Help talk:IPA/Spanish/Archive 5

"In transcriptions linked to this key, however, it is always represented by ⟨s⟩"
Here, an editor argues that Durazno ought to be transcribed and not  because Uruguayan Spanish features aspiration and in note 7, we say that In much of Hispanic America and in the southern half of Spain, in syllable-final positions is either pronounced as  or not pronounced at all. In transcriptions linked to this key, however, it is always represented by ⟨s⟩. I'm really tired of edit warring (in either direction) so should the note be changed? Sol505000 (talk) 13:55, 17 April 2023 (UTC)


 * The spirit of the note is that we don't use $⟨h⟩$ for /s/. I think we should change the note to include $⟨z⟩$, because otherwise [duˈɾasno] would imply, incorrectly, that accents that voice /s/ do not voice it in this particular word. Nardog (talk) 14:05, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * For Uruguay articles, my preference would be to use the narrow transcription [duˈɾahno], but I can live with the broad transcription [duˈɾasno] as currently recommended by note 7. But I oppose giving a transcription like [duˈɾazno] in an article about a place in Uruguay, as that transcription is not accurate for Uruguayan Spanish. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:06, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * But the key does not currently cover such dialectal variations. Notice it doesn't allow $⟨ʒ⟩$ or $⟨ʃ⟩$ in place of $⟨ʎ, ʝ⟩$. If you want to represent a specific local pronunciation, you should give it in IPA-all following, per MOS:PRON, as done in e.g. Juan Guaidó. Nardog (talk) 14:13, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those links. I'm okay with providing both pronunciations ([duˈɾahno] and [duˈɾazno]) as done at Juan Guaidó. Does this solution work for you? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:27, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Not really. As the key covers this variation in the notes I see no reason to explicitly transcribe the s-aspiration in that article or anywhere else on Wikipedia (except in a very narrow subset of articles such as Spanish phonology, Rioplatense Spanish and what have you). Our IPA guides cover far more than the literal reading of the IPA - consider the German after short vowels, which can be either  or, a consonant or a semivowel. We always transcribe it with ⟨ʁ⟩ but that does not mean that we prescribe that pronunciation (we had one user who kept arguing that we do - we had to point him to the introductory chapters of the two biggest German pronunciation dictionaries which he presumably hadn't read before).
 * We also use the symbol ⟨s⟩ to cover a range of pronunciations that are not that similar. In the syllable onset, the apico-alveolar of Northern Spain is significantly different from the laminal  found in much of Central and South America, and yet we use the same symbol for it. The difference is significant enough for the sounds to pass for separate phonemes in other languages, as they do in Basque (and also Polish and Serbian, which have very similar sounds). The auditory difference between the laminal  and the glottal  is only somewhat bigger. Sol505000 (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with using ⟨s⟩ broadly in this way (i.e. [duˈɾasno]). But using ⟨z⟩ implies the presence of an allophone that does not exist in this context in Uruguayan Spanish. The transcription is included in the article to inform the reader about how the city's name is pronounced locally – so in this article the transcription [duˈɾazno] is actively misleading, and [duˈɾahno] is the most informative option. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * is just as non-local as, as far as I can see.
 * The transcription is included in the article to inform the reader about how the city's name is pronounced locally I have to reiterate my point about non-literal readings of the IPA. Those of our readers who bother to read the guide will know that can be aspirated at the end of the syllable. There is nothing special about Durasno or even Uruguayan Spanish in that it aspirates coda . Millions of speakers of Spanish from all around the world do that. It is an entirely unremarkable pronuncation. And before vowels (so not in this case, but in other words), there is an awful lot of variation among individual speakers, dialects and styles of speech. It's not worth the hassle to allow such transcriptions. Sol505000 (talk) 15:26, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We can't expect every reader to read the guide in its entirety in order to even roughly understand what pronunciation a transcription represents. At that point why include any allohpone at all. Nardog (talk) 15:31, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If we can't expect the readers to do that then why have those guides in the first place? Sol505000 (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If you were designing a car, a boombox, an app, or whatever—would you do it in such way that the users are required to read the manual in full in order to make even casual use of it? Again otherwise why include allophones at all. Nardog (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would say [duˈɾazno] is worse than [duˈɾasno] for this article, in that [duˈɾasno] is a plausible broad transcription of the Uruguayan pronunciation, whereas [duˈɾazno] shows allophonic variation that applies to certain dialects but not to Uruguayan Spanish. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:37, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's not worth the hassle to allow such transcriptions. It is allowed, by MOS:PRON, and just because it is doesn't mean IPA-es must be followed by IPA-all. It's entirely up to the discretion of editors of each article, as is whether to include any transcription. Nardog (talk) 15:40, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I've re-read the MOS and what you're saying is true - but my point still stands. Sol505000 (talk) 15:48, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Now you know you're the one who has to establish new consensus. Nardog (talk) 16:04, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * In IPA, ⟨z⟩ stands for the voiced alveolar fricative, not the voiceless dental fricative. You're mistaking IPA for Spanish orthography. With that being said, is absolutely the worst choice. It both disagrees with the guide and it is not a local pronunciation. I don't consider it to be an option. Sol505000 (talk) 02:37, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh, mi mistake. Struck, then. —El Millo (talk) 02:49, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * And why does Juan Guaidó have a regional pronunciation at all? We cover seseo in the guide and the trivial difference of ⟨x⟩ vs. ⟨h⟩ is also covered here (in the notes section, that is). Sol505000 (talk) 15:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Because this is phonetic transcription. Diaphonemic notation isn't something widely practiced even in linguistic literature or reference works, let alone something readers of Wikipedia can reasonably be expected to be familiar with. If the key was diaphonemic it shouldn't include allophones like [z], as Mx. Granger points out. Nardog (talk) 15:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * But we already allow seseo to be shown. Do we really need to bother with showing the difference between ⟨x⟩ vs. ⟨h⟩? Has it even been proven to be an actual difference? Voiceless velar fricatives can be weakly fricated while still being velar, as in Serbo-Croatian and Polish. And you have an onset, pre-velar in . Is that too retracted to the glottal place of articulation? I'd expect exactly these instances of  to be far more forceful (in dialects claimed to have a glottal ) than a prevocalic  in order not to turn Juan into Uan, a pronunciation widely mocked as an Americanism.
 * As -aspiration is so common (and variable, especially before vowels) I find this practice to be a waste of article space. Sol505000 (talk) 15:32, 17 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment: There isn't any reason to oppose more specific, local pronunciations with IPA-all following IPA-es templates in general, even though the local pronunciation can be derived from the IPA-es transcription (and usually spelling as well). They just provide more info to the reader.
 * Also, why not change the guide to allow [duˈɾasno]? Or at least change footnote 9 to mention that [-z] and [-v] sometimes remain as [-s] and [-f]. Because -s and -f aren't ALWAYS voiced before voiced consonants. -s frequently remains voiceless, especially in slow, careful speech, and most of the Latin American pronunciations of 'durazno' on Forvo have [s]. Likewise, I've tried this twice before, it's actually not that easy to find video or audio examples of -f being voiced. Like @Mx. Granger said, [duˈɾazno] very well may be the most non-local pronunciation being considered, showing an allophonic process that (supposedly) doesn't occur in Uruguay. This guide already lets [θ] represent both a voiceless and an allophonically voiced dental fricative. Erinius (talk) 06:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I found the Spanish version of Hualde's *The Sounds of Spanish* - I couldn't find the English version on Cambridge Core - in the Fricatives chapter, pages 154-155 he says "En los dialectos donde normalmente se mantiene la /s/ en la coda, esta a menudo se asimila en sonoridad a una consonante sonora, tanto en el interior de palabra, mismo [mízmo], como entre palabras, dos más [dóz más]. Aunque usamos el símbolo [z], este sonido a veces solo es parcialmente sonoro." My translation: "In dialects where coda /s/ is normally maintained, it frequently assimilates in voicing to a voiced consonant, both word-internally, mismo [mizmo], and between words, dos más [doz mas]. Although we use the symbol [z], this sound is sometimes just partially voiced." Key points being that this is about dialects where syllable-final /s/ is maintained and that this assimilation is frequent but not categorical.
 * As for syllable-final -f, Hualde simply says that it becomes voiced before voiced consonants, without saying whether that always happens or whether it's a variable process. There are very few words with that kind of consonant sequence, so it's not like it matters much. Erinius (talk) 06:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * A more empirical source on the variability of /s/ voicing is Campos-Astorkiza (2018) (you might find this interesting). But if something is sometimes present and sometimes not, we can't just throw up our hands and say "whichever you feel like". That defeats the whole point of a key. If we're including [z, v] at all then we should always do it. Just use IPA-all for local realizations. Nardog (talk) 10:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should remove [z] from the key altogether. The key is apparently intended to be used for articles about topics across the Spanish-speaking world, so it makes sense, where feasible, to use broad transcriptions that are valid for more dialects rather than narrower transcriptions showing allophones that are valid for fewer dialects. So it might make sense to modify the key to only use [s] as a broad transcription for what varies between [s], [z], and [h] depending on dialect and phonological environment. As Erinius points out, this would also be more consistent with how the key uses [θ] as a broad transcription for voiced and unvoiced realizations of /θ/. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You mean remove and, right? Sol505000 (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * We could remove [v] too. As far as I know [v] doesn't present the same problem as [z], because there's no equivalent to aspiration for /f/, but it might make sense to harmonize our handling of all of these sounds. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:58, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I would be extremely reluctant to allow $⟨h⟩$ as it could open doors to zheísmo/sheísmo, prepausal [ŋ], /e, o/ raising, etc. ad infinitum. Granted, we allow seseo and yeísmo, but those at least involve mergers in the overall phonological inventory. Nardog (talk) 13:54, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Right, my suggestion is that the key only use [s], as a broad transcription for these sounds, and not try to handle dialect-specific realizations as [h] and [z]. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:58, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, if it's simply about always representing /s/ with $⟨s⟩$ then I can get behind it. Nardog (talk) 14:09, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I have no objections either. Sol505000 (talk) 14:24, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with this as well. @Nardog - thanks for the Campos-Astorzika source. Erinius (talk) 18:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Great! Based on the agreement here, I've changed the key to remove $⟨z⟩$. Feel free to adjust further or clarify the footnotes as needed, of course. If there are no objections, in a day or two I'll start going through articles that use Template:IPA-es and updating them accordingly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Great! Based on the agreement here, I've changed the key to remove ⇭⇭⇭. Feel free to adjust further or clarify the footnotes as needed, of course. If there are no objections, in a day or two I'll start going through articles that use Template:IPA-es and updating them accordingly. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:37, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the topic, I'm not sure what to do with this. This person absolutely refuses to create a thread here or on Manual of Style/Pronunciation and they just keep talking to me and edit warring. I find this behavior to be insufferable and so I'm writing here. Sol505000 (talk) 23:29, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Pinging to let  know about this discussion. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 00:20, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * First, I haven't edit warred at any point, and your insistence that I have while also slinging around the accusation even in my first revert of you is the true insufferable editing. You are being reported for incivility, as you have blocked my attempts at discussion with countless insults and by trying to create your own narrative.
 * To the point: I have told you many times that my issue is not with the MOS, rather how some users decide that people's names must be treated as common words, despite there being plenty sources of them saying their own names differently, and despite the sounds they do use being perfectly acceptable in the IPA help guides. That is, I have told you countless times that I do not want or need to start a discussion here, but that you need to both fix your attitude in engaging with others, and grow a little perspective. The point of IPA transcription is to show how something is actually said. You're not doing that. Kingsif (talk) 00:28, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See WP:EDITWARRING. You're forcing things to be your way through a series of repeated reverts, and this is a pattern of behavior. Don't mistake it with WP:3RR (and to quote WP:EDITWARRING, "The three-revert rule is a convenient limit for occasions when an edit war is happening fairly quickly; it is not a definition of "edit warring", and it is absolutely possible to engage in edit warring without breaking the three-revert rule, or even coming close to doing so." The intentions and patterns of behavior also count.)
 * You can do that, but remember of WP:BOOMERANG which you might be already familiar with. Your behavior was less than WP:CIVIL at multiple occasions. False accusations of stalking, "how dare you" with a caps-lock, suggestions of me having "a learning difficulty or something" and other things apart from the obvious (edit warring) immediately come to mind.
 * I have never claimed that the transcription is wrong but that it disagrees with the guide. The transcription with a silent S disagrees with Venezuelan Spanish but it may or may not be wrong. In Eastern Andalusian Spanish, it would be correct but with an adjustment of vowels.
 * That is, I have told you countless times that I do not want or need to start a discussion here, but that you need to both fix your attitude in engaging with others, and grow a little perspective. We're not going to make this about me. Per Manual of Style/Pronunciation, "Other languages have dedicated IPA-xx templates, where xx is the 2-letter ISO 639-1 code or the 3-letter ISO 639-3 code for the language in question, as in IPA-el for Greek or IPA-fa for Persian. A number of languages also have dedicated templates that automatically convert ordinary letters (or conventional ASCII equivalents) to IPA characters that are used to transcribe the language in question, such as IPAc-fr for French and IPAc-cmn for Mandarin Chinese. These languages and templates are listed at IPA. Again, if the language you're transcribing has such an IPA key, use the conventions of that key. If you wish to change those conventions, bring it up for discussion on the key's talk page. Creating transcriptions unsupported by the key or changing the key so that it no longer conforms to existing transcriptions will confuse readers." To me this clearly means that we must use Template:IPA-es in addition to Template:IPA-all or just the former. Sol505000 (talk) 01:00, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * First, mate, I was never forcing things to be my way through reversions; I edited for compromise and opened discussions, you point-blank reverted and refused to discuss, and I attempted to revert to a stable version while continuing to push discussion. That's how it should happen. Maybe become more familiar with policy and actually discussing with people before slinging accusations.
 * Second, my behaviour was never uncivil, perhaps a little curt, but the way you've removed things from context here is the same as you were doing by calling me an "edit warrior" when I had made all of one edit that wasn't even a reversion - attempting to create a narrative to smear me, which is worse than just uncivil.
 * Third, this is entirely about you. I have only tried to discuss at this page, since it's the only place you seem willing to accept it, to address your hostile behaviour and your lack of common sense - I have realised that you are somehow unbudging and asking for an ear is pointless. Like, it is common sense to only use IPA-all if a specific language key may be correct for standard words but is too restrictive for a useful transcription in context. If it will force you to transcribe a word, especially a name, in a way that is not accurate, it shouldn't be used. I don't see how you don't get that. Kingsif (talk) 03:45, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If it is in the MOS then it is on you to try to change the WP:CONSENSUS at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation. Your personal philosophies are entirely your business and I'd like to stop having them imposed on me (and Wikipedia in general, as evidenced by my previous message), as you've been doing all along. You're the one challenging the status quo, so you try to change it. So no, mate, this is not "entirely about me". You can't just link to WP:COMMONSENSE or WP:IAR and think that's the end of it. Other people can disagree. Sol505000 (talk) 10:22, 25 April 2023 (UTC)


 * If I can say something on this main discussion: that note would be correct for, say, a common noun like "tres". You're going to hear people saying "treh" in common parlance, but the word is "tres". I assume that the note 7 mentioned was written with that in mind. I assume that none of the current editors on the topic were around when it was written, though, looking at this. In names, 'rules' can go out the window. That seems to be the main point of all contentions. I do not understand why some people editing in this space are so wedded to some phonology guidebook that they can't see the wood for the trees. Those guides clearly don't apply to names, and if the sound exists, the sound exists, put it in the transcription, because the only point of having one is to help people know how things are said. You shouldn't need a formal discussion to apply common sense, but if starting one titled "IAR on names" would help, do it. Kingsif (talk) 00:36, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * If we're going to ignore all rules in the case of IPA transcriptions of names then this guide might as well be deleted. I find this a completely unreasonable proposition. Sol505000 (talk) 01:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Even you must know you've jumped to the extreme here. Most words are not names, many names are said how you insist they have to be, relax. Kingsif (talk) 03:50, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Names of people consitute about a half of transcriptions on Wikipedia with the other half being proper nouns (or let's just say it's about 40%-40%, there's also movie and song titles etc.), so I have not jumped to the extreme. Giving a special treatment to slightly less than a half of our transcriptions makes the guide useless and if you can't see that then I can't help you. Sol505000 (talk) 10:14, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You surely recognise that transcribing names - and that it's so common - is exclusively done to help readers when things are not said as expected. It's not special treatment to just not do that in a way you know is inaccurate, and if you can't see that, I can't help you. Like, if there is an article on the name Rojas (Rojas (surname) - oh there is) that is where the standard/expected pronunciation should be transcribed. It would help the encyclopedia to add IPA to that article. It helps readers to show them when there is an exception. The purpose of adding IPA transcriptions isn't decoration, but that's what you're treating it as (and decorations you want in a prescribed layout even if it gets in the way, to boot). Kingsif (talk) 14:45, 26 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You are clearly challenging Manual of Style/Pronunciation here and it is on you to get the WP:CONSENSUS for a special treatment for roughly half of our IPA transcriptions (also in other languages). I'm not interested in going around in circles with you.
 * And to be honest I question your capabilities of transcribing words into IPA after this. These are rookie mistakes (yes, in Catalan, but it doesn't matter). You used the labiodental nasal symbol instead of the bilabial one and you didn't mark stress in the surname. Also, crucially, you didn't mark devoicing in the surname and terminal devoicing is one of the most salient features of Catalan when compared with other Romance languages (especially the major ones). I'd say it's on pair with vowel reduction in that regard. Sol505000 (talk) 07:13, 28 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As I've said before, that MOS guide doesn't mention proper names. These are different to standard words, so the absence means there is no guidance, not that we should treat names as standard words. I have referred you to the MOS on foreign names already, which deals somewhat with them and does say in some circumstances only "local" should be used. You refuse to acknowledge this.
 * As for Belén Barenys, I'm happy to discuss that transcription outside of edit summaries - perhaps at the article talk page or I'll put something here - if you're actually interested in doing so and don't just want to knock me down. As I have said at your talk page (for anyone else reading this to see context), I don't know how you found that unless you indeed are stalking me, looking for mistakes to try and undermine or bully me. I don't like that. You clearly think yourself something of an expert, but I don't think you know Catalan any more than a book tells you what to expect. As I said already, there isn't a stressed syllable in the surname; there isn't. And devoicing is not so present, and both come down to the location of the 'ny' (ñ) sound. It either ends a word (e.g. any, which has devoicing intact) or needs a 'solid' sound to follow it (typically a whole 'a'); the s here is unusual and becomes voiced. Kingsif (talk) 20:59, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

I would like a second opinion here if that isn't too much to ask. Sol505000 (talk) 07:21, 28 April 2023 (UTC)


 * It's 3O. I would also like other voices, preferably multiple, but preferably not here; again, I believe you refused to discuss until I came here because you think this is a forum where people will blindly support you. I would love to be proven wrong on that. Kingsif (talk) 21:01, 28 April 2023 (UTC)