Talk:Cotentinais

Strength?
"It is one of the strongest dialects of the language on the mainland."

What is meant by this? The Jade Knight 20:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That it is one of the most vibrant, probably in terms of numbers, visibility and media on the mainland. The sentence is a translation of the French language article. --MacRusgail 14:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Subdialect characteristics
The phonetic descriptions given here are not IPA and are hard to follow. Some of them appear to have been added incorrectly, and are filled with question marks. The Jade Knight 21:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This is partly because it was translated from the French language version using a computer, and then edited. It's still very much a work in progress. As for IPA, it may be "international", but only a handful of people internationally can read properly. --MacRusgail 14:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Most people with Bachelors degrees in the Humanities in the US have been taught IPA. It is the most commonly recognized international standard.  I don't know how much it is used internationally, but most of my international friends also know IPA.  While certainly many users don't know IPA, I think it is the least confusing way of presenting a phonetic depiction of speech.  The Jade Knight 21:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The only IPA I'm much keen on is India Pale Ale. IPA least confusing? No way! Despite the fact that it is internationally standardised, it looks like gibberish to many people, and when it is used, should probably be in conjunction with some phonetic English equivalent. A friend of mine had a book on Scottish Gaelic with IPA in it. He said he only wanted to learn one complicated language. LOL! --MacRusgail 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)


 * This may be true, but the current pronunciations given in this section make very little sense to me, despite having studied Jèrriais, and speaking French and English and having training in linguistics. I expect it makes no sense at all to most English speaking visitors.  I would attempt to fix them, but my knowledge of Cotentinais is too sparse for me to be of much use.  I still feel that IPA would be helpful (if nothing else, it would be more helpful than what is currently given).  The Jade Knight 03:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * BTW, I recommend you take a look at Manual of Style (pronunciation). The Jade Knight 03:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Jade Knight, I consider IPA to be a variant on the Esperanto problem. It claims to be international, but is not widely known. --MacRusgail 14:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Whatever IPA's problems, it is better than what the article is currently using. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * IPA has many problems. It should be included, with an English phonetic version, but it is frankly gibberish to the majority of English speakers. "Hieroglyphics" as a friend of mine called it, after he looked at a language course. --MacRusgail (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Major re-write needed (to correct the franglais expressions)
bonjour

This page needs a major re-write, because much of it is still poorly expressed in franglais [apparently it was originally a translation of the French-language page].

I may be able to do some of this in the coming weeks but if someone else wants to participate, hten please let me know, here. ... We might be able to work together !

This would be separate to any discussion of phonetics and pronunciation as described in the page, which -althuogh difficult- can be interpreted/pronounced correctly if one knows how to read French.

Cheers jw (talk) 14:40, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Start over
No offense, but the article is simply incomprehensible, especially in its phonetic descriptions. Best to tear it down and start from scratch. Nicodene (talk) 12:26, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Nicodene I agree with you but it is worth remembering that the incomprehensible phonetics are more or less ok for speak/readers of French. Let's not overdo the teardown. jw (talk) 21:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Nicodene see my previous comments (admittedly 2 years ago, but no-one took up the challenge) jw (talk) 21:28, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Nicodene I do not think an americanized or englishised version of pronunciation would in any way be helpful for rather subtle phonetics of cotentinais :) let's stick to IPA=International Phonetic Alphabet jw (talk) 21:34, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
 * @Jwikip The problem is exactly that this article does not, in fact, 'stick to IPA' as unfortunate examples like [tchihin] demonstrate. Nicodene (talk) 22:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * @Nicodene Bonjour, At the time I last wrote (sep.2022) I was worried that someone might attempt an 'englishised' guide to pronunciation, which would have been equally difficult, including for English speakers.
 * Personally, I am not at all good enough in the varieties of Normaund nor in IPA to even consider attempting to transcribe the sounds. We need help from an expert native cotentinais speaker who is familiar with the differences, familiar with IPA, and proper references. jw (talk) 10:43, 25 January 2024 (UTC)