Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet for English

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the International Phonetic Alphabet for English article. If you have comments about the usage of the IPA in Wikipedia articles, please direct them to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation).

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[edit] Number of symbols?

Might the article include in its introduction a statement of the number of IPA symbols used in English (and thus the number of "sounds" English has)? I counted 75, which is interestingly (IMO) 2.9 time larger than the English alphabet. I'm not sure if I should've counted multiple symbols in the same box, though, since I'm no IPA or language expert. RobertM525 22:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I think this is a good suggestion, but unfortunately not practical: Though it would be nice to be able to put up the number of sounds English has, this is not as simple as counting the number of IPA symbols on the page, for two reasons: first, the number of sounds varies from accent ot accent; and second, even within one accent, it is not always easy to tell what exactly a "sound" is.

To take the first point first. You say you counted 75 symbols on the page used for English: I have not checked, but let us assume that that is correct. Even so, this number does not take into account that a number of the symbols are "duplicates" of others. This is becaused the article is organized under three distinct headings: Received Pronunciation (English English), General American (American English), and Australian English. The vowel system of each standard accent is given separately under each heading, so that, e.g., the vowel "ah" as in "father" is listed three times, and so on with the other vowels common to all accents.

We could fix this problem by counting the symbols belonging to one accent only. Once we do this, the number of distinct "sounds" will, of course, turn out to be somewhat lower. Under "General American", for example, I counted a total of 51 symbols used. But even if this new number were entirely accurate for whatever "General American" accent it is meant to describe, it would still not be accurate for all American accents. For example, the section on General American mentions a separate vowel for "bought", but also notes that that word may have the same vowel as "pot": in some accents the two words rhyme, and in others they don't. Obviously, depending on which accent you speak, the "sound count" may be off by one.

But, setting aside the differences between accents, the "sound count" would still be too high, for the second reason given aove, namely, that it can be difficult to tell exactly what a "sound" is. To put it simply, the article lists all the sounds used within one accent without considering whether one of the sounds might be a duplicate of another sound already listed, or else a combination of two other sounds.

For example, in the section on General American vowels, the article separately lists the five vowels of "beer", "boor", "bear", "bore" and "bar", even though these are all repetitions of earlier-used vowels. Depending on your accent and preferred analysis, "beer" will be seen as having the same sound as either "bid" or as "bead": either way, it does not need to be counted as a separate sound merely because it comes before "r" (although there might be good reasons for listing it separately in the article, such as ease of comparison with the other accents listed).

Other analyses turn on more technical points. For example the "ng" sound of "bang" has been listed separately here, even though phonologists sometimes consider it to be "underlyingly" a combination of "n" and "g". So too with "wh" as in "whine", which, besides not existing in all American accents, might not count as a separate sound even in those accents in which it exists, since it can be analyzed as a combination of "h" and "w". So, too, the unstressed vowels of "bottle", "button" and "rhythm" might better be analyzed as a combination of the unstressed vowel "schwa" and the corresponding consonant. So should "ng", "wh", and the "vowels" "l", "n" and "m" be counted as separate sounds, or not? Depending on your answer, your "sound count" may decrease by 5.

Lastly, the sound "x" of Scotch "loch" is listed among the General American consonants, although this is really a foreign sound used only to render certain borrowings from foreign languages (such as the Scotch word mentioned above, or the name "Bach", etc.).

If all these doubtful cases were subtracted from the "official count", the total would drop from 51 to 40 "sounds" for English. But obviously, the count would still vary not only from accent to accent, but form theorist to theorist according to the method being employed to analyze the "sounds".

Of course, even 40 sounds is a good deal more than the 26 letters of our alphabet, but this should come as no surprise: some sounds (such as "th") can only be written as a combination of letters, while others share a letter (compare "hide" and "hid") or combination of letters (as in "chewed" and "chute", "great" and "beat" or "thy" and "thigh").

Hope this answers your question.--Gheuf 18:35, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Thanks. I asked because I, personally, wonder what our written language would look like if each letter corresponded to a unique "word part" rather than the system we have now—especially as it relates to English having five vowel characters and many, many more vowel sounds. The variability of the way letters can be represented seems illogical to me (that both consonants and vowels do not correspond to consistent sounds), but natural considering English is a "real" language rather than a constructed one. I thought this article might provide an insight into how many characters a hypothetical English alphabet might have, if none of the characters were redundant or reused for different sounds. RobertM525 02:38, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I would consider the number in my accent to be 41, but other people might come up with other numbers.--Gheuf 20:32, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Pronunciation

The "Wikipedia:Pronunciation" page should have entirely different material, touching on all efforts to render words correctly, whether they be textual, audible, tactile. etc.,. I came here hoping to see at least a paragraph on Wikipedia's use of digitally recorded speakers giving correct pronunciations, instead I get an entire involved page on IPA. I formally move that the redirect from "Wikipedia:Pronunciation" no longer point here, and that other general Pronunciation links which link here be changed to some other page that treats the topic in a practical way. If that page, or even the germ of it. currently exists, the move and link changes should be done immediately. If the article must be written from scatch, "Wikipedia:Pronunciation" redirect to a dab page. JDG 04:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Pronunciation doesn't redirect here; it redirects to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) and always has. —Angr 08:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, musta been half or even 3/4 asleep. Thx. JDG 12:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA Pronunciation Guide and Hover

I have proposed an IPA pronunciation guide for English and a hover mechanism that would display part of it at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(pronunciation). With it I attempt to find a more rational way to use the International Phonetic Alphabet for English.--Gheuf 20:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)