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Index Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 Archive 8 Archive 9 Archive 10 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13 Archive 14 Archive 15 Archive 16 Archive 17 Archive 18 Archive 19 Archive 20 Archive 21 Archive 22 Archive 23 Archive 24 Archive 25 Archive 26 Archive 27

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The section Dialect variation has grown to 1877 words, which take over 10 minutes to read. Let's remember that this is the help page for English in general. For more information, we have the dedicated articles already linked at the top of the section. A reader simply looking for “Help:IPA/English” is best helped by following the instruction stated above the tables:

If the words given as examples for two different symbols sound the same to you (for example, if you pronounce cot and caught the same, or do and dew, or marry and merry), you can pronounce those symbols the same in explanations of all words. The footnotes explain some of these mergers.

Why should that not be enough?

I therefore propose to delete this section, keep all detail information in the appropriate articles, and change the footnotes so they point there. ◅ Sebastian 10:10, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot to include the count for the footnotes. They amount to 1857 words, or another 10 minutes to read. ◅ Sebastian 10:17, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree, the section has grown too detailed while most of it overlaps with the footnotes anyway. I'd say go ahead, except the last paragraph of the section should be kept somewhere. Nardog (talk) 08:38, 19 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the one that starts with “Note that place names ...”? I agree that that merits mention here as it centers more on the particular transcription used here than on generalities about dialect variation. However, I find the wording unnecessarily complicated. At the same time, it is unnecessarily narrow, since there are other words that may lend themselves to a dialectal pronunciation. Wouldn't it be more helpful to simply add a footnote to the part quoted above along the lines of “This rule is generally employed in our pronunciation guide, even for local terms such as place names. However, be aware that not all editors may have followed this consistently, so for example if a pronunciation of an English town ending in ‑ford reads /‑fəd/, it doesn't mean that the /r/ would be absent in a rhotic dialect.” For a reader wanting to to recover the local pronunciation we could explicitly refer to the IPA chart for English dialects, which in its lede lists all major dialects, but since that is already linked from the previous paragraph, and the choice to consult information about the dialect in question seems quite obvious, I'd rather leave that out. ◅ Sebastian 12:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

“pronounce those symbols the same”

So, I wanted to start with this project as outlined above, but I realize that it was based on a wrong assumption. The statement “If the words given as examples for two different symbols sound the same to you, you can pronounce those symbols the same in explanations of all words”, which I liked for its simplicity, is not correct. If it were, then someone who pronounces “ladder” like “latter” should also pronounce “dye” like “tye”, which is obviously wrong. Can someone think of a way to fix that problem? Generally, we seem to make far more distinctions in the footnotes than our examples provide.

Another problem with that statement is that it uses examples which are not among the examples in the list.

So, should we put “do” and other distinguishing words in the list for uː? I think it will be very hard to come up with a minimal pair for each of the Cj (apparently under the unspecified condition /_uː) cases. θjuː + θuː, anyone? Or, maybe we should, instead of listing all possible Cj /_uː for all C, just list juː /C_ and uː /C_ (without distinguishing C)? ◅ Sebastian 11:18, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can we not just provide brief (perhaps one-sentence-long) descriptions with links to relevant phonological articles that already do the explaining? For example... For dialects that realize “ladder” and “latter” as homophones, see Flapping. For dialects that realize "do" and "due" as homophones, see Yod-dropping, etc. Wolfdog (talk) 14:49, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course, reducing the text was already implicit in my proposal in the previous section. As you can see from this edit, that's what I had in mind, but I also learned that it's not quite as simple as it may appear at first glance: Sometimes we need to do more than that, since this article is also the appropriate place for at least mentioning differences to other pronunciation guides the reader may have gotten used to. Still, that's not what I'm asking about; I can handle such problems as I encounter them.

Now to the more urgent and important topic of this subsection: What about “... you can pronounce those symbols the same”? This is a promise to our readers, which we're not keeping. Is there any way to keep that promise? Or can we replace it by a similar elegant and simple explanation of dialect variation? Or do we have to remove it without substitution? What implications for the organization of the article does this decision entail? This promise functioned a program for the article, which determined how we treated dialect variation in the main text, and should also have impacted the footnotes. We'll really have to think about how to solve this problem. Should we abandon the whole idea of writing the main text so that it easily makes sense to speakers of different dialects, and instead relegate everything that has to do with dialects to the footnotes? In that case, we will have to find our path between the extremes of repeating the same information in many footnotes, forcing readers to continuously skip between main text and footnotes, or giving up discussing dialect variations altogether. ◅ Sebastian 19:59, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just found that this promise came from none other than Kwamikagami (already back in 2014). That gives me some hope that we should be able to keep it. ◅ Sebastian 20:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, don't have time to respond now. Can you ping me again when you have a solution? — kwami (talk) 21:00, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, kwami, it doesn't make sense to maintain a promise if even the one who wrote it can't give a hint of how to put it in practice. Sadly, the only solution I see for such a case is to remove the statement in question. ◅ Sebastian 13:41, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I gave it a shot. It's important that we have some explanation, because historically people have complained about symbols not reflecting their accent, and we need to be clear that we're trying to cover everyone (except unfortunately the Scots) and that it therefore won't be a perfect match for anyone. — kwami (talk) 21:05, 29 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this is great! It cuts through the Gordian knot of the problems I listed before I invoked you. ◅ Sebastian 09:58, 30 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This means drastic cuts

Per the above, it seems undisputed that this article is TLDR and that we need to drastically cut it down. But while we're here preparing to put that in practice, people (pinging Wolfdog, Ƶ§œš¹, Nardog) further discuss details as if this didn't affect them. That is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. (BTW, I found this interesting essay on this phrase, which well expresses my respect for the attentive chair-master. We need to keep in mind, though, that we are not specialized chair-masters here, but all “editors”, and everyone's opinion on the overall course of our ship counts.)

So, does everybody stand behind those drastic cuts? I am willing to invest considerable time into them, but I need reassurance that they won't be simply reverted per WP:BRD by someone who wants to preserve their arrangement of some deck chairs. ◅ Sebastian 11:45, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure what "this" in the title of this section exactly refers to, and also have no idea why anyone could think that the article is too long. It contains only a few small paragraphs of text. The table cannot be shortened because it needs to contain all relevant phonemes. −Woodstone (talk) 14:45, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am also not at all convinced of the need to shorten this article.--Megaman en m (talk) 14:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I understand the impulse to make things more accessible to readers. But when I think about the experience of someone who clicks on one of our IPA transcriptions and is directed here, the first thing they see is the IPA key with roughly ~250 explanatory words preceding it. For a lot of users, this will be enough and they are not compelled to read the section in question to understand the basics of the transcription system. As such, I don't think that the need to trim down has the experience of most of these people at stake. I would not be in favor of removing the whole section.

Still, the OP is right that this is a pretty long section, and I suspect that some information isn't as necessary (in the lens of helping readers understand our transcriptions or editors making them) as we've been assuming. Let's be clear here: trimming down this section means we are removing examples, in which case we would have to decide which examples are worthy and which are not.

Here are a couple of anecdotes to consider. My girlfriend's family (and my girlfriend around the holidays) clearly exhibit /æ/ raising, but they barely notice at all unless I point it out to them. Another example, I met a fellow from Scotland who didn't realize he contrasted merry, marry, and Mary until I pointed it out to them. It may be the case that the latter half of this section can be trimmed down because a lot of these examples are similar in that speakers who exhibit these unaccounted for contrasts are either already familiar enough with standard varieties to have come to terms with their salient local feature not being represented in pronunciation guides or consciously unaware of them anyway. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:44, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Woodstone: “This” refers to the cuts discussed in this section – see above.

Ƶ§œš¹: I take ecxeption at your suggestion that these cuts are out of a mere “impulse”, when they are the fruit of diligent considerations and discussions. But thank you for seeing the problem with the section's overall length. Also, I think your anecdote expresses well the intention behind the “pronounce those symbols the same” statement discussed in the last subsection. It is amazing how the synapses we form as a baby prevent us from hearing the obvious; we'd do well to remember that in other walks of life.

A fundamental problem we have is that each of us has to rely on our intuition to assess how the average reader will read, perceive and understand what we write. That's a problem with Wikipedia as a whole (which may be why we have no guideline (at least to my knowledge) as to how to treat readers, while treatment of other editors is one of our pillars). But it's particularly grave in the case of this page, because those of us who edit it most will rarely feel the need to click on one of our IPA transcriptions, which means that we're further removed from the reader's needs than when we edit an article like English-language vowel changes before historic /r/.

Anyway, I see from the reactions that my concerns were justified: There are objections to the sweeping changes I had planned, so I will refrain from them. ◅ Sebastian 01:07, 4 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you create what you're proposing in the user namespace and then ask for opinions. Without seeing what it is that you're actually proposing we can neither approve nor veto it in any practical way. Nardog (talk) 00:36, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I fully second Nardog's suggestion. And a hearty lmao to Sebastian's outrageously flamboyant Titanic analogy. Wolfdog (talk) 00:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Under weak vowels, I, the E in edition is made bold. Must be an error? I am not fixing this as I am neither familiar with IPA or an English native speaker. SilicaQuartz (talk) 10:38, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

<edition> is pronounced as /ɪˈdɪʃən/ or /əˈdɪʃən/, so the <e> being pronounced as /ɪ/ poses no problem. However the second vowel is also pronounced as /ɪ/ as is not bolded, which is strange. I have gone ahead and bolded the first <i> as well.--Megaman en m (talk) 11:16, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, had no idea it could be pronounced that way, but that makes sense! Issue resolved. And thanks. SilicaQuartz (talk) 13:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ghost of Tsushima § Inclusion of pronunciation respelling and inaccurate (impossible!) IPA key in lead sentence. Nardog (talk) 18:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

Any way we can replace this absolutely bonkers example word with something a bit more... actually a part of the typical English language? Is there some reason I'm missing as to why such a bizarre word has been selected? Wolfdog (talk) 00:46, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You can see the edit that added the word in question here. Presumably there's a reason the word was chosen over another more common word (like justice), but I don't know what that reason is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 01:38, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, yeah. Weird. Well, I'm going to replace it with "justice" with full intentions of being criticized later (and yet full desires that this change will just be accepted without a struggle). Wolfdog (talk) 12:21, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think about it, the more I'm willing to bet it was chosen because of having STRUT in the first syllable immediately followed by a second syllable that is stressed. This probably has to do with highlighting the occasional free variation of /ʌ/ and /ə/ in certain unstressed contexts. If this is the case, a more common word would be appreciated. Wolfdog (talk) 12:28, 1 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key/Archive 4#Open syllable for why it was added. I've replaced it with trustee. Frustration is probably a more obvious example, but it's analyzed to have /ə/ in GA by RDPCE (and optionally so by Merriam-Webster). Nardog (talk) 16:37, 2 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(Nardog: That's an interesting archived discussion you linked. I would've personally been on Woodstone's side; I've long been in favor of that double-consonant respelling. No native English speaker would mistake that for gemination [something unheard of to most English speakers] except maybe the Welsh.) Wolfdog (talk) 21:30, 3 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Nardog:, you've mentioned elsewhere that the Help:IPA/English key defines /u/ and /i/ as weak vowels that can appear only in unstressed prevocalic or word-final positions. Actually, I don't see the prevocalic bit anywhere on this page, and it didn't automatically occur to me. If that's what users have agreed upon, can we add it to a footnote? Wolfdog (talk) 02:32, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Wolfdog: Thank you for bringing this up. /Archive 22#/i, u/ is probably what was on my mind when I said that. AFAIK no dictionary besides LPD uses /i/ (that is distinct from /iː, ɪ/) in because etc. so the current wording effectively already implies that, but for clarity's sake the note on /i, u/ can be reworded as something to the effect of ⟨i⟩ represents variation between /iː/ and /ɪ/ in unstressed prevocalic or morpheme-final positions. ... ⟨u⟩ likewise represents variation between /uː/ and /ʊ/ in unstressed prevocalic positions. provided, of course, there are no objections. Nardog (talk) 04:09, 17 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How does one say /ɒfiˈjuːkəs/ -- is /ɒ sound like OH? what's the / indicate? GenacGenac (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It indicates the vowel of LOT. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:43, 19 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See an explanation of the slashes here. Wolfdog (talk) 02:23, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Change: In the Consonants, the IPA "k" has two examples "sky, crack" - "sky" should be removed, as the 'k' sound is sky is not the same as the 'c' or 'ck' sounds in crack. The 'k' sound in "sky" is almost like a 'g' sound in comparison, when spoken. 90.246.5.94 (talk) 15:25, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

 Not done. Please familiarize yourself with what a phoneme is before making such requests. Sky is listed there precisely to illustrate the breadth of sounds /k/ may represent. Nardog (talk) 15:45, 21 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't /ǝr/ be included under syllabic consonants? Matthewmorrone1 (talk) 18:10, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In a way, yes. But things are complicated enough with /ǝr/ that listing it separately from the other syllabic consonants is more helpful to our readers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:14, 27 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The /ǝr/ of history should. The /ǝr/ of letter and forward is subject to r-dropping in non-rhotic accents. We should make a clearer distinction between the two. Sol505000 (talk) 18:23, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The page reads: Word-initially, /ər/ never occurs, giving way to /ɜːr/. Where there is a free variation between /ɜːr/ and /ər/ in RP, it is acceptable to transcribe only the more common variant (e.g. /ər/ for persona). Can someone please explain, or just direct me to a previous discussion explaining, the rationale behind this? Wolfdog (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is the edit that introduced it and /Archive 24#Unstressed NURSE seems to discuss what inspired it. I don't remember an explicit consensus being built for it, but I nonetheless find the instruction reasonable. Nardog (talk) 12:37, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the links. I don't think that archived discussion really applies to word-initial /ər/. Kbb2's edit may apply, however, he at that point said nothing directly about how Word-initially, /ər/ never occurs. That's what I'm specifically asking about. Where did we get that rule from? Wolfdog (talk) 16:19, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, you were asking about that part too? Those two sentences are not related. Obviously /ər/–/ɜːr/ in persona is not word-initial, and if /ər/ never occurred word-initially it could not possibly be in free variation with /ɜːr/ word-initially. AFAIK Kbb added the first part simply based on observation of dictionary entries, as discussed here. I think he was trying to help editors correctly choose between /ɜːr/ and /ər/, which is not easy when all you've got is unstressed [ɚ] in a rhotic accent. But if you think it's OR I don't mind it being removed. Nardog (talk) 16:56, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that in our diaphonemic system we render a word like camera as {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|m|ər|ə}} rather than {{IPAc-en|ˈ|k|æ|m|ə|r|ə}}. Can someone please explain, or just direct me to a previous discussion explaining, the rationale behind this? Wolfdog (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As the note explains, /ər/ is subject to compression to /r/ before weak vowels, so in those environments (e.g. your example) there's reason to favor ər. When followed by a full vowel, however, chances are /ə/ and /r/ are better analyzed as heterosyllabic and do not form a syllabic consonant even in accents where that's a possibility, so I'd use ə|r. Nardog (talk) 12:26, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, OK, I see that now in the comment-in-question's final sentence: When not followed by a vowel, /ər/ merges with /ə/ in non-rhotic accents. Should we then add a sentence along the lines of: However, when followed by a full vowel, we transcribe /ə/ and /r/ as separate phonemes? Wolfdog (talk) 16:25, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'd find that WP:CREEPy. The current final sentence is just a statement of fact that helps readers and editors alike whereas your suggested sentence is an instruction, and its presence or absence has no effect on the truth of the former whatsoever. Nardog (talk) 16:35, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see your point. I guess my thinking is "Where do Wikipedians (like myself obviously) go who want to edit using the diaphonemic system but are trying to follow the many, many rules/compromises that editors have previously agreed upon?" Is this not that place? Wolfdog (talk) 16:38, 30 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]