Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 August 11

= August 11 =

Naya Rivera pronunciation?
I've been listening to multiple pronunciations of Naya Rivera's name, and the current IPA transcription for this is. Is anyone able to hear the schwa in /ɛər/? My ears don't seem to be catching it. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  06:58, 11 August 2020 (UTC)


 * That transcription represents a "centering diphthong" pronunciation which is found in UK English much more than in US English... AnonMoos (talk) 08:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * That's an interesting tidbit. Is it present in the pronunciation, though? — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  14:12, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * According to Help:IPA/English, /ɛər/ is the IPA transcription that Wikipedia uses for the vowel sound in square, etc. That help page also notes, ", and  are not distinguished in many North American accents (Mary–marry–merry merger). Some speakers merge only two of the sounds (most typically  with one of the short vowels) and less than a fifth of speakers of American English make a full three-way distinction, like RP and similar accents." Deor (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Deor -- But it's not the case that the earlier pronunciations leading to most American English dialects ever had a centering diphthong. In 18th-century English, there was allophony such that the traditional "long a" vowel was realized as a normal (non-centering) diphthong when not before "r", and as a long low-mid front vowel when before "r".  This long low-mid front vowel did not otherwise exist in the language (only occurring before "r") and eventually ended up being shortened in most forms of American English, and being replaced by a centering diphthong in standard UK English... AnonMoos (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I can see 's point. If we want to give a diaphonemic transcription of a personal name, and that person appears to be a speaker with the Mary–marry–merry merger, shouldn't we then chose the diaphoneme that most closely (phonetically) reflects that speaker's own accent, i.e. in this case /ɛr/ instead of /ɛər/? –Austronesier (talk) 14:28, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * , is there a Wikipedia convention for this? I'm aware of using regional English for subjects tied to the region or on a "first come, first serve" basis, though I'm not sure if the same would extend to pronunciations as well. I've listened to that video multiple times and I believe that schwa shouldn't be there. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  21:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The convention is to include as many distinctions recognized by Help:IPA/English as possible because doing otherwise would be a violation of the diaphonemic principle. Rivera is included in both of the authoritative pronunciation dictionaries, Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary and Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, and they transcribe it with a SQUARE vowel for the British pronunciation, so we shouldn't use /ɛr/ so long as we're using IPAc-en. Nardog (talk) 05:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * As a non-English person I'd find the conviction and authoritativeness of this answer quaint if my own last name hadn't been butchered mercilessly time and again by English speakers... 93.136.48.85 (talk) 04:00, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the input! — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  06:06, 13 August 2020 (UTC)