Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects/Archive 7

RP column is wrong
The RP column is mostly wrong (I cannot judge the other columns). The last version I can verify as mostly correct is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects&oldid=549841687

The thing is, many of the sounds listed now sound so different from RP that it's mystifying how someone could be so mistaken.

How about reverting all edits by the editor who introduced them?


 * I reverted to the diff you specified. Does this take care of the problem, and the one noted above about GA?  — kwami (talk) 20:34, 14 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Someone reverted again to the very ideosyncratic version, which is hardly supported by the stated sources. For example the standard (conservative or only) forms in the source at "bl.uk" are: TRAP=/æ/, THOUGHT=/ɔː/, FLEECE=/iː/, FOOT=/ʊ/, GOOSE=/ʊː/. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This isn't a chart of phonemes. — Lfdder (talk) 11:10, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * That I understand, but the data conflicts with the given source and is not otherwise supported. &minus;Woodstone (talk) 15:59, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Most seem fine, see Received Pronunciation. /i:/ definitely isn't [ɪj] thouhgh, dunno where that came from. — Lfdder (talk) 01:30, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

American /ʊ/
Shouldn't the chart mention that for many Americans, the FOOT vowel is unrounded (i.e. [ɯ̽])? I myself pronounce it this way, and Ladefoged's "American English" in the IPA handbook mentions this phenomenon. (suoı̣ʇnqı̣ɹʇuoɔ · ʞlɐʇ) nɯnuı̣ɥԀ 17:45, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

American /l/
I feel that it is inaccurate to say that [l] is not used in American English. Many people that I have heard from around the country use [l] before vowels and [ɫ] after them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zombiedude347 (talk • contribs) 02:49, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

RP column
Many symbols from the RP column do not correspond to Roach's work. They should be sourced or corrected.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:29, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
 * If I understand the system correctly, it isn't meant to correspond to anything that I have published. The symbols in the Diaphoneme column are not the same as those of the phonemic transcriptions normally used for RP/BBC, while in the column headed RP the symbols are meant to represent phonetic values (symbols that we would normally print in square brackets). So while I could certainly point to one or two cases where I wouldn't agree with the phonetic interpretation (for example, some speakers who distinguish 'tour' /tʊə/ from 'tore' /tɔː/ do have a diphthong in the former case. not the monophthong proposed), I don't think my views are critical here. RoachPeter (talk) 11:53, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
 * As you probably know the information in Wikipedia's articles should correspond to the sources given. If the RP column here is cited with your article from the Journal of the IPA, it is expected that the information in the column follows the source. And it looks that that has been so until recently. If the Wikipedia's article does not follow the sources, well, the person who has added different information has to provide new sources or his edits may be reverted to the previous stage.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:17, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "tour"
There's a footnote, with a reference, saying that "tour" can be pronounced as te:. Surely that is wrong! I've never heard anybody talk like that. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 07:32, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you must be referring to Footnote 51, concerning /ʊər/ in the chart. The symbol there is not  but <ɵ> (like an o with a line through). But the footnote is confused about the symbols used for RP/BBC English pronunciation, and about what I have written. It needs improving. RoachPeter (talk) 09:39, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Vowel wheel: original research, or unsourced content?
Is the illustration of a vowel wheel original research, or does it just lack a proper citation? I and/or someone else needs to look into this. The link goes to that is used only for this one link. The source is listed as "self-made." No references are cited. I don't see the concept of a vowel wheel mentioned anywhere else on the Internet except for one Flickr page. There's also this one Web site by Edgar R. Norton, but he never calls it a vowel wheel. One of his figures is roughly superimposable on the wheel by mirroring and rotation. Link to a vowel wheel has been on this page since 2005. --Officiallyover (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Friendly Guide to Vowels
Many of us non-linguists want a quick reference for the various IPA vowels, e.g. " /e/ as in 'hey' " (Yes, yes, I know 'hey' has a diphthong /ei/ or whatever.  That doesn't affect the need for a simple guide to the IPA vowels for non-linguists.) THIS ARTICLE DOES NOT PROVIDE THAT. It links to IPA for American or some such page BUT THAT PAGE DOESN'T PROVIDE IT EITHER. Y

Please add such a section to this article. Thank you.Jamesdowallen (talk) 04:14, 6 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Are you asking for a list of IPA symbols with their meanings? There's one at Help:IPA. — Eru·tuon 05:59, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Archiving discussions
I have archived discussions from 2008 to 2013 to Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects/Archive 1. Could someone remove those discussions from this page? The edit filter will not allow me to do so myself. Thanks, 142.160.131.202 (talk) 05:47, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Gulumeemee (talk) 06:41, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! 142.160.131.202 (talk) 07:07, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

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Is [ɹ̩] any different from [ɚ]?
I'm not so sure if [ɚ~ɹ̩] means anything other than just [ɚ] or [ɹ̩]. I'm sure [əɹ] is different because it indicates a transition from a normal schwa to a rhotic (like this), but is there really a difference between an R-colored schwa [ɚ] and a syllabic approximant [ɹ̩] in terms of actual articulation, or is it just a matter of preference or convenience upon transcribing that depends on whatever the relevant phonological analysis is? Nardog (talk) 21:20, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the two are phonetically identical but used in slightly different ways according to the phonological context. I have never understood what the ~ mark indicates in this chart. RoachPeter (talk) 07:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You're right, somehow the tilde in this chart is used to denote not only free variation (or "somewhere between") but also conditioned allophones (e.g. Canadian raising) and sounds spoken by some speakers but not by others within the same dialect (e.g. cot–caught distinction). Perhaps they should instead be separated by commas or into multiple rows. Nardog (talk) 11:50, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

I recently found the following in Kretzschmar (2004): "NEAR, SQUARE, START, NORTH The loss of postvocalic r is recessive, as indicated for nurse. With these vowels, before juncture, it is common for educated speakers to insert a schwa glide before the r-coloring, such as square . However, when the r is intervocalic, for example when a participial ending is added, then the schwa glide typically does not appear, yielding pronunciation pairs like near, nearing." There he seems to be equating with  rather than with. This is a weird practice, given is equivalent to, as confirmed by Handbook of the IPA (p. 25) and RoachPeter's comment above,  hence making  and  equivalent. But it is at least good to know some authors may use and mean something different than expected. Nardog (talk) 18:53, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Also found in Wells (1982: 481): "Given that nearer is, one would expect near to be . Compared, though, with the environment, the vowel in the environments and (beard) is usually diphthongal and often rather closer in quality: a typical version of near might be transcribed  or . [Note: ]" Here Wells also appears to be equating with.

However, seen in the next page are "barn (or perhaps rather )"  and " north,  forty. For those speakers who have preserved the  vs.  contrast, this is clearly the  of  plus ." Here he seems to be using as equivalent to. Nardog (talk) 08:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Swung dash
Regarding your edit summary, swung dashes displaying as tofu doesn't have to do with Windows, as they display fine for me (Windows 10, Firefox 60). They do seem to be displayed in a different font (Times New Roman) according to the "Inspector" pane in my browser, so perhaps you don't have the right fonts. — Eru·tuon 22:24, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Let's see:

It displays correctly in every font configuration in my environment (Win7, Chrome or IE), so I don't know what Owen is talking about either. And the swung dash is obviously semantically more specific so it should be used in lieu of the tilde. Nardog (talk) 12:39, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

For some reason, only Charis SIL is displaying in its own font — according to Chrome Inspector, everything else is displaying in Arial, even for fonts I have installed locally and even if I make it in the CSS. Note: Arial is not my default font. If I use MFSample without content specified, I'm correctly getting Hamburgefonts in the right font, when I have it installed locally — so Arial, Arial Unicode MS, Cambria, Calibri, Charis SIL, Gentium, GentiumAlt, Helvetica (displaying in Arial), Lucida Sans, Segoe UI, Times New Roman. Everything else is displaying in Noto Sans (my default font in Chrome).

For the MFSample with the swung dash in your comment, this is what I see:

No idea what's going on in Chrome.

Fwiw, though, Semantic Wikipedia is unrelated to whether or not a swung dash should be used in place of a tilde, just as it is irrelevant to MOS:ELLIPSIS specifying three dots instead of the Unicode ellipsis character or spaced dots. — OwenBlacker (talk; please &#123;&#123;ping&#125;&#125; me in replies) 18:41, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Marginal consonants
Can the term "Marginal consonants" either be (briefly) defined [ perhaps in a footnote ], or linked to an article/section, or changed, please? From a quick search online it seems not to be a common phrase. —DIV (120.17.37.17 (talk) 08:16, 10 May 2018 (UTC))

WP article consistency for AuE (and others)
There seems to be inconsistency across WP articles for AuE (and maybe others). See talk page. —DIV (120.17.34.107 (talk) 23:19, 17 May 2018 (UTC))
 * Because this article is a compilation and may largely be an original research which misrepresents the given sources. Everybody could change and have changed one phonetic symbol or another here and there, and nobody checked this article for consistency and for compliance with the sources. I suppose the article about AuE is more constent in following its sources.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Examples for ɦ & ç
In the table ɦ & ç each have explanatory footnotes, but no examples are given in the footnotes. I guess "hue" applies for ɦ, but it can be made explicit in the footnote. There is no evident example for ç: I am guessing "ahoy" and/or "Ohio" could be candidates. Please confirm and add the relevant one(s). —DIV (120.17.37.17 (talk) 10:55, 10 May 2018 (UTC))
 * Each symbol in the table and in the footnotes is linked to the corresponding article about that sound and its occurrence across languages. You may look at it yourself. By the way, you seem to have confused two sounds, the examples must be the other way round.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

/aɪ/ and /aʊ/ in RP
In the chart given on Received_Pronunciation, the onset of /aɪ/ is in front of that of /aʊ/. Why are they transcribed [ɑɪ̯] and [aʊ̯] respectively? 113.77.254.186 (talk) 07:46, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=International_Phonetic_Alphabet_chart_for_English_dialects&diff=579216595&oldid=578023799 Is the chart dated? 113.77.254.186 (talk) 08:27, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 31 July 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 17:24, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects → Help:IPA/English dialects – Wouldn't it make more sense to just move it to a regular Help:IPA page, as for all other cases? イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話） 16:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose I don't understand what the rationale for the move is. The pages under Help:IPA/ are essentially supplements to their respective IPA-xx templates so readers can understand what each symbol in IPA notations represents, whereas this article purports to describe the phonetic details of major accents of English, which is encyclopedic so it better belongs in the main namespace. There is IPA-endia which links to the article, granted, but it is scarcely used and its uses hardly adhere to the chart. We may in the future agree to have a phonemic or broad phonetic chart for English accents as a key to be linked from a template like IPA-endia, but in that case we can (and I say we should) create it in the Help namespace from scratch.
 * Indeed, this article is a travesty. No dialect or even idiolect is as stable as the chart makes it out to be. Every realization, even of the same phoneme, even in the same phonetic environment, is not exactly the same as another. So the chart as it stands presents an unrealistic level of phonetic detail. But if we made the chart completely phonemic, that wouldn't allow for much comparison between varieties. But if we decided to make it less narrow, we wouldn't possibly be able to agree on how much detail to include. So I find the premise of the article quite implausible in the first place, but that doesn't make as good a reason for a move to the Help namespace as it does for a deletion. Nardog (talk) 04:19, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I see, there are no explanations in the article indeed. I just thought it would be more consistent, but I understand why it has been kept there. Thanks for at least discussing it! [[File:Italy.png]] イヴァン スクルージ 九十八 （会話）[[File:Italy.png]] 07:59, 7 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Removal of all flags
You recently removed all flags on International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects as per MOS:Flag. MOS:Flag is very long. What part in particular applies here? I agree that it's slightly inappropriate to represent both Irelands with the Republic of Ireland's flag, however, I don't think people will assume that this doesn't also apply to Northern Ireland, or that Northern Ireland's flag is the Irish tricolour. The flags have appeared on the chart for years, and I rely on them to quickly tell the difference between different accents. For instance, how can I tell the difference between ScE, SAE, and SSE considering that they're all small segments of English? GA and RP should be familiar to most people who are already conversant in linguistics, and I can easily identify AuE and NZE because I am Australian. The others are harder, especially since there are so many presented in the same place. I would like to see the flags returned, but I can see that this might be sensitive for some people. The question is whether enough people are sensitive to it for all the flags to be removed. Alternatively, does it do more harm than good? I would say that it does more good than harm, and should be restored. Danielklein (talk) 03:00, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The very first paragraph: Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality ... flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself. RP doesn't represent the UK. GA doesn't represent the US. I actually have an issue with the way the article selects and presents the accents itself, given that by no means are they the most common or standardized forms of English spoken in each country (there are no such things) and to pick only one accent per country is arbitrary at best. I personally think it's an abomination and we should nuke it. But for this precise reason, I can't bring myself to care so much about this article so I'm moving this discussion to the talk page of the article to invite others.
 * I don't think people will assume... That's not the problem. The problem is that Irish English encompasses English spoken in the island of Ireland, not the Republic of Ireland, and therefore using the flag is inaccurate. The flags have appeared on the chart for years Just because something has stood on a page for a long time doesn't make it any less susceptible to being called into question. how can I tell the difference between ScE, SAE, and SSE considering that they're all small segments of English? I don't understand how their being small segments of English (or the lack of the flags for that matter) affects one's ability to tell the difference between them. Can people not simply look them up in the lead? (But I'm adding abbr, if that helps.)
 * I'd say more harm than good. These are varieties of a language that just happen to be spoken—by some, not all—in each country and by no means do they represent each country. Others may disagree. Nardog (talk) 08:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Make vowel table sticky
The vowel table sucks on mobile; the first column should be changed to be stuck:


 * Done, it sucked on desktop too.  Nixinova   T   C   04:32, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Brummie Accent
Hey, I saw there was a new column in the chart for the vowels of the Brummie accent but I can't edit it. I listened to a big sample of a Brummie accent and suggested a new transcription for this accent, the current transcription on this page being quite inaccurate. Here it is, if you're convince, please let me now or add it to the chart, which unfortunately I failed to do...

Brummie Accent Vowels :

commA	   	[ə~ɐ] TRAP, BATH		[a] PALM			[ɑː] LOT, CLOTH	   [ä~ɒ~ɔ̈~ɔ] THOUGHT		   [o̞ː~ɔː] DRESS		   [ɛ~e] KIT			   [ɪ~i] happY			[əi̯~i] FLEECE		   [əi̯~ɨi̯] STRUT		   [ɒ~ʌ~ə~ɤ~ʊ] FOOT			[ɤ~ʊ~ʊ̝] GOOSE		   [əʉ̯~əu̯] FACE			[ɛi̯~aɪ̯~ɐɪ̯~ʌɪ̯] PRICE, CHOICE	[aɪ̯~ɒɪ̯~ɔɪ̯] MOUTH		   [æə̯~æʊ̯~ɛʉ̯~ɛ̝̈ʊ̯] GOAT			[ʌʊ̯~ɐʊ̯~aʊ̯] lettER			[ə(ɹ)~ɐ(ɹ)] NURSE		   [ɵ̝ː(ɹ)~əː(ɹ)~ɜː(ɹ)] START		   [ɑː(ɹ)] NORTH		   [o̞ː(ɹ)~ɔː(ɹ)] FORCE		   [o̞ː(ɹ)~ɔː(ɹ), ʌʊ̯ə(ɹ)] CURE			[ɘua(ɹ)~ɘʉa(ɹ)~ʊa̯(ɹ)~ʊə̯(ɹ), ɔː(ɹ)~o̞ː(ɹ)] SQUARE		   [ɛə̯(ɹ)~ɛː(ɹ)~ɜː(ɹ)] NEAR			[ɘiɐ(ɹ)~iə̯(ɹ)~ɪə̯(ɹ)~ɜː(ɹ)]

Those are some of the sources I used :

https://books.google.fr/books?id=jFarBgAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y https://pronunciationstudio.com/brummie-accent/ https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.402460

Those are the samples I used to make these transcriptions (along with some videos of brummie speakers by the youtube channel AccentBase):

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/brummy-accent-gabriel-new-house https://web.archive.org/web/20130812172251/http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/english57.html https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.402460

Thank you so much for your time and energy, hope you'll agree with my proposition.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by YanisBourgeois (talk • contribs) 23:33, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Error with the vowel table
There seems to be some sort of error with the table that makes it very hard to edit in visual editing mode, making adding new columns basically impossible. I'd do it myself, but I can't code. SuperBruhMoment (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I noticed it too, I coudn't modify the column for the Brummie Accent. YanisBourgeois (talk) 09:50, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Estuary English
Hey everyone, I tried to add a column just after Cockney named Estuary English which includes London, Bucks, Kent, Surrey and Essex. My skills with a computer are quite poor so I failed to do it (as you can see in the history XD) so if someone could add it, I think it would be great :) the reason I chose this particular order is because in this way, London is placed right after Cockney so we can merge a certain number of cells (Cockney is from London so London regionalised estuary english and cockney speech share a lot of similar features), and the other regions are set so that a maximum of features can be share between each and the ones next. In the source I used, the columns were organised like so : Bucks; Essex; Kent; Surrey. But it wasn't the optimal position if you're willing to merge as many similar cells as possible.

Przedlacka, J. (2001) Estuary English and RP: Some Recent Findings (see : Table 2. Predominant realisations of EE vowels)

It would be great if someone could do it, thanks YanisBourgeois (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello, YanisBourgeois. I have just created a column for Estuary English using the study by Joanna Przedlacka that you recommended, which I supplemented using Laura Tollfree’s description of the ‘South East London Regional Standard’ accent from the book ‘Urban Voices: Accent Studies in the British Isles’. Rather than create an individual column for each of the Home Counties, I thought it would be preferable to create a single column under a broader category of London English accents, which also includes Cockney and Multicultural London English. 80.3.14.58 (talk) 11:58, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your contribution. I think some variants might not exist in London but in the Home Counties (which wouldn't be surprising if you used Przedlacka's writing about Estuary English because it's about Kent, Surrey, Essex and Bucks, not London itself). Also I'm surprised because it doesn't really match Well's writings about London english in "Accents of English : The British Isles". He refers to it as Popular London Accent (he also refers to Cockney english in the same chapter so mind the distinction between the two). I think that calling it "Popular London" would be wiser, because it would allow the option of other varieties of Estuary English from outside of London. Thanks again YanisBourgeois (talk) 13:06, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

British English
Hello everyone,

Now that English English is divided in Southern England and Northern England, putting Brummie in the second category seems to be a good idea (if someone more competent than me with a computer could do it, it would be great). It also seems interesting to reunite EnE, ScE and WaE into one category called BrE. YanisBourgeois (talk) 11:06, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

/θ/
In most Hiberno (Irish) English varieties /t/ and /θ/ are merged. In some varieties where t glottalisation occurs, final and intervocalic /θ/ is realised as [ʔ] (mainly around Dublin, but can be seen supraregionally) so that boat and both are both pronounced [boʊʔ] (/boʊt/). I dont have any citations for this but I think it should be mentioned in the consonant table. 78.19.158.234 (talk) 15:50, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Missing j's in vowel table for pure?
Under General American, for both tour and pure, the table lists ʊɹ~ɔɹ~oɹ. This seems correct for tour. However, it seems to leave out the [j] sound in pure in General American. Should it say jʊɹ~jɔɹ~joɹ?

Almost every other accent has [j] starting sounds for pure. Abercraf English and Port Talbot English start with [ɪ] instead, but that's similar. And then Cajun English has neither [j] nor [ɪ]; is that also a mistake? Dancor (talk) 09:16, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Rosa's roses distinction?
There doesn't seem to be a row to account for the Rosa's roses contrast/merger. How might this be added? WikiMaster111 (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2023 (UTC)