User talk:Lingnanhua

IPA
Hi. We use the International Phonetic Alphabet for pronunciations on Wikipedia -- especially when they're labeled as "IPA"! Please don't convert to an idiosyncratic convention with the claim that you're "fixing" it. Thanks. It looks like I have a lot of your work to revert... — kwami (talk) 06:02, 6 April 2021 (UTC)


 * That is not idiosyncratic. It is the accepted standard in Mainland Southeast Asian linguistics. Your reverts are equivalent to turning IAST into IPA on all Sanskrit articles. Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages. Lingnanhua (talk) 23:42, 9 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Except that IAST transcriptions are marked as IAST and don't pretend to be IPA. We need to tell the reader what we're doing, especially when we use a local convention that may contradict the convention they're used to. Using undefined local conventions is never a good idea. — kwami (talk) 01:18, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Then let's create a template marking all East Asian/Mainland SEA transcriptions as such. Sometimes there are errors like transcribing ȵ as nʲ, but in practice ȵ is always used as an equivalent for IPA ɲ. Lingnanhua (talk) 01:21, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Sure. IPA ɲ itself is used inconsistently, often for nʲ. There are also underlined vowels. I would appreciate it if you could clarify what those mean as well. — kwami (talk) 01:30, 10 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Those are tense or creaky vowels if you are referring to Lolo-Burmese languages. Lingnanhua (talk) 01:31, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. That should be in the key as well. — kwami (talk) 01:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

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IPA tone
Hi. Sinological consonants and vowels are acceptable if explained, because they're fairly intuitive, but the digits need to be replaced, because otherwise they are unintelligible (e.g. is 1 or 5 high tone?). There's no issue with conversion here, as there's a 1-to-1 correlation with the IPA. As for Sinologists not being able to read IPA, that's really their problem. We can't pander like this when our audience is global. — kwami (talk) 07:32, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * As previously discussed in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages/Archive 16, we really need a template for Chao tones and should not convert them to tone sticks just yet. I know that we have a global audience, but that does not mean converting everything in Sinological, Semitic, Proto-Indo-European, or Indic studies (like IAST) to IPA, which would completely mess up those transcriptions and result in many errors. Some of those conversions would also be extremely unsightly, like converting IAST transcriptions of Sanskrit to IPA, even though a "global audience" might prefer IPA over IAST. I appreciate your hard work in converting non-standard symbols to IPA, but you must explain all conversions, or else we could end up with many mistakes that eventually find their way to all kinds of unexpected places (student papers, blogs, and others). Lingnanhua (talk) 07:39, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * It's perfectly fine to use orthography, and I wouldn't have a problem with doing that in this article. We even describe one. But if we're going to put something in IPA, it really should be in IPA. We don't make exceptions for Native American languages, with $⟨y⟩$ for IPA $⟨j⟩$, for example, because that would be terribly confusing, with readers never knowing when the IPA was actually IPA. The extra Sinological letters aren't much of a problem, but getting the tones backwards is. — kwami (talk) 07:43, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * has also recommended using the converted IPA transcriptions in square brackets [], but the original transcriptions (sic) should be maintained. We can use slashes // for those. Many MSEA specialists, including Nick J. Enfield, Paul Sidwell, Rikker Dockum, and others, who otherwise strictly stick to IPA still use numerical Chao tones. Those are widely understood by a global audience, since Chao tones are nearly universally used in East Asian linguistics. Lingnanhua (talk) 07:46, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I strongly doubt that anyone in North American or African linguistics would get numerical Chao tones wrong, and I know many people in those fields. It's intuitive after you dabble around in Chinese/MSEA linguistics for just a few minutes. Please re-open a discussion in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages if we all need to talk about this again. Lingnanhua (talk) 07:49, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Having both, per Austronesier's suggestion, would be acceptable. I read the consensus you linked at that we should use IPA for IPA, and only pitch numbers in non-IPA transcription. E.g. if [ŋ] is "ng", then it's fine for mid pitch to be "3", otherwise no.
 * People get them wrong all the time. I personally get them backwards sometimes. They're only intuitive if you stick to Asian languages. For a global audience, once you leave that walled garden, using two contradictory systems is quite confusing. — kwami (talk) 07:58, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I understand. I know how non-standard transcriptions used by philologists in all kinds of niche subfields can be confusing for linguists who prefer IPA, but we can't just globally replace all of those non-standard symbols without maintaining the original transcriptions, or else we'd end up with something that specialists in those fields really can't deal with. We must preserve original transcriptions, explained either via templates or footnotes, but you can't just globally replace them without addressing the needs of the specialists. There has to be a way to make transcriptions useful for both audiences. Lingnanhua (talk) 08:06, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that having both would be best, if only as a check against mistranscription of the sources, but do you really think Sinologists are illiterate in IPA? I mean, IPA tone letters were invented by Chao, and were chosen because they were globally intuitive. Sinologists would have to be unfamiliar with Chao, be ignorant of how musical transcription work, and lack kindergarten-level intuition for them to be unable to read IPA tone description. — kwami (talk) 08:55, 11 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Sinologists and MSEA linguists all know what tone sticks are, but many of them absolutely do not want to use tone sticks. One reason is that readers can't always distinguish tone sticks immediately, since /53/ vs. /54/ or even /53/ vs. /42/ can be confused with each other if you're not zooming in enough. I get howls of protests from other linguists whenever tone sticks are converted into numerals. I would absolutely expect similar howls of protests if I were to do this to Semitic, Indic, and other types of non-standard transcriptions, and they would be even less happy about it than Sinologists. Since neither audience can reach a consensus on this matter, we must use templates where both types of transcriptions can be presented to both audiences. Lingnanhua (talk) 09:02, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

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Autopatrolled granted
Hi Lingnanhua, I just wanted to let you know that I have [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ALog&type=rights&page=User%3ALingnanhua added] the autopatrolled user right to your account. This means that pages you create will automatically be marked as 'reviewed', and no longer appear in the new pages feed. Autopatrolled is assigned to prolific creators of articles, where those articles do not require further review, and may have been requested on your behalf by someone else. It doesn't affect how you edit; it is used only to manage the workload of new page patrollers.

Since the articles you create will no longer be systematically reviewed by other editors, it is important that you maintain the high standard you have achieved so far in all your future creations. Please also try to remember to add relevant WikiProject templates, stub tags, categories, and incoming links to them, if you aren't already in the habit; user scripts such as Rater and StubSorter can help with this. As you have already shown that you have a strong grasp of Wikipedia's core content policies, you might also consider volunteering to become a new page patroller yourself, helping to uphold the project's standards and encourage other good faith article writers.

Feel free to leave me a message if you have any questions. Happy editing! –&#8239;Joe (talk) 09:16, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Jingpo
Hi,

The current orthography at Jingpo language is odd, from an unreliable editor and unsourced. (Though it's not clear what the previous orthography was supposed to be either.) Are you familiar with the situation, or have access to confirming sources? Voiced letters for voiceless consonants is common enough, but going on to use voiceless letters for voiced consonants is weird. I haven't been able to find anything to confirm.

— kwami (talk) 19:29, 21 July 2023 (UTC)


 * No, I am not familiar with Jingpo orthography. Perhaps place some tags in the relevant sections. Lingnanhua (talk) 06:38, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

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