inserted into articles in series. We don't have have variant pages like this for "Help:IPA for American English", etc., so we don't need them for other languages. Mandarin vs. Cantonese isn't a comparable case; they're separate languages that share an ideographic writing system; referring to them as "dialects" of Chinese is a linguistic misnomer.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I know very little about Spanish and its dialects, pretty much only what I've read on Wikipedia. But here's my outsider's opinion. I gather the reader is supposed to look at the Wikipedia-style standardized transcription of a Spanish word, do some sound-substitutions, and arrive at the actual pronunciation of the word in the relevant dialect. So, the in  is supposed to be read as a. That would sort of make sense if this was a phonemic transcription,, but this is phonetic, enclosed in brackets. Even if this is a broad phonetic transcription, should a velar symbol really represent a glottal fricative? Seems a little bizarre. The velum and glottis are pretty far apart, and an English speaker can hear the difference because they have a glottal fricative and not a velar in their phonemic inventory.

So, either the Spanish transcriptions should be switched to phonemic (or more accurately, diaphonemic, like the Wikipedia English IPA system), or more dialectal differences should be represented, so that the transcriptions are plausibly phonetic. Diaphonemic transcription wouldn't work, because English speakers would be confused by having a single symbol for both voiced stops or affricates, and approximants or fricatives, so I think the only option is making the transcriptions more dialectally accurate.

I think the page doesn't need to be moved (yet), but it should clearly state that the transcription system is not accurate for all Spanish dialects (maybe even for most Spanish speakers, since various Latin American Spanishes have some features that are not represented here at all). — Eru·tuon 08:05, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * There are several things we could do to improve this language transcriptions. I don't think a broad transcription would help users to understand how Spanish works, and it seems to me this is not the most common practice (of transcriptions) here. And well, I started suggesting to rename this page also because many dubbed films distinguish between Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish, and because in my opinion this guide is not neutral and just favours more Castilian, as it shows Latin American as secondary. Additionally, we are also discussing how to add some divergent or radical variants, like Andalusian and Murcian (which are not fully intelligible with Castilian Spanish). The option Eru suggests about adding certain dialectal features sounds good to me. How would you do this, would you use separate guides/pages or an all inclusive guide? — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 00:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Not sure about same or separate guides. Perhaps you could aim for one guide and split it if it becomes complex and unreadable, as with the earlier combined Galician/Portuguese, Swedish/Norwegian, and Dutch/Afrikaans guides. Or varieties that are more similar could be described together, and more divergent varieties could be described on separate pages. — Eru·tuon 01:40, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Agree in concept. First of I don't understand how this is a "neutrality" issue and I feel the template should be removed. Now to the issue at hand, there is an International Phonetic Association and if they differentiate between Castilian and Latin American (or other) Spanish then Wikipedia should as well. If IPA doesn't differentiate then comments (with scholarly citations) should cite the differences and the regions they occur in. A new page could be created when the variations reached 10-15 % of the Castilian IPA. But it is simply a (slightly pedantic) pronunciation guide for vowel and consonant sounds and it doesn't normally restrict how the specific words are pronounced. For example British English and American English pronounce vitamin and macrame differently but they use the exact same IPA key to describe the pronunciation (/ˈvaɪ.tə.mɪn/ US, /ˈvɪt.ə.mɪn/ UK). English is an ever evolving language while French is regulated by the "immortal 40" of the Académie française. Icelandic is very strict with new words only being constructed from old ones. I don't know the situation with Spanish but certainly we have an editor that does. Mensch (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 16:18, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Z
"Z" in Spanish is never pronounced as an "s". "Caza" can be never pronounced as "casa" as they would be confused: "Me voy de caza" (I'm going hunting) or "Me voy de casa" (I'm leaving home). A similar sound would be the ending of "tough" or the name "Ethan". "Quiz" is also invalid as it ends as an "s". About the Ñ, I would eliminate "Enyesar" as an example as the "n" word is fully pronounced and it doesn't happen with an Ñ, there is no N in Ñ. Maybe the "gn" sound would be more accurate, as for example in the italia word "Signorita" (but not the sound of "Magno" in Alexander Magnus) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.35.160.99 (talk) 09:26, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * You might want to rethink what you wrote, and read seseo and Spanish phonology. We don't pull this stuff out of imagination. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:04, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
 * In the seseo-speaking areas, casa and caza are indeed pronounced the same. Languages are full of homophones and speakers are usually pretty capable of dealing with the ambiguity. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:48, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with these answers, however I'd like to add there are some speakers that might pronounce some instances of c (before e and i) and z with an intermediate sound between /s/ and /θ/, therefore I'd say there are different degrees and types of /s/-dentalisation in Spanish. Moreover the /s/ - /θ/ merger might not be fully featured by all the speakers in the seseo dialects and some of these might attempt to use some lisp, but I don't know much about this process.
 * I don't agree about what this user says about the /N/ archiphoneme. — Jɑuмe (dis-me) 00:47, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Coming late to the conversation, but I spent years in Latin America, and "caza" and "casa" are pronounced identically there (at least in Mexico and Central America). Simon Burchell (talk) 08:46, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

I mostly agree with the first comment. The seseo-speaking areas are mainly located in Latin America, not in Spain. Thus, in Spain the consonant sound corresponding to the syllables "za", "ce"/"ze", "ci"/"zi", "zo" and "zu" is always pronounced as /θ/, whereas in Latin America is usually pronounced as /s/, the same as if those words were written with "s". For the syllables "ca", "co" and "cu" the consonant pronunciation is always the same both in Spain and Latin America: /k/.

The seseo can lead to ambiguity and confusion with certain words such as "casa" (house) vs "caza" (hunt), "tasa" (tax or fee) vs "taza" (cup), "poso" (traces of a solid dissolved in a liquid that renmain in the ground, i.e. coffee) vs "pozo" (well), "caso" (case) vs "cazo" (a casserole pot), and so on... Not just for a Spanish speaker born in Spain and used to distinguish the pronunciation of those words, but also for some latin American speakers that can write "s" where there is a "z" or a "c" (i.e. "atensión" instead of "atención" -attention-) because for them it is also pronounced as an "s" (/s/).

Taking these things into account, what should be done? Should we consider the Spanish pronunciation in Spain as the purest, the more neutral and correct, as it is where Spanish language was originated, or should we take the Latin American pronunciation as the most representative, as most of the Spanish native speakers nowadays live in Latin America -although it sometimes can lead to ambiguity and confusion-? In my view, the best solution would be to specify both possibilities of pronunciation wherever they exist, pointing out which one is the Spanish from Spain and which one is the Latin American Spanish. Wikier 2017 (talk) 15:16, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Fútbol
So, how we should transcribe it? Is there a standard pronunciation of that word? The issue was raised more than two years ago (see Help_talk:IPA/Spanish/Archive_2) and we still don't have an answer to that. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:05, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

a
The example english pronunciation is useless for non-Americans. As it reads like it should be pronounced O as in orange. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.99.166.77 (talk) 22:07, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:40, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

ɾ
ɾ[4]	    caro; bravo; amor eterno	        batter (American English)

Is that English example really accurate? It's not the "r" that should be bolded rather than the hard t's? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.52.203.5 (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2017‎ (UTC)
 * That is correct. In American English, batter would be transcribed as . The rhotic consonant of English isn't what is the tap/flap, but the t. It's a contextual variant of the phoneme after stressed vowels. See flapping for more information. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  16:22, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * well that's confusing to the point of uselessness.24.19.10.243 (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Not if you speak a dialect of English which has flapping, like ones spoken in the vast majority of the US, Canada and Australia. Nardog (talk) 18:29, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's the closest sound such speakers have to the r of Spanish. Not at all useless. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:41, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

LoveVanPersie's disruptions
There's a thread on Administrators' Noticeboard concerning LoveVanPersie's disruptions. He's posted over 30 incorrect transcriptions of Spanish in the last 4 months. Please join the discussion if you have anything to contribute. Thank you. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:13, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

[ʃ] and [ʒ] in Rioplatense Spanish transcriptions
A bunch of obsessed editors have been removing /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ from Rioplatense Spanish transcriptions on Wikipedia, claiming a Biblical adherence to the core IPA Spanish scriptures. For the record, I think it's fucking stupid to put an American Spanish transcription right next to a recording of the person themself pronouncing their name in Rioplatense Spanish. Especially when the name is so common that the American Spanish pronunciation is obvious, and well-documented on Wiktionary anyway. Is it fair to blame this Spanish hysteria on LoveVanPersie? Please advise. Rovingrobert (talk) 12:00, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Hello, Robert. In answer to the implied question, rather than the untoward one that you've asked (and you might want to refresh yourself on WP:CIV, since your tone and attitude don't speak towards a willingness to collaborate with others), allowing for too much dialectal variation in our Spanish transcriptions will confuse readers more than help them. If you feel like a local transcription with other sounds would be helpful to readers, you could provide that transcription in addition to the more general Spanish transcription that links here. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 13:24, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * What he said. The issue with LVP is also more complex than that - see Wikipedia talk:Reference desk. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:57, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I think we should add something about it on the help page. LoveVanPersie (talk) 13:41, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If the alternative to it is replacing the IPA-es template with the IPA-all one just to use, which is about the worst solution one could come up with, then I think I'm for that.


 * The question is: why use instead of  or vice versa? Because using both symbols is a bad idea. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I think using [ʃ] or [ʒ] should depend on that person's preference. We can search out his interview video to find it. The six player you mentioned pronounce [ʃ] themselves. LoveVanPersie (talk) 03:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That would be confusing to everyone. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 13:36, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Possibly inaccurate or misleading
I'm a translator who speaks Spanish often and after taking a look at the examples next to the phonemes and listening to the phonemes actual sounds I can say that content in this table is not accurate and maybe even misleading. For example, the phoneme $\langle\rangle$ has as Spanish examples "llave" and "pollo", which have a fricative sound at the beginning (which is how it is taught in Guatemala, although in regular talk there is yeismo) but the phoneme is not a fricative but a palatal lateral approximant; the English example is "million" but I would say that the word "job" or "jack" are better suited examples. Thinker78 (talk) 19:43, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * It depends on dialect. In European varieties and those that maintain a distinction between and, these example words have the former. In those that have merged the two sounds, the pronunciation is typically as you describe it. The example is for those dialects that maintain this contrast, so it would only be misleading where there has been that merger.
 * What do you recommend we do differently to address this? — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 04:43, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * In Guatemala there is yeismo but as I mentioned, when teaching the sounds of the letters in school the distinction between ll and y is observed although in everyday use ll and y sound the same, with the pronunciation being that of $\langle\rangle$as you can hear it in the link I provided under "actual sounds". So that's why I point out that the examples of "llave" and "pollo", observing the distinction, is that of a fricative and not the sound you hear of the phoneme $\langle\rangle$ so it is more the sound of $\langle\rangle$. My suggestion is put as examples for $\langle\rangle$ the words "yegua" and "yo", and for $\langle\rangle$, "llave" and "pollo". Watch this YouTube video that seem to support my position #10 ¿Qué es el yeísmo? Las 500 dudas más frecuentes del español. The article palatal lateral approximant seems to indicate that indeed $\langle\rangle$ has the sound of "yegua" and not of "llave". Thinker78 (talk) 20:59, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but the situation is the opposite of what you're saying. When there is a contrast between the two, is spelled with $⟨ll⟩$, not $⟨y⟩$. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  00:03, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about that. I usually speak Spanish and if $\langle\rangle$ is not fricative then it is not the phoneme that should be used in "llave" and "pollo", which officially have a more forceful and stronger pronunciation than words with "y" like "yegua" and "rayo". Thinker78 (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The traditional pronunciation has a lateral palatal approximant in pollo and a central palatal approximant or fricative in rayo. It's the ll that has a "softer" sound, not the other way around. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 21:10, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * What country's pronunciation are you talking about? Because in Guatemala the "ll" is the fricative and the "y" is the softer one, and that is how it is taught in school, although in general conversation yeism is the norm. Thinker78 (talk) 23:02, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about the traditional European pronunciation of the phonemes. If what you're saying is true, your dialect is highly unusual in this aspect. I'd like to see a reputable source to back this up. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:12, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I will be looking for a reliable source which a light search was unable to produce. For now I can only strongly affirm my statement about the pronunciation in Guatemala of ll and y in an anecdotal way. But I found a reliable source, the RAE, that indeed confirms what you say about the "ll", it is a palatal lateral voiced phoneme. Although it is unclear what it means about the "y" (voiced central palatal, don't know what it means with "central"). Thinker78 (talk) 23:49, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * See lateral consonant, central consonant and nasal consonant. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:57, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

About R
I believe the current note on r in the page is inaccurate. This is my synthesis of what I read in the Diccionarion panhispánico de dudas of the Royal Spanish Academy about the subject: "The rhotic consonants and  occur in complementary distribution, with  used at the beginning of words, after, , or , for emphasis and, only when the digraph rr is present, between vowels.  is found between vowels when rr is not present and elsewhere." Which has a couple differences with the current note explaining r. Thinker78 (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC) Edited 23:12, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I'd support using $\langle\rangle$ wherever is the predominant realization. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:13, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That's contrastive distribution, not complementary distribution, albeit limited to some environments (between vowels), because phonetics and phonology don't take orthography into account (the latter is a representation of the former, not the other way around). The current footnote is more accurate at least in this regard.
 * But as far as where to use [ɾ] and [r], Martínez-Celdrán et al. (2003:258) and Avelino (2017:2) both suggest [ɾ] is the norm in word-final and preconsonantal positions, so using [ɾ] in amor, paterno, etc. seems reasonable. Nardog (talk) 01:09, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure but I think that contrastive distribution only happens with these two phonemes when they are in between vowels, and the other cases are of complementary distribution. Regarding phonetics and orthography, the digraph rr only represents the phoneme [r] only in between vowels not in the other cases where it occurs, that's why I said that [r] is used, only when the digraph rr is present, between vowels, because when rr is not present in between vowels, [ɾ] is used. The current footnote says, "The rhotic consonants /ɾ/ and /r/ contrast only between vowels", but it doesn't say in which cases they contrast. I defined the cases in which they contrast and therefore my text should be added. The current footnote also, I think, says, "[r]... also represented here as before consonants, and word-finally (positions in which they vary)", something which I don't know where the writer of the footnote took from, because the Royal Spanish Academy doesn't say that. As you say, those authors you mentioned suggest [ɾ] is the norm in word-final and preconsonantal positions but the table currently is using [r] not [ɾ] in "paterno" and for some reason it is listing "amor" under both [r] and [ɾ]. Thinker78 (talk) 06:09, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We list amor (one word) under and amor eterno (two words) under . We don't list amor twice. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, if two sounds contrast in any environment, they are contrastive, not complementary. So it is plainly false to say "/ɾ/ and /r/ occur in complementary distribution" with no qualification. The current note is correct to say "/ɾ/ and /r/ contrast only between vowels. Otherwise, they are in complementary distribution" (emphasis added).
 * And it's the digraph $\langlerr\rangle$ that represents the phoneme /r/, not vice versa. So it is wrong to say /r/ is used when the digraph is present; it's that when /r/ is present, $\langlerr\rangle$ is used. I agree with you, however, that it wouldn't hurt to mention the relationship between the sound and spelling in the footnote.
 * Also, we shouldn't be consulting general dictionaries as the arbiter about these kinds of technical issues, although they may be useful as general references to start with. Nardog (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Nardog, I did err in not including the part of the contrast. But the note also errs in not specifying that the contrast only occurs in certain cases between vowels and not all. It is not wrong to say that /r/ is used when the digraph is present because Spanish readers will do just that, use /r/ when they see the digraph rr. And it is wrong to say that the digraph represent /r/, because the digraph is used only when /r/ occurs between vowels. Regarding the dictionary, I have to point out something. The Spanish language, unlike the English language, has an official and final arbiter about the Spanish language, which is the Royal Spanish Academy. The dictionaries and other official publication that it makes are the official rules of the Spanish language. So it is actually something called for to consult and reference the Royal Spanish Academy dictionaries and other official publications when providing information about the Spanish language. Thinker78 (talk) 19:06, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Linguists don't think that way. Anyone who's taken the first week of a Linguistics 101 knows this. The sound (or its equivalent in case of a signed language) is the language, and writing is a representation of that (read the first sentences of Writing for example). Otherwise you won't be able to explain why there are thousands of unwritten languages or millions of illiterate people who can nonetheless speak or sign around the world.
 * And linguistics describes language, not prescribe. The Royal Spanish Academy is a prescriptive source according to our article (whose sourcing isn't adequate, admittedly), and, again, although they may be a good source to start with, to treat them as the definitive arbiter would be a serious violation of WP:NPOV. That's why we rely on descriptive, linguistic sources like the ones cited at Spanish phonology when writing articles about language. Nardog (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, when Aeusoes1 addded the example "amor eterno", implying that [r], not [ɾ], should be used in word-final and preconsonantal positions, in January 2009, it seems he was simply following what the Spanish phonology article said then: With words like amor, the rhotic manifests as the trill when said before a pause or a consonant-initial word as in amor paterno ('paternal love') but as the tap when preceding a vowel-initial word as in amor eterno. There are also alternations occurring with suffixation, such as when nouns are pluralized: amor vs. amores. In more casual speech, a preconsonantal rhotic is the tap rather than the trill thus arma ('gun') may be or, citing Harris (1969:56). But since much more recent sources like Martínez-Celdrán et al. and Avelino corroborate what Thinker78 has suggested, it does seem we should switch to [ɾ] in those positions as far as Castilian and Mexican Spanishes go.

But like Kbb2 said, there appears to be over a thousand articles that are currently using [r] in non-prevocalic positions, including Ecuador and El Salvador. Would it be a good idea to change those to [ɾ] uniformly, or should we not touch the ones which we're not completely sure about? Nardog (talk) 15:02, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We should change those that we firmly believe are incorrect, as possible. Thinker78 (talk) 19:14, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It's my understanding that there's a lot of variation in regards to the postconsonantal preconsonantal rhotic. IMHO, it's not worth edit warring over and, of course, one version is not more correct than the other. Since we've already got thousands of articles edited in the way indicated here, who will bell the cat and go through and alter all the transcriptions? If no one volunteers to do it, then we shouldn't change the guide here. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:22, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If information is determined to be incorrect it should be changed as possible. Thinker78 (talk) 23:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We didn't determine it to be incorrect, just is (or might be) a more narrow transcription. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:28, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It is currently being discussed. Thinker78 (talk) 23:33, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Neither is incorrect and one isn't more narrow than the other. There is variation. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 00:03, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume you meant preconsonantal. But we also have over 600 articles already using [ɾ] in preconsonantal or word-final positions, including Puerto Rico and Argentina. So it's not like the key as it stands is universally adhered to.
 * The more I read about the Spanish rhotics, the more I'm convinced [ɾ] is the right choice. I assume the idea behind the choice of [r] by the current key is that it is positing [r] as some kind of quasi-archiphoneme, because cross-linguistically $\langler\rangle$ is the norm for a rhotic in broad transcription. But this is inappropriate in the case of Spanish, or at least in the case of a transcription that uses both [ɾ] and [r], because in analyses that phonemicize intervocalic [r] as /rr/, the main allophone of a single /r/ is [ɾ], not [r]. Also, if a word-final rhotic is always a tap when followed by a vowel, why would anyone analyze it as underlyingly a trill? I would be quite surprised if anyone analyzed amor as /amorr/ or paterno as /paterrno/ (or /amor/, /paterno/ as opposed to /amoɾ/, /pateɾno/ in two-phoneme analysis). So as long as we're using both [ɾ] and [r]—and not an extra archiphoneme—$\langleɾ\rangle$ should stand for the default representation of the rhotic in codas.
 * Phonemics aside, descriptive sources do corroborate RAE about the tap being the favored realization in multiple varieties (in addition to Martínez-Celdrán et al. and Avelino cited above, Hualde 2005:183, Macpherson 1975:13, Coloma 2017, Monroy & Hernández-Campoy 2015, Lipski 1990:4). Isn't this enough evidence to revise the key? Holding back from it just because correcting the existing transcriptions would be arduous sounds very unlike Wikipedia. Luckily I have AWB rights so I could be of a little help, but we can also ask a bot to do it. Alternatively, if we deem it inappropriate to go around changing the existing transcriptions indiscriminately, we can state in the note that they are kept for a reason but new transcriptions must adhere to the key. Nardog (talk) 14:54, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Oops, yes I meant preconsonantal. Given what you've said, a change makes sense. So, let me make sure we're on the same page. The presentation would be like this:
 * {| class="wikitable"


 * style="text-align:center;" |
 * rumbo, carro, honra, amor
 * style="text-align:center;" |
 * caro, bravo, amor eterno, amor paterno
 * }
 * Right?
 * — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:51, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Why [r] for amor? Is there any reason to treat word- or utterance-final rhotics and preconsonantal ones differently? All sources I cited above except Harris say [ɾ] is more common in both positions. Nardog (talk) 17:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we should use in the phrase-final position if that's the predominant realization. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * On second thought, does it make sense to list amor eterno and amor paterno separately from the simple amor? They'll be transcribed with the same $⟨⟩$. I think we should aim at simplicity. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If they're all the tap, then no it doesn't make sense.
 * {| class="wikitable"
 * If they're all the tap, then no it doesn't make sense.
 * {| class="wikitable"


 * style="text-align:center;" |
 * rumbo, carro, honra
 * style="text-align:center;" |
 * caro, bravo, amor
 * }
 * Is that right? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:27, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * That looks ok to me, but the note should be modified as well. Thinker78 (talk) 22:29, 11 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what I suggest as well, although we should probably add a preconsonantal example such as parte. The note should probably read something along the lines of "The rhotic consonants and  contrast only between vowels, where they are usually spelled $\langlerr\rangle$ and $\langler\rangle$, respectively. Otherwise, they are in complementary distribution: Word-initially and after, only  is found; before a consonant or pause, both are found but  is more common (hence so represented here); elsewhere, only  is found." I did away with the slashes because some analyze [r] as /ɾɾ/. I say "usually" because I assume $\langler\rangle$ may be used between vowels and still pronounced as a trill in non-native words. Is this assumption correct?
 * And what about the existing transcriptions? Should we ask a bot, or should we leave them alone? Nardog (talk) 10:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We could change amor to partir, which would exhibit what we're looking for. We could ask a bot or manually do it ourselves. 600 articles isn't that much. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:10, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No, you got it backwards. 600 articles are the ones already using [ɾ] in final or preconsonantal positions. Twice as many articles have [r] in those positions. Nardog (talk) 17:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * 1200 articles isn't that much. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We should probably ask a bot, then. Nardog (talk) 18:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Here it is. Nardog (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We should probably ask a bot, then. Nardog (talk) 18:47, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Here it is. Nardog (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Nardog, I think the note as you left it has issues. Text of the note: The rhotic consonants [r] and [ɾ] contrast only between vowels, where they are usually spelled ⟨rr⟩ and ⟨r⟩, respectively. Otherwise, they are in complementary distribution: Word-initially and after /l, n, s/, only [r] is found; before a consonant or pause, the two are interchangeable but [ɾ] is more common (hence so represented here); elsewhere, only [ɾ] is found. If you are talking about the contrast, why say then that there they are usually spelled ⟨rr⟩ and ⟨r⟩? That sounds like you are saying that when there is a contrast between vowels, words are spelled either with (rr) or (r), and not just with (rr) as is the case. Can you provide a reference that before a consonant or pause the two are interchangeable?

I researched the issue further and found the updated official use of the phonemes by the Royal Spanish Academy in its Ortografía de la lengua española [Orthography of the Spanish language]. It states that:

The phoneme appears after a consonant belonging to its same syllable, at the end of its syllable, at the end of a word, and can appear between vowels; it never appears at the beginning of a word nor at the beginning of a syllable after a consonant belonging to another syllable.

The phoneme is used at the beginning of a word, after a consonant belonging to the previous syllable (usually l, n, or s), after the first element of compound words ('ciudadrealeño), after a prefix (subrayar), and can appear between vowels (carro, antirrobo). It is to note that in some inter-vocalic cases where the prefix ends in r and the prefixed word begins in r there can be free variation, like with "interracial", which can be pronounced either just with the, or with the at the end of the prefix "inter" and the  at the start of the prefixed word "racial" [].

I think all of these could be included in the note. Thinker78 (talk) 06:56, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If you are talking about the contrast, why say then that there they are usually spelled ⟨rr⟩ and ⟨r⟩? That sounds like you are saying that when there is a contrast between vowels, words are spelled either with (rr) or (r), and not just with (rr) as is the case. I'm afraid I don't understand what you're getting at. Perhaps we could say "word-medially between vowels" instead of just "between vowels" for clarity, but that's the only thing I can see is potentially lacking from that sentence. Do you see a problem in the first sentence of the note?
 * Can you provide a reference that before a consonant or pause the two are interchangeable? Hualde (2005:183), Martínez-Celdrán et al. (2003:258), Macpherson (1975:13), Lipski (1990:4). Just so we're clear, I don't think the three of us (Aeusoes1, Kbb2, and I) have agreed to change it to [ɾ] because the Royal Spanish Academy says so, but because these descriptive, linguistic sources indicate that [ɾ] is the predominant realization of the prepausal and preconsonantal rhotics in Spanish. Do you disagree? If so, please clarify.
 * It seems to me most of the quote you provided is already covered by the current version of the note (unless [r] is found after a consonant other than /l, n, s/). But to account for subrayar, etc., we should probably change "Word-initially and after /l, n, s/" to "Word-initially, stem-initially, and after /l, n, s/". (However, I don't think it would be a good idea to change it to "Syllable-initially" because then we would have to go into details on where syllable boundaries fall.)
 * As for interracial, I find it hard to believe speakers are able to produce [ɾr] in sequence with ease (wouldn't that be just one [r]?). Can you give us the exact quote in Spanish? It seems like you're paraphrasing the source (you didn't even indicate where the quotation ended!), which hinders us from examining it with precision. Nardog (talk) 11:33, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We could say "word-medially between vowels" instead of just "between vowels".
 * I don't disagree. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:56, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't see a problem with the wording of the first sentence and we should generally prioritize descriptive sources, especially when they disagree with prescriptive ones. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:04, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you both for your answers. Nardog (talk) 17:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It is to note that in some inter-vocalic cases where the prefix ends in r and the prefixed word begins in r there can be free variation, like with "interracial", which can be pronounced either just with the, or with the at the end of the prefix "inter" and the at the start of the prefixed word "racial" []. That just can't be true. Spanish  is nothing more than  realized with one instead of multiple alveolar contacts. Also, the last syllable should be transcribed, not . The only correct transcriptions of this word are  and , especially when we're talking about phonetic transcriptions useful to laymen, not abstract phonemic interpretations (which should be enclosed within slashes). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:56, 13 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Unless what you're talking about is the kind of pronunciation of the word (to show that it's composed of inter- + racial), which would be highly artificial in a normal conversation. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:58, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Not only that, in one-phoneme analysis, inter- + racial would be /inteɾ#ɾasjal/ → /inteɾɾasjal/, i.e. [interasjal]! Nardog (talk) 14:11, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Hualde (2004) answers all these questions. Looks like the very thing I pointed out above was one of the justifications for the one-phoneme analysis, but he found /Vr#rV/ to be longer than /V#rV/. Nardog (talk) 01:14, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Nardog, thanks for your reply, but you didn't really address my question. I asked, "If you are talking about the contrast, why say then that there they are usually spelled ⟨rr⟩ and ⟨r⟩?" You basically answered, "Perhaps we could say 'word-medially between vowels' instead of just 'between vowels'..."


 * There is an important thing to mention here. If you choose to disregard what the Royal Spanish Academy says about the pronunciation rules, you are basically promoting the wrong pronunciation, because at the end of the day the Royal Spanish Academy is the institution that promulgates the rules on how the Spanish should be pronounced and used. All other institutions, including foreign ones, and linguists do not make the rules for the pronunciation of the Spanish language, they maybe just map or make opinions on how people pronounce the Spanish language but their findings don't necessarily agree with the rules set by the Royal Spanish Academy. Thinker78 (talk) 18:50, 13 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Sorry, but that's nonsense. Descriptive sources are just as important as the prescriptive ones. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 19:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Kbb2, Regarding "interracial", I don't know why you say that just can't be true. I provided the citation where I got that from, which is the Royal Spanish Academy. You are free to revise the reference. By the way, I don't know where you got your "correct" transcriptions from at all. Thinker78 (talk) 18:56, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * AFAICS what they essentially say is that the trill in interracial can be longer than in rojo or perro, nothing more. I think we'd need another source to confirm that. If such a difference exist, we also need to know how common it is and then decide whether we need to show it in this guide.


 * From my knowledge of Spanish phonetics. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 19:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Kbb2, to illustrate how you are thinking, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a ruling that the state refusing to send tax money to the church violated the 1st Amendment. You choose to ignore this ruling and say we need another source. You are free to look for dissenting sources but sorry, the binding decision in the US legal system is promulgated by the Supreme Court not by a law professor, a think tank or a university. You don't seem to understand how the Spanish language works. The English language doesn't have an institution that is the final arbiter of its use, but the Spanish language does, and that institution is the Royal Spanish Academy. Thinker78 (talk) 19:23, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The POV that we should follow the RAE above all else is nothing more than your subjective approach to the issue. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 19:27, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * , what you are describing is a prescriptivist approach to language. You've already been given the link to linguistic prescription and I think you should take a close look at it and its corollary Linguistic description. Linguists, the people who study language, take a descriptive approach because it is objective. That objectivity is what we want here. If your stance is that a prescriptive source takes priority over descriptive ones, you will stand alone. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:20, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Interesting, I was never confronted with a linguistic anti-prescriptivist posture. Maybe because I was not immersed in the world of lingusitics as I am now. I took it for granted that everyone would readily accept the RAE as the final authority for Spanish language usage. I guess I have to do more digging about the subject. But one thing I have to say, I think that to some extent prescription of the usage of a language is something positive and scientific. While it is true that civilizations can very well live fine without prescription of the language they use, having certain standards and global definitions of the parts of speech and the usage of the language contributes both to the survival of a language, its preservation, study and understanding for current and future generations. Thinker78 (talk) 04:34, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I couldn't address your question even if I wanted to because, like I said, I didn't understand it. That sounds like you are saying that when there is a contrast between vowels, words are spelled either with (rr) or (r), and not just with (rr) as is the case. No, it's not the case. Could you rephrase the first sentence of the note as you understand it in your own words, so we can understand what your concern is?
 * The Royal Spanish Academy may be regarded as the final arbiter in a classroom, but not on Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia and not a textbook. We rely on descriptive sources not only because that's what linguistics as an academic discipline sets itself to do but also to conform to WP:NPOV.
 * Are you still interested in pursuing the point about interracial? If so, again, please provide the original quote verbatim. Nardog (talk) 06:16, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The rhotic consonants [r] and [ɾ] contrast only word-medially between vowels, where they are usually spelled ⟨rr⟩ and ⟨r⟩, respectively. I understand that the note is saying that when there is contrast the phonemes are spelled rr and r. I don't understand why you bring the not textbook reference to be honest. I find it odd that you are trying to make a point about using descriptive sources if the help page about IPA/Spanish seems to be prescriptive. The IPA is used as a prescriptive set of rules on how to pronounce the phonemes. It tells people how words should be pronounced. The point of view that descriptive sources should be used over prescriptive ones doesn't seem to be a npov. I don't think that linguistics relies solely on descriptive sources. Probably there is a fair number of prescriptive linguists out there that probably would contradict your claims. Regarding "interracial": (...)puede existir una frontera silábica entre las dos erres, de modo que la primera represente el fonema vibrante simple /r/ (equivalent to /ɾ/) y la segunda el vibrante múltiple /rr/ ((...)there can exist a syllabic border between both r's, so that the first represents the simple vibrant phoneme /r/ and the second the multiple vibrant /rr/). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thinker78 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 14 June 2018 (UTC) 21:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * the note is saying that when there is contrast the phonemes are spelled rr and r In orthography, yes. I don't understand why you bring the not textbook reference to be honest. I'm sorry but I have no idea what you mean by that. The IPA is used as a prescriptive set of rules on how to pronounce the phonemes. It can be, but on Wikipedia it is used to describe how words are pronounced, not how to pronounce them (although readers may apply that information to how they pronounce them; but that's up to them). And one does not pronounce phonemes. A phoneme is something that is deduced from how sounds are produced in a language, so it's not something people ever willingly pronounce. I wonder if you are not mistaking them for graphemes. Probably there is a fair number of prescriptive linguists out there that probably would contradict your claims. Well, good luck finding them. Meanwhile, Linguistics says Linguistics is primarily descriptive. Linguists describe and explain features of language without making subjective judgments on whether a particular feature or usage is "good" or "bad", and Linguistic description All academic research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to describe the linguistic world as it is, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Even if you did find such people who take a prescriptivist approach yet proclaim themselves to be linguists, their works will surely fall under WP:FRINGE, if not fail to qualify as reliable sources in the first place. It should be noted, however, that it's not that linguistics disregards prescription. If how a language is used is affected by (or not affected despite) linguistic prescription, that is also within the scope of what linguistics describes (and so does Wikipedia).
 * Re interracial: The word fonema is key here. The "two Rs" may "represent" /ɾr/ (or /rrr/), but does the source say they are pronounced as [ɾr]? Please note that our IPA for Spanish key is allophonic, not phonemic, albeit fairly broad (see Phonetic transcription). Also, does the source actually mention the phrase "free variation" (or its equivalent in Spanish)? Nardog (talk) 17:49, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it is confusing to the reader to say that when there is contrast the phonemes are spelled rr and r. I think it would better to specify that when there is contrast and the phoneme used is /ɾ/, the letter r is used to represent it and when /r/ is used, the digraph rr is employed to represent it. The linguistics article has unsourced and possible original research issues. I'm pretty sure that there are more than a few linguists working in the Royal Spanish Academy which prescribes how to use the Spanish language. It certainly is not, nor are they, fringe at all. I added translation of the quote to my previous comment. Thinker78 (talk) 21:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Your suggested wording is a wordier version of what's there now. I wouldn't say it's an improvement or any more or less confusing.
 * It's clear from your comments in this and other threads that you are incredibly new to the topic of linguistics and this conversation is starting to get bogged down with everyone else telling you quite basic things about linguistics and language. If you doubt the veracity of Wikipedia's article on linguistic description, I recommend you find a linguistics 101 textbook or even take a course on the topic. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:39, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * it would better to specify that when there is contrast and the phoneme used is /ɾ/, the letter r is used to represent it and when /r/ is used, the digraph rr is employed to represent it Um... aside from the fact that it already does? To be honest, it sounds like you do not understand what "respectively" means. If that's not the case, I don't know what to tell you.
 * We're talking about the nature of linguistics as a field of study. Linguists may help write a prescriptive work, but I can assure you, they will never write their own papers published on scientific journals the same way they write prescriptive works. If you want to check with a more reliable source than Wikipedia, check out this article on the Linguistic Society of America's website for example. Or pick up any intro textbook to linguistics at a bookstore such as this one.
 * And it is one of our core content policies that we write from a neutral point of view and give due weight. A more apt analogy than the Supreme Court would be that you are arguing that we rely solely on documents issued by governments and never on journalistic, scientific, lexicographic or encyclopedic sources written or published by private organizations or citizens. Nardog (talk) 22:15, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Except that my point was that the RAE is the ultimate arbiter on Spanish language and that other organizations or individuals are not as authoritative as the RAE is. But I can see the consensus on this topic and what can I say. Maybe in the future the presciptive cavalry will come to the rescue and change the current consensus. Thinker78 (talk) 23:31, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Standardization is generally good; the very fact we are able to communicate like this is in no small part thanks to that. But to esteem prescriptive grammar as the absolute authority leads to various forms of linguistic discrimination, some more egregious than others. So this sentiment from the article I linked to above is one that I, for one, relate and subscribe to: [Linguists] would acknowledge that some standardization of form is useful for the variety of a language used, especially in print. They would also insist, however, that expressions appearing in dictionaries and grammars are not the only grammatical forms and may not be suitable for use in all circumstances. They are merely the ones designated for use in circumstances of wider communication. Nardog (talk) 11:46, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

/ɲ/ merger
Do we really need this? We are not even mentioning the debuccalization (and elision) of /s/. I personally find the latter more worth mentioning because it's a very noticeable feature of American dialects and some editors might, in good faith but mistakenly, remove or change coda [s].

European French has a similar ongoing merger of /ɲ/ with /nj/ but we're not mentioning that at Help:IPA/French either. I don't know how widespread the Spanish /ɲ/ merger is so I wouldn't go so far as to say we should remove it at the moment, but at the very least if we're going to mention it, we should mention the /s/ debuccalization/elision too. Nardog (talk) 12:28, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think this is the place to mention this merger. It seems more like an interesting dialectological note than something to help readers and editors with transcriptions. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 13:43, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I thought so, especially since the difference between [ɲ] and [nj] is not something easily appreciable to many people so it is unlikely to cause confusion.
 * What about the /s/ lenitions? Spanish dialects and varieties even lists them as one of the "prominent differences among dialects" along with seseo/ceceo and yeísmo. Nardog (talk) 13:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * You make a compelling case for including a note on the lenition of /s/. How do you think we should word it? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 14:08, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Note added. I kept it short, those interested in details may refer to Spanish dialects and varieties. Nardog (talk) 15:28, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I feel like we might want to indicate that we don't represent this in our Wikipedia transcriptions. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In principle, that is covered by the statement "In general, Castilian Spanish is used", but sure, it doesn't hurt to clarify it. My version is admittedly awkward, so if you can think of better wording, please be bold. Nardog (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Remove the note if you want, it's not a big deal to me. But IMO, Argentine Spanish is a pretty important variety of Standard Spanish. I'd rather keep it. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * But is there a risk of even Argentine Spanish speakers mistaking the two? — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 22:02, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This guide is to help readers understand the meaning behind the symbols we use and to help editors know how to represent Spanish pronunciations in a consistent manner across the project. This note does neither unless there is a risk of editors not marking that distinction, which seems unlikely. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:06, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, I'll remove it. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 03:11, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Aeusoes1, sounds like you want to prescribe how to pronounce things. Thinker78 (talk) 06:51, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * This guide prescribes how to represent the pronunciation of Spanish words in phonetic transcription. It does not prescribe how to pronounce them. Nardog (talk) 06:54, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * We have a consistent representation of more standard pronunciations verified by dictionaries and the like. Saying this is "prescriptive" is misleading. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:17, 17 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I have my strong doubts about all the information being verified by reliable sources, as the case with the r showed. No idea where the differentiation between "amor" and "amor eterno" came from. Thinker78 (talk) 04:54, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * See . Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:23, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, like I said, when the note was added that's what the Spanish phonology article said, citing Harris. By saying you have "no idea", you're simply saying that you did not read everything in the thread you started.
 * We do not claim everything in the guide is already verified by reliable sources. You're welcome to point out specific inaccuracies should you find any, in which case we would examine them using reliable linguistic sources, but if you continue expressing your "strong doubts" without being specific, you'll risk being construed as disrupting the community just to make a point. Nardog (talk) 13:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Nardog, I did read all the thread but I, and probably you too, don't remember every word that it says. Thanks for letting me know about WP:POINT but I encourage you to read the whole guideline, specially the parts where it says, If you feel that a policy is problematic, the policy's talk page is the proper place to raise your concerns. If you simply disagree with someone's actions in an article, discuss it on the article talk page or related pages and [...] just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate that point. As a rule, editors engaging in 'POINTy' behavior are making edits with which they do not actually agree, for the deliberate purpose of drawing attention and provoking opposition in the hopes of making other editors see their "point". WP:POINT refers to people making disruptive edits in policies and guidelines, not about editors expressing their thoughts on a subject in the talk pages. I will also encourage you not to try to curtail debate by trying to censor out editors who disagree with you with implicit threats of being disruptive. Thinker78 (talk) 17:59, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Nardog wasn't threatening you or censoring you. He quite clearly asked you to be more specific. So do it. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:26, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

He quite clearly asked being specific but I wonder if there is a policy or guideline that mandates being specific when having strong doubts. I think I have been very professional in my addressing of my doubts and followed up rigorously with the reliable sources I could muster. He quite clearly didn't have to say I risked being construed as disruptive. It is simply unprofessional, not nice, and not necessary. In addition, I was being specific. I cited the example of "amor" and "amor eterno", which, even though the examples were mistaken because they had been explained before, I didn't remember they were explained already, and I thought I was specifying legitimate examples of my doubts. There is no need at all of trying to paint me as disruptive when I have done a few hours of research in these threads. This is a recurrent problem of many editors. I have seen time and time again veteran editors who slam newcomers with warning messages about being disruptive and making vandalism without even welcoming them first and their warnings being completely unnecessary because in actuality the newcomers were not disruptive in the first place and much less were being vandals, simply the veteran editors failed to properly read the context of the edits. So I think editors should assume good faith more often and be more cordial. Thinker78 (talk) 07:24, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think you've been here long enough that you should be able to handle gentle reminders and links to policies designed to keep discussions productive. There are no newcomers here and no one is getting "slammed."
 * Given the amount of time you're having us waste on meta discussion, your behavior actually is getting disruptive. So be specific or move on. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:57, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I think people should be more polite, patient, and understanding of others' thoughts but I agree, let's move on. I will try to find reliable sources that explain my doubts regarding some phonemes descriptions or examples of the help page. Thinker78 (talk) 20:11, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

[unsupported input] issues
Maybe I'm just new to IPAc encoding (and I am), but could someone please explain to me why I am seeing "unsupported input" errors in my attempt at providing an IPAc-es for the Hugo Chávez article lead? This is the markup I'm using:

This is its rendering:

What gives? I have checked the purportedly unsupported inputs multiple times, up to and including copypasting them directly from Help:IPA/Spanish. I have did some searching to see if there were any archives or other documentation on this, to no avail. Where is my error? Is this even my error? Thanks.

Tangentially related, but there is some strange behavior from C-es, too, namely what appears to be errata in its transclusion. For example:

Renders to:

I discovered this after trying to insert it above where "unsupported input" is, which I boldly had tried and failed to fix. If this is somehow intended behavior beyond its functionality in IPAc-es, please explain how because I don't see it. Otherwise, I hope someone more competent than me in this area can fix it. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 15:45, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It looks like that template is designed to take orthographic inputs and convert them to IPA. Try . — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  17:25, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you, ! I was not aware that templates like IPAc-es worked like that. I appreciate the assistance. Do you have any input about the C-es transclusion behavior? Alternatively, is there a more appropriate place to take this (other than Template talk:C-es, which I doubt is watched)? ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 15:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure about the transclusion behavior. In a situation like this, I have found that it sometimes helps to ping editors whose contributions are relevant to a discussion, which would be and . — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]  18:30, 2 April 2018 (UTC)


 * One point, though -- that should be "Chavez" with a "z",, since that's the general Spanish pronunciation. If you're going to start changing things, you need to change more than just "z" to "s" -- you need to give the actual local pronunciation, and label it as "local": (or whatever it would actually be). A pronunciation that pretends to be local without actually being local is, to be blunt, bullshit, and has no place here -- despite the fact that a lot of editors want to do just that, because they have in their heads that "z" = "s" in the Americas, as if that were the only difference and were universal. — kwami (talk) 22:12, 2 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I partially agree, but there does exist a Latin American standard of pronunciation that you can hear on TV, especially soap operas. Also, the reason I was reverting transcriptions with is that this guide didn't cover that at all and because  is also a possible variant. I'm not sure whether we should allow both  and  in that context or just the former. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:57, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Do you mean that on Argentinian or Peruvian TV, broadcasters don't use Argentinian or Peruvian Spanish?
 * If so, we could label it "American Spanish" if the only changes we make are seseo and yeismo, but not just "Spanish". If the template doesn't accommodate that, we could add it. — kwami (talk) 07:10, 3 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Originally, we had the guide as just Castilian Spanish, with the logic that other dialects were derivable from the Castilian. That met with some resistance and, as it has been, we've been accommodating regional variation by starting from Castilian and then letting editors apply seseo and yeismo in their edits if they deem it appropriate. Marking these two differences from Castilian as "American" (or something similar), that might open a can of worms but I get the logic to it.
 * I don't like the idea of encouraging editors to link "local" transcriptions to here, though. A major purpose of this guide is to help readers understand the transcriptions. Since we can't predict or control what symbols editors might use in local pronunciations, this page wouldn't be as helpful as the main IPA help page. — Æµ§œš¹ <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"> [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)


 * You know, reverting back to that might not be a bad idea. What we also can't control is the accuracy of the regional transcriptions, especially if they don't link to this guide (there's Special:Whatlinkshere that can be used to check transcriptions that link here). Our articles on regional variants of Spanish are, frankly speaking, atrocious, as they sorely lack properly sourced phonetic information. They're nothing like their English counterparts. Allowing regional transcriptions might also open another can of worms as there's lots of free variation. Depending on the exact region and the speaker, a person from Argentina might pronounce las estrellas parecen espejos, , , , and might not even aspirate  in any word. Do we really need to include all of that when writing  is far more economical?


 * We can revert back to a very broad transcription that is basically phonemic, save for lenited/voiced/nasal allophones and marginal consonants. This wouldn't really be "just Castilian Spanish" but a broad, pandialectal transcription akin to what we have on Help:IPA/English, just in phonetic brackets rather than phonemic slashes because of the presence of lenited/voiced/nasal allophones. Standard European is easily convertible to Venezuelan . Editors who have a problem with the presence of  and  don't really understand how phonetic transcription works. They're in for a huge surprise once they become interested in Danish ;)


 * One of the editors that was resistant to this guide being Castilian-only is Nuvolet (JaumeR), but he has problems with understanding the concept of narrowness of phonetic transcriptions. To him, square brackets equal a fully narrow transcription and it just doesn't. Mr KEBAB (talk) 23:59, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * No, I don't think that's how it works. Our article Standard Spanish says:


 * In the television market, Spanish-speaking America is considered as one territory for distribution and syndication of programmes; for this reason they are dubbed into a Neutral Spanish that avoids idioms and words that may have a coarse meaning in any of the countries in which the programme will be shown. This American Neutral Spanish:


 * uses only ustedes for the second person plural pronoun, regardless whether familiar or formal (in contrast to the use of vosotros for the familiar in Spain);
 * uses tú for the familiar second person singular pronoun (rather than vos);
 * Tends to a single pronunciation of the s, c (before e or i) and z.


 * American Neutral Spanish tends to be common in Colombia (because of the existence of a lot of regional dialects), Venezuela (because of its location as a crossroad for Spanish-speaking America and an important Spanish-language soap opera production industry) and Mexico, where most of the mass media is made.


 * American Neutral Spanish was also formerly distributed with programmes in Spain, but that no longer happens.


 * I'm not sure whether this is good enough for our purposes, the quote is also completely unsourced. Mr KEBAB (talk) 23:59, 4 April 2018 (UTC)


 * That would be a potential can of worms unless well-sourced, as pointed out above. If we do continue that route, then I think we should label it as such. I'm not adamantly opposed to it, but better IMO just to use the pseudo-Castilian from which all others can be derived (except a few dialects in Spain that e.g. still distinguish /b/ from /v/, but AFAIK they can mostly be understood from the orthgraphy).
 * And yeah, I agree that local pronunciations should like to the general IPA key, but probably better to improve our articles on the varieties of Spanish instead. — kwami (talk) 04:22, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If the IPA pronunciation of "Chávez" should use a "z" rather than an "s", then so be it, . I have no dispute about which particular pronunciation should be used because IPA pronunciation is generally beyond my current competence as an editor, at least when it comes to most foreign languages and especially dialects therein. As you can see with my edit in the Hugo Chávez article, my change was largely unsubstantial. It was simply changing IPA-es to IPAc-es due to the additional functionalities IPAc provides over IPA in general (IPAc appears to now be the preferred template). The "s" was present in the previous IPA template and, since I am not generally competent in assessing the quality of the pronunciation, I left it as it was. The only new significant change I added was the inclusion of the  parameter to restore the Spanish pronunciation specification. If that was part of the problem, then I will be sure to not do so in the future.I trust that you and the others here possess the expertise necessary to address the pronunciation itself, but I will remain agnostic on the matter since I do not. I also appreciate the diligence from you all in ensuring an IPA pronunciation is accurate and accounts for local variation. If any of you object to my template switching, or otherwise think it would be best for me to refrain from editing IPA templates altogether, then please explain those concerns and I will be sure to address them as best I can. Thank you. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 17:30, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sorry if my tone was overly aggressive. I have no problem with your edit, and even if I did, this is a recurring issue. We get the same thing for English, with people making a couple obvious distinctions (such as rhotic/non-rhotic) but ignoring most of the other distinctions that go along with them. — kwami (talk) 22:11, 5 April 2018 (UTC)

So... should we reintroduce $⟨⟩$ to all of our transcriptions? I recall Aeusoes1 saying somewhere that it's perfectly possible for this guide to be both allophonic and diaphonemic. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)