User talk:Paul in Siam

I understand when some "knowledgeable" people, while possibly sporting degrees in linguistics and such, don't always get it right just because they studied Inuit in Harvard or whatever. It doesn't matter that the information is sourced and the source is listed. It doesn't mean that information is correct no matter what that source is and how old the source is (religion is a good example).

When spelling Thai with IPA, please be aware that some letters are voiced and some are unvoiced; for example, ก is voiced. ก therefore would not be transcribed as /k/, but /g/. The IPA spelling of the official name of the capital city of Thailand in more than one place on the Wikipedia page is incorrect. It is pointless that I edit the page as the correct nature of voiced consonants flies in the face of the knowledgeable people, so would quickly be reedited.

For an insignificant number of people, who would care for the correct pronunciation of the capital city's name, the philosophies of many linguists that "You don't have to speak a language in order to transcribe it" then finishing with "When you're not familiar with a language, it's nearly impossible to hear the differences between some words" are not good enough.

A good test of this would be to say "Who sells chicken eggs?" in the Thai language, and to see whether or not the locals laugh at you. It's not just ก really, it's a whole range of letters. I mean really... would dog start with /t/ or bit start with /p/ ?

Think about it.