Talk:SAMPA chart for English

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the SAMPA chart for English article.

Can we have some American sounds here? Please do not use dialect American sounds for examples, but only American sounds as the (ugh!) mass media pronounce them, as those are perhaps the most widely known. --User:Juuitchan

What exactly was the point of wikifying all the symbols? They invariably link to something completely irrelevant. --Nohat 22:35, 2003 Nov 20 (UTC)

All letters include lists with different uses, e.g. "A is also: With a ring over (Å), the symbol for the unit angstrom". I think we should eventually add the SAMPA symbols there as well. -- User:Docu

I don't know if this is just my accent getting in the way, but as far as I can tell, in my accent at least (Cleveland, OH); cough is pronounced /kO:f/; the vowels in about and winner are distinctly different; and the vowels in bird and winner are the same, but the one in bird is stressed, and the one in winner is not. Gus 03:46, 2004 Apr 2 (UTC)

Well, as to the last, I pronounce the vowels in bird and winner differently (berd, /b3:rd/ v winnuh, /wIn@/). I suspect you're saying these words very distinctly so that you can hear the pronunciation. If I say "about" carefully, I still say "uhbowt" /@baUt/, but "winner" and "bird" become similar: "winneh" /wIn3/ and "behd" /b3:d/. The pronunciation guide is representing how these words are natuarally pronounced when spoken quickly in a sentence. Try that and see if your pronunciation changes like mine does. fabiform | talk 06:54, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Are the diphthongs correct? It seems to me /eI/, /aI/, /OI/, /@U/, /aU/ should be /ei/, /ai/, /Oi/, /@u/, /au/ (and similarly for the US pronunciations). Ortonmc 21:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Phoneticists generally agree that the offglides of English diphthongs are not extreme in the vowel space, and so use the symbols for the near-close (or lax) vowels for the offglides, and not the fully-close vowels. This is supported both by the symbology used in the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association as well as the official SAMPA guide for English [1] Nohat 22:04, 2004 Apr 13 (UTC)

Aren't there r-keeping dialects where 'Mary' is distinguished from 'merry'? This can't be expressed by the signs proposed here at "SAMPA: English diphthongs: US". According to this proposal, both 'Mary' and 'merry' would be /mEri/. So the US version of the diphthong of 'hair, there' might be /er/ rather than /Er/, in order to enable the distinction of /meri/ and /mEri/. j. 'mach' wust 2004 May 17

This page needs some examples. - Omegatron 13:21, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

Somebody has recently added Australian English. There's not exactly a standard for Australian English but there are two close candidates: Mitchell & Delbridge, who were the first and most well known serious documenters of Australian English, and The Macquarie Dictionary. Most they agree but for the sound in "air" Mitchell & Delbridge use [e@] whereas the MQD uses [E@]. This should probably be noted somewhere. — Hippietrail 12:48, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Vbs

Assuming that one is using Standard American English for the "US" columns, which is basically a conservative sociolect within the Northern Inland dialect space,

Shouldn't "more" use /o(U)/, NOT /O/, even though there are US dialects which do very clearly use /O/; the vowel, monophthong or diphthong, in it is the same vowel as in "no", in SAE?

Also, shouldn't the diphthong for "boy" be /oI/, not /OI/, in SAE? It may /OI/ in some US dialects, but it is almost certainly /oI/ in SAE.

In addition, shouldn't the vowel in "tour" be /ur/, not /Ur/, in SAE? The vowel in "tour", ignoring the /r/, is clearly not the same one as in "put", for starters, in SAE.

As for the vowel used in "run", I doubt that it is /V/ in SAE. At least to me, the vowel seems to be the same vowel as the first one in "about" in SAE. However, whether that one is truly /@/ proper, that is, a schwa, I am not really sure about. I've been told that it's actually a bit further back and lower than a true schwa.

At the same time, the first vowel in "about" in SAE is emphatically not the same one as the second vowel in "runner" in SAE. This distinction is shown clearly in Kirshenbaum ASCII IPA, where the former is /@/, while the latter is represented as /R/. I'm not sure if SAMPA has any way to really show this clearly, except possibly marking a syllabic /r/ at the end of "runner".

6:42 CDT 3 June 2004

Forgot to see that "er" is marked as /3`/ in SAMPA. Whoops.

6:47 CDT 3 June 2004

[edit] Australian vowels

AxSkov, you made a number of significant changes with which I disagree to the Australian English pronunciation on 2 May 2005. The previous versions are consistent with the pronunciation I am familiar with in Victoria, and the previous versions also appear to be far closer to the Macquarie Dictionary. Please state your source and rationale for these changes. --Mbwardle 11:10, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply.
The transcriptions used for vowels in the Macquarie Dictionary were devised in the 1940s by Mitchell and do not match the reality of how vowels are pronounced by Australians today. This means the Macquarie Dictionary uses the wrong IPA symbols for Australian vowels and hence should not be relied upon for correct IPA phonetic pronunciations. The changes I made are much more closer to the pronunciations of Australians today than the Macquarie Dictionary is.
The source for these changes is located on the Australian English page with an external link to these vowels and a reference to published papers on Australian vowels and pronunciation. I hope this eases your concerns. – AxSkov (☏) 06:15, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your explanation. The link gives a lot of interesting information that I will need some time to digest.
I was trying to reconcile the SAMPA symbols you used against the examples given in the SAMPA Chart. I think the problem is partly my understanding and partly that the examples given in the SAMPA chart seem suboptimal. For instance, the example given for 6 as the final schwa-like syllable in German besser wasn't consistent with my pronunciation of that word, but comparing that against the IPA chart, the X-SAMPA chart, and the sound samples in each of the vowel entries adds some clarity. --Mbwardle 00:51, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
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