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Just a thought: would it be better to transcribe the Russian "hard" (non-palatalized) /l/ as [ɫ]? That does better represent how it's pronounced, but I think it may be overkill. What do you think? AlexanderKaras (talk) 03:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it might be overkill. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 03:54, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO unqualified [l]s should not be used for Russian at all. East Slavic speakers always distinguish hard лъ (Dark l) and palatalized ль [lʲ]. What can you propose for the former but [ɫ] (or its synonyms like [lˠ])? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:24, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree with the decision made years ago: I think transcribing the darkness of the Russian unpalatalized l would be helpful. The note saying that the pharyngelization is not distinctive is puzzling. That argument would make sense if this page were describing a phonemic transcription system, but because the system is phonetic, distinctiveness is not relevant to transcriptional choices. (If we went by distinctiveness, we would not transcribe the different realizations of any of the vowel phonemes, for example. /e/ between soft consonants and elsewhere would both be transcribed as [e], unstressed /i/ would be transcribed [i] rather than [ɪ], and so on. None of these differences are phonemic, after all)

I think it would be useful to transcribe the pharyngealization because some varieties of English have both clear and dark l. Without it, folks might think (incorrectly) that Russian hard /l/ is pronounced similarly to Received Pronunciation clear l (as in leaf), rather than closer to the coda pronunciation of /l/ or the North American pronunciation. The reason for transcribing the different pronunciations of the Russian vowels is because they are distinguished in English. So why not transcribe the distinct pronunciation of Russian hard /l/? — Eru·tuon 18:33, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. [l] is actually a better choice for the palatalized l than the velarized/pharyngealized one, and that's because Russian /lʲ/ sometimes has a rather neutral (schwa-like) coloring, whereas the hard /l/ is always dark. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:06, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's a compelling case. From what I understand, all hard-consonants are equally velarized/pharyngealized in Russian, except for /l/, which is even more velarized/pharyngealized. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 13:57, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: When I hear the Russian dark 'l' I immediately think of Scottish English (which is sometimes said to have a pharyngealized /l/), so you're probably right. It's quite probable that the Russian dark 'l' is generally more dark than the dark 'l's of most English speakers.

From my experience, /lʲ/ loses (some of) its palatalization especially in preconsonantal positions and perhaps also word-finally before a pause or a word-initial consonant. Before vowels, it has a much brighter quality and a palatal glide follows it pretty much all the time, especially in stressed contexts. The fact that /l/ is more strongly velarized/pharyngealized than other hard consonants is probably an attempt to maximize the /l–lʲ/ contrast.

If we're going to start transcribing [l] as [ɫ] (as Russian Wiktionary does) then I think [lʲ] should be transcribed as it is in order not to introduce confusion (many users are used to the transcription we use). Also, as I said, the palatalization of [lʲ] is variable, not completely absent, so [l] doesn't seem like a terribly right fit for the soft 'l' either (but obviously it's more phonetically correct than when it's used for the hard 'l').

PS: What about other Slavic, Baltic and Romance languages? Perhaps a similar change from [l] to [ɫ] is justified in some of those cases too? Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:38, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's obvious, that fluent «/lʲ/ loses (some of) its palatalization especially in preconsonantal positions», if the following consonant is hard: пыльца́ cf. пы́ли. Tacit Murky (talk) 19:04, 18 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Padgett (2001), cited in the Russian phonology page, discusses the dynamic between palatalization, velarization, and adjacent vowels in Russian. The phonetics of the hard/soft contrast is a lot more complicated than I think we want to get into. Hard l is ok to make an exception to this (for the reasons stated above), but I would hate to complicate our notation with hard/soft consonant allophony by extending the nuance to how we transcribe consonants' hardness/softness any further. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:29, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: Agreed, but that source could be used to improve Russian phonology (which is the place for such information). Mr KEBAB (talk) 07:05, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There'd be less of a case for transcribing the secondary articulation of any hard consonants besides /l/, because English doesn't make a notable distinction in secondary articulation for any other consonant that I can recall. — Eru·tuon 19:24, 19 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: I've changed the symbol for the hard 'l' to [ɫ]. However, we need to run a bot to change the IPA in the article space (unless there's a masochist who wants to go through more than 1500 pages himself?! :P) I'm also requesting that the bot replace [ɑ] with [a] per one of the discussions at the bottom. EDIT: I did it the latter myself. Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The same should be done on Russian phonology (which has an enormous amount of instances of the IPA and similar templates) and probably also on English Wiktionary. I'll look into the later case. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:00, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Here are the links to find [l] (obviously, there are false positives with [lʲ]):

• hastemplate:"IPA-ru" insource:/\{\{IPA-ru[^\}]*l/
• hastemplate:"lang-rus" insource:/\{\{lang-rus[^\}]*l/ Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:57, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all for implementing this plan, but remember that the IPA guide should be usable to readers. In other words, the guide is the last place we should remove the l without velar marking or the [ɑ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:57, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: [ɑ] has already been dealt with, but you might be right about [l]. I think we can revert the change from [ɫ] to [l] for now. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:04, 26 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Erutuon: Do you think you could create such a script? Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:24, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A bot script? No. I've only done Lua and a little JavaScript. It would be possible to create a module function that would then be invoked in {{IPA-ru}} and {{lang-rus}} to categorize all transcriptions that have plain [l], so that they could be more easily edited through with AWB. But finding a bot owner who can help might be simpler. — Eru·tuon 03:25, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Erutuon: Sorry for not responding earlier, I'm trying to do too much at once and I keep forgetting things. Which bot owner would you recommend (if you know any)? Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:10, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr KEBAB: Unfortunately, I don't know any bot owners on Wikipedia. I would have someone to ask on Wiktionary. — Eru·tuon 22:26, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Erutuon: Fair enough, I'll do my own research. Thanks! Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:28, 13 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

So it's been a couple years, does everyone still agree that hard л is best transcribed as [ɫ]? I know I am of that opinion. If so, could someone with the knowhow get the transcription change in articles underway? Perhaps @Kbb2:? — ˈzɪzɨvə (talk) 17:36, 27 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Can it occur in that context? Russian phonology#Vowel mergers is a bit vague. Does the closeness of the word-final [ə] assimilate to the openness of the word-initial [ɐ]? In other words, is LoveVanPersie right or is my transcription correct? Thanks in advance. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:26, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, it looks like LVP was right after all. Jones & Ward say that [ɐ] occurs in phrases such as [pɐ ɐdnɐˈmu] and [nɐ ɐstrɐˈvax]. But are those the same grammatical contexts as human names? I'm not so sure about that. Mr KEBAB (talk) 22:41, 9 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Your fix seems to be proven by stand-alone (or phrase-final) pronounce [mɐˈrʲinə], as in other words with unstressed {-на} = [-nə]. However, hiatus can occur across words, so — yes, there can be [ɐ·ɐ], like «А Анто́н до́ма?». Because openness-closeness depend on the speed and (especially) loudness of the speech, word-final [ə] may be assimilated to the openness of the word-initial [ɐ], but that can't be the rule. Tacit Murky (talk) 13:15, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: Thanks. So, are you saying that my transcription is better/more universal or that both are equally correct? Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:05, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would transcribe it like LVP, but that's based off of Jones & Ward. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:46, 10 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I can't decide for you, but if we can postulate (in the Phonetics article), that not only «hiatus can occur across words», but that rule has a priority over «word-final [ə]», then [ɐ·ɐ] sequence is correct. But you'd be the one to be asking for sources for that, too, right? ;) Tacit Murky (talk) 15:01, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Sourcing would not only help us adjudicate this, but also help us improve the Russian phonology article. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:38, 11 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

My two kopecks: there is no middle dot in the IPA. The syllabification is shown with simple period.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:26, 12 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

It's about word-breaks. Middle dot is a good separator, otherwise it should be NBSP, not just a space. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Could you enlighten me then what the IPA recommends for such situations? I could not find any, except for undertie. So the proper way must be [ɐ‿ɐ] ("absence of a brake", as they say). Surely not middle dot.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:21, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Любослов Езыкин: I'm not Tacit, but it is the undertie. The middle dot is perhaps used to distinguish stop-fricative sequences from affricates (when the transcriber doesn't use tie-bars), but I'm not sure if it's an official part of the IPA. It probably isn't. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:31, 13 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

As I see it, there is no way to differ mid-word and cross-word underties. It's good to have something to denote absence of a sound-brake, but presence of a word-brake. Tacit Murky (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: Underties aren't used in a mid-word position. Mr KEBAB (talk) 01:33, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I'm out of arguments, but I still prefer the mid-dot, because it so easy to type it on my keyboard, and it's used in math :) Interpunct article says: «Various dictionaries use the interpunct (in this context, sometimes called hyphenation point) to indicate syllabification within a word with multiple syllables. There is also a separate Unicode character, U+2027 ‧ hyphenation point.» Tacit Murky (talk) 02:12, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: They do, but in orthographic forms. I've never seen it used in IPA, at least in that context. With that being said, I understood what you meant so there's no problem. Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:19, 14 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I would honestly just do away with ⟨ɐ⟩ and write ⟨a⟩ instead. The difference between near-open and open central unrounded vowels is very likely to be inaudible to native speakers of Russian, much like the difference between near-close and close variants of the close central vowels (rounded and unrounded alike). What do you say? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:58, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't do away with ⟨ɐ⟩. It strikes me as unnecessarily oversimplistic for no point other than that the cardinal vowels (which differ from the Russian realizations) are adjacent to each other in the vowel trapezium. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:18, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: The values on the chart you've added aren't necessarily representative of contemporary standard speech. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015) say that what we transcribe with ⟨ɐ⟩ is [ɐ] in Moscow and [ʌ] in Saint Petersburg, and the stressed allophone of /a/ is central or advanced back. They also analyze all instances of what we transcribe with ⟨ɐ⟩ and ⟨a⟩ (and ⟨ə⟩ too) as /a/. You realize that the difference between open and near-open central unrounded vowels is barely audible, no? Just like the difference between close and near-close varieties of [ɨ] and [ʉ]. It's also not phonemic in any of those cases. The difference between [i] and [ɪ] as well as [a] (including [ɐ]) and [ə] is audible, though. IMO as long as you get the height of [ə] right you can use the open [a] for the unstressed open allophone without any problems. See the comment section here. This book that I used to own uses ⟨a⟩ for what we write ⟨ɐ⟩ (unfortunately, it probably also uses it for what we write ⟨ə⟩).

When we write [a] we actually always mean [ä]. What's the problem with writing [a] in unstressed positions when we actually mean [ä̝] = [ɐ]? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:54, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's the chart we use in the article. If it's not accurate, we should probably remove it.

I don't think the phonemic analysis matters for a phonetic transcription. Again, this idea is oversimplistic for no good reason. We've already got loads of transcriptions that mark a distinction between stressed and pre-tonic, it's something backed up by sources, and in some dialects it's more pronounced than it is in Moscow. What problem are we trying to solve here? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: You can check the JIPA article and judge that yourself.

I can let this go, but only on the basis of the Saint Petersburg pronunciation being sufficiently different from the main open central allophone to warrant a separate symbol for it. In the case of the Moscow standard, there's little reason to use it. We already use stress marks and ignore the difference between the unstressed variants of [ɨ] and [ʉ] (there's already a discrepancy in the way we transcribe /u/ - we mark the unstressed allophone when it's back but not when it's central). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:16, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I can't resist a JIPA article. I'll check it out.

I can't remember if we used to transcribe the unstressed variants of [ɨ] and [ʉ], but the main reason we don't is that it would require diacritics and we try to avoid that when we can. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:33, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: Wouldn't you say that ⟨ʌ⟩ is a better symbol for it? After all, we mostly use a different symbol because of the Saint Petersburg pronunciation. The JIPA article uses ⟨ʌ⟩ and so do Jones & Ward (1969). I think that Марина Андреевна Аганина is better transcribed [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə], rather than the current [mɐˈrʲinɐ ɐnˈdrʲeɪvnɐ ɐˈɡanʲɪnə], not least because Standard Russian [ʌ] seems to have pretty much the same phonetic range as English /ʌ/ in many dialects. What is the predominant symbol in the literature? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:57, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't be certain what is typical, but I'm under the impression that ⟨ʌ⟩ is typical enough that no one would be confused. It might even be helpful to English-speakers who are used to that symbol for English strut. So I wouldn't have a problem with switching to ⟨ʌ⟩. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:28, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: If nobody objects to this in the following weeks, I'll try to find someone to replace ⟨ɐ⟩ with ⟨ʌ⟩ (and ⟨l⟩ with ⟨ɫ⟩) on WP. Doing this manually would be insane, see e.g. [1]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:53, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Recent Moscow „posh/youth“ speech of 1990-s and 2000-s used prolonged, more opened and less rounded pretonic vowels, up to the point of stress shifting (like «Москва́» = [mʌː'skva]~['maː·skvɐ]), but not in official or TV speech. SPb dialect never did that. However, for some speakers pretonic vowels behave similarly, but with no prolongation, so [mʌˈrʲinə ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnə ʌˈɡanʲɪnə] is better than [mɐˈrʲinɐ ɐnˈdrʲeɪvnɐ ɐˈɡanʲɪnə]. But [ʌ] is „too back“ to pair [ä], so [ɜ] may be better. So: before stress = (more) open, after stress = (more) mid; and all of them are more or less central. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: You mean [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]? [ə ʌ] coalesces to [ʌ ʌ].

I've already explained why I prefer ⟨ʌ⟩ for it (so it's not "too back" because it's [ʌ] in Saint Petersburg where the phonetic contrast between [a] and [ʌ] is more pronounced than in Moscow). ⟨ɜ⟩ is the worst choice out of three and it doesn't necessarily signify a vowel that's specifically open-mid (it was only two decades ago when it was defined as such; before that, it was just a "variety of [ə]" which was defined for neither height nor roundedness, like ⟨ə⟩). Plus, as far as I can see, most sources write this vowel with ⟨ʌ⟩. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 03:53, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean [ə ʌ] «coalesces» to [ʌ ʌ]? These are different phones, and (according to Moscow school) pre- and post-tonic vowels (at least /o/) are different. SPb school treat them as same (as [ʌ ʌ] denotes), for which I for one can not agree with. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: Well, what is this thread about (or what was it about originally?) That's what I mean. And no, I don't think that the SPb school treats the second vowel in "облако" and the first vowel in "какой" the same. In SPb the main distinction between them is backness; the first vowel in "какой" is only slightly more open than the true schwa in the second syllable of "облако". The final syllable of "облако" is different - it's normally mid in both standards, but (at least according to Jones & Ward 1969) it assimilates to the openness/backness/whatever (depending on the standard) of the word-initial [ʌ] (or however you want to transcribe it). Hence [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]. Controlling the openness of word-final schwas is hard for native speakers of English, I'd say that it's even harder than suppressing aspiration. Are you aware of newer sources that contradict Jones and Ward? Remember that [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə] is a pronunciation that is specifically without pauses and without glottal stops. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Then why not [ʌˈɡanʲɪnʌ]? Does J&W instate clause-final unstressed vowels? Tacit Murky (talk) 04:58, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: Why are you asking a question that I've already answered in the very message you're replying to? To quote myself, The final syllable of "облако" is different - it's normally mid in both standards, but (at least according to Jones & Ward 1969) it assimilates to the openness/backness/whatever (depending on the standard) of the word-initial [ʌ] (or however you want to transcribe it). Hence [mʌˈrʲinʌ ʌnˈdrʲeɪvnʌ ʌˈɡanʲɪnə]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:06, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see now; you are making an example of this case of a phrase transcription. Generally, we are analyzing separate words, except for assimilation effects. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: And should we do that with names? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 08:06, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Slavic and old („russified“) Greek/Latin names are no different than common Slavic nouns. Loans can be treated differently: «Theresa» — «Тереза» [tɛˈrɛzə] vs «дереза» [dʲɪrʲɪˈza] (type of wolfberry). Tacit Murky (talk) 21:20, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody cares about degree of “openness” in the context of an unstressed /a/. Everything varying in height from [ä] up to [ə] can represent /a/, and variability in pronunciation is wider than minute gradations represented with IPA. This IPA approach for Russian is IMHO not very good at all – for some things precision is excessive, whereas for other phonemes necessary symbols are missing or inconvenient (for example, we know that this [l] representing ⟨л(ъ)⟩ is not really [l] as pronounced in Spanish or Italian, let alone German, French, and Arabic). [ɐ] for the thing which may sound as [ɜ], [ʌ], or something alike is not a problem at all. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:17, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Incnis Mrsi: I'd support transcribing the unstressed close central vowels with ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ for the sake of consistency, if not here then at least in Russian phonology. But I don't know about other editors. If we're basing so much on Jones & Ward then I don't know why ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ should be excluded from our transcriptions, especially given the fact that we're transcribing the English postalveolar approximant with ⟨r⟩. If we can use a sign that's so far removed from the phonetic reality of English /r/ then I'm not sure why we should avoid using ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩. They're not really non-IPA but unofficial extensions to IPA that are used in the literature.

To me, [dᵻˈʂatʲ, ʐᵻˈna, ˈvodᵻ, ᵻˈtap, k ᵻˈvanʊ, tɕᵿˈdʲɛsnᵻj, lʲᵿˈbʲitʲ] look a bit better than [dɨˈʂatʲ, ʐɨˈna, ˈvodɨ, ɨˈtap, k ɨˈvanʊ, tɕʉˈdʲɛsnɨj, lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]. The use of ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ in addition to marking stress with the primary stress mark makes the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables even more obvious.

One more thing: we're going to deprecate the plain ⟨l⟩ in Russian transcriptions. We're going to use ⟨ɫ⟩ and (in the case of the soft variant) ⟨lʲ⟩ instead. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with ⟨ᵻ⟩ ⟨ᵿ⟩ and ⟨ɫ⟩. The former two will be a bit time consuming to convert, I think.— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: Only the unrounded variant will be (somewhat) time consuming to convert. Believe it or not, but ⟨ʉ⟩ is a rare symbol in our transcriptions of Russian. See [2], [3], [4] and [5]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

use of ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ in addition to marking stress … makes the distinction between stressed and unstressed syllables — but we are using [ɨ̞], [ʉ̞] and [ʊ] now (at least they are in the allophones table); what's wrong with them (apart from being rare)? ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are newer to Unicode and may not be shown correctly everywhere. (And you probably meant [lʲʉˈbʲitʲ].) Tacit Murky (talk) 23:00, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: Only [ʉ] (including [ʉ̞]) is rare (how is that a problem?) and I've never mentioned [ʊ] in this context (I don't want to transcribe it differently). We're not using ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ now. We're just using them in those places where narrow transcription is called for. If we used ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ we could use them everywhere (including this guide) like ⟨ɪ⟩ and ⟨ʊ⟩ because they don't require diacritics like ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩. Could you perhaps read a bit more carefully next time?

My impression is that ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are just as likely to be displayed correctly as ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ as well as ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩. Is that a wrong impression?

I did mean [lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]. Thanks for the correction. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:55, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've just introduced ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ to Russian phonology. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If you can tolerate this anecdotal report, for some reason ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are not showing on my desktop Firefox under Windows. I had to use pictographs from Unicode charts to get what they look like. No wonder: these are from «extIPA» subset.

Sorry, I thought you only going to change Russian language articles, where people are used to see IPA symbols in general. Less diacritics is good, only if we can see symbols themselves. Tacit Murky (talk) 21:38, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Regardless of whether readers have the right font, I just don't think it's a good idea to use any non-IPA symbol in general unless you're taking about a sound the IPA just does not provide a means to represent. So no, count me against. Nardog (talk) 23:17, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky and Nardog: ⟨ᵻ⟩ and ⟨ᵿ⟩ are not showing on my desktop Firefox under Windows. I had to use pictographs from Unicode charts to get what they look like. That's a problem.

What do you two (and others) think about using ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩ instead? I consider them to be the second best notation if we want to differentiate between stressed and unstressed variants of the close central vowels. This isn't as much about vowel quality as it is about consistency; all other vowels have separate symbols for stressed and unstressed allophones. The close central vowels are the only one that have the same symbols in both series, and stressed /ɨ/ has a very different allophone (which isn't used categorically, but it's common) that sounds almost like broad cockney realization of /iː/. Plus, all vowels in the soft series are transcribed differently than those in the hard series (except, again, for [ʉ] which corresponds to two hard vowels). To me this issue is similar to that with Malayalam and the issue of dental vs. alveolar consonants. I think that there's a compelling reason to use ⟨ɪ̈⟩ and ⟨ʊ̈⟩ here, also for the reason English NURSE is normally transcribed with ⟨ɜː⟩ to make it maximally distinct from /ə/ (which isn't necessarily its short counterpart) - see "5. Vowels: quantitative and qualitative" in [6].

Compare:

1. [dɨˈʂatʲ, ʐɨˈna, ˈvodɨ, ɨˈtap, k ɨˈvanʊ, tɕʉˈdʲɛsnɨj, lʲʉˈbʲitʲ]

2. [dᵻˈʂatʲ, ʐᵻˈna, ˈvodᵻ, ᵻˈtap, k ᵻˈvanʊ, tɕᵿˈdʲɛsnᵻj, lʲᵿˈbʲitʲ]

3. [dɪ̈ˈʂatʲ, ʐɪ̈ˈna, ˈvodɪ̈, ɪ̈ˈtap, k ɪ̈ˈvanʊ, tɕʊ̈ˈdʲɛsnɪ̈j, lʲʊ̈ˈbʲitʲ]

4. [dɨ̞ˈʂatʲ, ʐɨ̞ˈna, ˈvodɨ̞, ɨ̞ˈtap, k ɨ̞ˈvanʊ, tɕʉ̞ˈdʲɛsnɨ̞j, lʲʉ̞ˈbʲitʲ]

How are the diacritics displayed in the latter two cases? Here's how it looks on my laptop: [7]. This proves that ⟨ɨ̞⟩ and ⟨ʉ̞⟩ are the worst choice (see how they can look next to the retroflexes and [j], it's awful), unless you customize your common.css like I did and you're logged in. And even then they're a suboptimal solution. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 05:51, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Should we explicitly show fronting of the vowels in the /Cʲ_C/ context, that is with /æ, ɵ, ʉ/? /CʲɛC/ definitely looks odd. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:28, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

According to Russian phonology, only [ɵ] appears in that context. Otherwise, we'd need a Cʲ_Cʲ environment. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Not true, I've started a discussion there.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:37, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, let's keep this discussion over there, until we'll reach a conclusion. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:40, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@Lüboslóv Yęzýkin, Aeusoes1, and Tacit Murky:So... what do we do? A reform is coming, should this be a part of it? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:02, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts:

1. /CʲVCʲ/ must be separate cases for all vowels, so it includes [æ ɵ ʉ] too.
2. /CʲVC/ must be separate at least for /e/ («ле́то» = [ˈlʲetə]). As Lüboslóv said, Jones&Trofimov are using [ɛ̞], but other sources prefer [e]. (I'm not sure if all „others“ do separate /CʲVC/ from /CʲVCʲ/.)
3. /(C)VCʲ/ tends to be more like /(C)VC/, so [ɛ] is needed («э́ти» = [ˈɛtʲɪ], unless preceding word starts with Cʲ).

Tacit Murky (talk) 22:24, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

According to Russian phonology, /e/ in CVCʲ environment is [e], not [ɛ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:31, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but how one can distinguish that? I mean like «э́то»^ⓘ vs «э́тика»^ⓘ vs «де́ти»^ⓘ. Article treats second pair as equal, but the first pair is much more alike, that's why Wiktionary spells «э́тика» as [ˈɛtʲɪkə]. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:17, 16 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We would need to find sourcing that backs up CɛCʲ — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky and Aeusoes1: This is from the JIPA article about Russian:

• /a/ is central [ä] or advanced back [ɑ̟] in /CaC/ (they seem to be in free variation, [ɑ̟] doesn't appear just before /ɫ/), advanced central [ɐ̞˖] in /CaCʲ/, retracted front in [æ̠] /CʲaC/ and front [æ] in /CʲaCʲ/.
• Unstressed /a ~ o/ are [ʌ] (in Saint Petersburg) or [ɐ] (in Moscow) in the first degree of reduction and [ə] in the second.
• /e/ is closer to cardinal [ɛ] (though more retracted than that) in /CeC/ than in /CeCʲ/, /CʲeC/ and /CʲeCʲ/, where it's closer to the cardinal [e].
• Unstressed /i/, /ɨ/ and /u/ are near-close [ɪ, ᵻ, ʊ ~ ᵿ]. [ɪ] may be fully front.
• /o/ is centralized (similar or identical to [ɵ], which isn't a cardinal vowel). in /CoCʲ/, /CʲoC/ and /CʲoCʲ/.
• /u/ is back in /CuC/ and centralized (similar or identical to cardinal [ʉ]). in /CuCʲ/, /CʲuC/ and /CʲuCʲ/.

[CɛCʲ] is a non-option. Neither J&W nor Y&B endorse such a transcription.

Though I'm not sure about /CVCʲ/ in the case of /u/ and /a/ - see this chart. Also, what about word-initial vowels? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:09, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Timberlake and this chart. Formants are clearly different, but it's all about level of details, again. Word-initial vowels are assimilated by preceding word-final sounds (both V-s and C-s: «жена и муж» vs «муж и жена» = [ɪ] vs [ɨ̞] for «и»), but this is (or supposed to be) explained in corresponding paragraphs. Tacit Murky (talk) 21:06, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: What do you mean "foot" can't be pronounced with [ɵ]? Dozens of millions of native speakers of English (from Southern England and some areas of the US) pronounce it that way. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, and since both rounding and r-coloring lower F2 and F3, NURSE wouldn't sound as back as [ɵ]. @Aeusoes1: You also reverted an IP and reinstated bird, do you have an explanation for that? Nardog (talk) 14:49, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm probably the one who put bird in the first place. In general, I consider nurse to be the closest English approximation to front mid rounded vowels. I chose it for this allophone because it's central, mid, and rounded like nurse is. I saw the change to foot, which seemed a little off to me because it's unrounded in a lot of dialects, but then close-mid central rounded vowel features a number of English dialects that have this vowel in foot, so I'm open-minded about this. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: Are you saying that the typical American pronunciation of NURSE is rounded? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 01:28, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. As well as lettER. I thought this was a well-known feature. I guess someone should find a source that says as much. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:34, 11 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Aeusoes1: I thought NURSE/LETTER was unrounded. I guess General American and similar articles should be edited to reflect that detail, including using [ɵ˞] in narrow transcription. [ɚ], while it's not defined for roundedness just like the plain [ə], is still ambiguous, not least because English [ə] is rounded only when pre-lateral (unless I'm missing something). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:22, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that both labialization and pharyngealization vary in degree depending on position, dialect and speaker, just as it can be realized with one of two tongue shapes or anything in between. I would strongly oppose using ⟨ɵ˞⟩ anywhere. ⟨ɵ⟩ is not a symbol we can expect readers reading about English phonology to be familiar with, and moreover, the IPA defines rhoticity acoustically (Handbook, p. 16) so replacing it with ⟨ɵ˞⟩ wouldn't be that narrower. If there is anything to note about allophonic realization of the r-colored vowel, it is best done in prose. Nardog (talk) 17:06, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in no way an expert on English dialects, but isn't [ɵ] very local for «foot»? Here's Wiktionary on «foot»: [ʊ] is much more frequent. Shouldn't we refer to the most usable pronounce and, therefore, not this word as an example? No phonemes in «тётя» and (especially) «плечо» produce [ʊ]. Tacit Murky (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Tacit Murky: It's used in South East England (including RP, which is widely used in television and radio) and many American dialects ("some" is an understatement). Similar pronunciations are found in South Africa and New Zealand, and sporadically also in Australia (I've certainly heard "good" being pronounced [ɡɵd] in Australia). [ɵ] is immediately recognized as FOOT by native speakers. It's only the extremely fronted and unrounded realizations such as [ɪ] that can be confused with KIT.

BTW, the American recording of "foot" on Wiktionary to me sounds almost the same as the British (meaning: Southern English) one. [ɵ] is the most appropriate symbol for both of them. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:11, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]