Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation)

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Contents 1 Prominence of pronunciation guides in articles 2 when to use? 3 Use of IPA counterproductive 4 Proposal 5 IPA vs. American Heritage 6 IPA quickhelp templates 7 Pronunciation Guide for Users of Wikipedia 7.1 And a Hover Template for the Guide 8 How do we obtain this IPA pronunciation? 9 To sum up

[edit] Prominence of pronunciation guides in articles

It seems odd to me that the pronunciation of the title of an article, such as a person's name, often seems prominent out of proportion to its significance to the article. As an example, here's the opening sentence of article on the actor Ciaran Hinds: "Ciarán Hinds (pronunciation: /kɪˈɛra:n haɪndz/ or Kee-uh-rawn, with the 'uh' barely spoken; the name is Anglicised as Kieran, pronounced Keer-an where the long 'a' of the Irish is shortened) was born in Belfast." Surely the most important thing is that "Ciaran Hinds is a Belfast-born actor" or some similarly succinct statement of who he is. Why cram the pronunciation of his name, including alternative spellings, etc., into the very first sentence? I'm not suggesting that the pronunciation of names be dropped or suppressed, but it seems odd that the de facto style (i.e., to insert the pronunciation of the name immediately after its first occurrence) is clumsy and awkward. Is this really a part of the standard Wikipedia style? --24.189.116.153 03:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Because a pronunciation guide following a word is a convention many guides follow. But for me, the no. 1 reason is that if the term or name is unfamiliar to the reader, then having it up front helps reinforce the proper pronunciation as one reads the article. Only soee articles are going to be as contorted as Hinds. RoyBatty42 17:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] when to use?

Sorry if I'm missing something obvious, but perhaps this MoS should provide guidance on when to provide pronunciation help. Certainly obvious names like Bill Clinton don't need it, but where's the line drawn? I notice we tend to include it on non-English names almost exclusively. --W.marsh 21:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of IPA counterproductive

Consider this a reminder that a world exists beyond wikipedia and the average person who comes to this site does it to find out information based on commonly used tools. And the IPA is a major hindrance.

I'm sure this is probably not a new argument and has probably been debated endlessly before. But I wasn't here then and neither were many who will now use wikipedia. I am a fairly well educated person, I hold a BFA from New York University which I attended on scholarship. So trust me when I say the IPA is not well known as some might assume. When I began to encounter it for the first time on wikipedia, I assumed that it was some sort of Britishism.

Sorry, but what most people who speak English are familiar with is the system used in American and English dictionaries. To use something different even if it is more accurate/flexible/international is akin to deciding that there should be only one international wikipedia written in Esperanto. Why not? It would also encourage people to learn this more useful language rather than English. To belabor the obvious, it wasn't done because people simply want to know what other films Chiwetel Ejiofor has appeared in or what a cudgel is.

It is the same with IPA, which seems to have slapped onto articles in defiance of common sense. At the very least, the use of both the standard pronunciation symbols and the IPA should be encouraged. Considering the concern that editorializing not be allowed in articles, the use of IPA seems like a double standard.RoyBatty42 20:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Amen, Brother! I recently had a "layman's pronounciation" (e.g. Shi kaw' go) deleted from an article and replaced with IPA. On attempting to add back the "layman's pronounciation" (without disturbing the IPA), it was again deleted. So, I thought I'd chime in here to say that perhaps 95% - 99% of the average Wikipedia visitors have absolutely no clue about IPA and won't take the time to learn it. It's nice to have a standard, but it certainly shouldn't preclude a common-sense approach to sounding out unusual words.

These IPA discussions remind me of an anarchist convention that I attended many years ago. The folks spent hours discussing minor points concerning some theoretical governmental form that would never ever see the light of day and was not in the least practical. Madman 13:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

But Madman why should it be exactly your laymans pronunciation of Chicago that was included in the article? Why not mine? I would write it "SheeKAHgow" and my mother would say "sjikago". You cannot make a laymans pronunciation that adheres to any non subjective standard because people read them differently. How many transcription systems for a word should we include then? IPA, yours, mine and my mothers? Or just IPA? I know what I'll choose.Maunus 13:41, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that most "layman's pronounciations" (aka pronunciation spellings or respellings) are self-explanatory, and I would not complain about "SheeKAHgow" [except it being incorrect --  : ) -- most Chicagoans say "shuh"]. I would think that any differences in "pronunciation spellings" could be worked out thru the typical back-n-forth Wikipedia process. Personally, I think a sometimes-crude "pronunciation spelling" alongside the more formal IPA pronounciation would be a service to our visitors. If it's good enough the for BBC, it's good enough for me. Madman 18:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: the BBC does not use a pure pronunciation spelling system, but instead uses the typical diacriticals to mark "long" and "short" vowels. It can be found here. Madman 23:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately there is no set of "standard pronunciation symbols" other than the IPA. If you look at pronunciation respelling for English, you will find that there is quite a bit of variation among the systems used in American dictionaries. Also, most British dictionaries do use IPA. There have been numerous proposals over the years for the adoption of an alternate system on Wikipedia which is more like the systems used in American dictionaries, but all such proposals have suffered from numerous problems:

• A new system invented for Wikipedia would run into trouble with Wikipedia:No original research, and would have the disadvantage of already being known by nobody, unlike IPA, which is standardized and in use around the world by millions of people.
• Adopting an existing system would be problematic because existing systems are typically designed for one dialect or group of dialects, with no attempt made to encompass pronunciations in dialects elsewhere in the world.
• Also, using an existing system would cause additional NPOV issues, because existing systems, unlike IPA, make claims about the phonological system of English which may not be widely agreed upon.

Unless someone makes a specific proposal which avoids these problems, I don't see what viable alterations there would be to the current Manual of Style recommendations. Nohat 21:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to rehash the issues that Nohat has raised, but I must point out that every one of his assertions has been challenged with what strike me a reasonable arguments.

1. The conventions for applying IPA to English are also vary widely among lexicographers, reflecting both dialect differences and the (to some extent arbitrary) choices involved in constructing a broad, phonemic transcription.
2. A system unique to Wikipedia would simply be a convention, like a hundred conventions in Wikipedia, and not original research, which applies to content. If it did in fact count as original research, so would an attempt to regularize the usage of IPA -- which is currently a dog's breakfast, as has been discussed.
3. The non-IPA systems typically do a much better job of smoothing over dialectal differences than the IPA-based systems. Let me repeat: a much better job. Compare, for example the older and newer systems used in the Concise Oxford. IPA comes into its own, however, in representing dialectal differences - one place where respelling schemes probably shouldn't be used.
4. I'm not sure I understand what claims about phonology might be implicit in a respelling system. Intuitively, I'd guess that respelling systems are less likely to involve phonological claims, since each user is expected to "read" the transcription in his own dialect. But as I've said, I'm not sure I understand the argument here.

Just as a sidelight, I'll note that the BBC's internal guide to pronunciation uses a respelling system because, as it notes in the introduction, users can't be expected to know IPA. The users referred to are, of course, professional journalists. I think this pretty clearly refutes the claims, frequently made here, that non-American readers are normally competent in IPA. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by CJGB (talk • contribs) 04:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

The current standard is, essentially, "there is no specific standard; use IPA symbols to represent broad pronunciations". The problem is that there is no specific proposal for an alternative which is better than the current way we use IPA. Whenever discussions have moved toward picking a conventionalized system—whether based on IPA or one of the respelling systems—discussions always break down when it comes down to the phonological nitty gritty of which phonemes to encode and how to encode them.

I think everyone here agrees that it would be nice to have a more specific standardized system to represent pronunciation—IPA-based or otherwise—but discussions in that area have not been very fruitful. All reasonable and specific proposals will be considered. Nohat 06:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

P.S. the phonological claims I was writing about are like if a system uses the same symbol for the first vowel in father and bother , or the same symbol for the vowel in fun and the final vowel in sofa, or the same symbol for the final vowel of roses and Rosa's. Nohat 06:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we can auto-translate the IPA into other simpler methods for those who can't easily read IPA (which would be a lot of people, remember there's readers of all ages, all levels of education and disability). I've tried by hand and I'm hopeless at converting IPA into anything useful SHayter 00:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal

Hi. The discussion above (i.e., "Doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense") kind of faded away. However, I dont see an agreement. So, to continue the discussion, I will start again here.

The project page currently reads: "[other non-IPA pronunciation systems] can however be used in addition to the IPA version so that it's easy for people who don't know the IPA to understand them."

Some suggestions:

• I agree with the project page that IPA pronunciations should be generally used throughout Wikipedia and I agree that in some cases alternate pronunciation system may be used in addition to the IPA. I suggest that the project page remain as in with respect to this.

• If the alternate pronunciation systems are allowed in articles to appease readers that do not want to learn IPA, then I think they should be standardized so that everyone will use the same system. Copyrighted systems need not be a concern (as mentioned above) since it is relatively easy to devise a system based upon a few popular dictionary systems. I have played around with something based on American Heritage, Random House, and Merriam-Webster's, which I will paste below. (By the way, although Wiktionary calls their system AHD, it is not exactly the same thing (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary_talk:English_pronunciation_key).) Of course, you could also simply follow Wiktionary's scheme. Ultimately, the choice of which symbols is not important. What is important is standardization so that a reader should only have to use one system.

• I further suggest that the alternate pronunciation guide only be used for general standardized English pronunciations. No English currently has all the historical contrasts and devising something that does so is too much work and generally not encountered in dictionary pronunciations—so we dont need to do this, just follow the dictionaries. Since I get the impression that the anti-IPA-ers are mostly American readers (perhaps a mistaken impression), it may be desirable for the alternate pronuncation guide to be used only for General American English pronunciations. It will probably not be the best idea to use the alternate system in articles discussing dialects and non-English languages (including also the [x] of Scottish, etc.).

• This new standardized alternate pronunciation system should be tied to the IPA. That is, on its explanation page, it can be explicitly stated that a given symbol is equivalent to a given IPA symbol (i.e. "Let non-IPA <a> = IPA [æ]"). Doing this will resolve any ambiguity where a certain spelling symbolization may be interpreted as having different sound values depending on the reader's English. Thus, if the word marry is transcribed as [marē] since we would already stated that <a> = IPA [æ], then it will be clear what the pronunciation is and that we are considering Englishes in which marry does not rhyme with merry.

• Another suggestion: in order to avoid cluttering up the IPA pronunciation space, the non-IPA pronunciation can be "hidden" with the title code, where if a reader hovers their mouse cursor over the IPA pronuciation the non-IPA will appear. You can use: <span title="[non-IPA]">[IPA]</span>. For example, Chicago (IPA: [ʃɪˈkɑːgo]). I dont know if this is a good idea.

The proposed pronunciation system is below. For all sounds not listed (such as l, m, etc.), IPA should be used since it is the same as most dictionaries in these cases.

IPA	proposed symbol
tʃ	ch	chop RP [chop] GA [chäp], ditch [dich], church RP [chûch] GA [chûrch], chin [chin], watch RP [woch] GA [wäch], chest [chest]
dʒ	j	judge [jʌj], job RP [job] GA [jäb], jaw [jɔ], edge [ej]
ʃ	sh	shop RP [shop] GA [shäp], dish [dish], ship [ship]
θ	th	thin [thin], bath RP [bäth] GA [bath], tooth [tūth]
ð	dh	then [dhen], bathe [bēdh], this [dhis], the [dhə], further RP ['fûdhə] GA ['fûrdhər]
j	y	yes [yes], yet [yet]
ʒ	zh	vision ['vizhən], pleasure RP ['plezhə] GA ['plezhər], garage RP ['garij] GA [gə'räzh]
æ	a	pat [pat], trap [trap], ash [ash], sang [saŋ]
e(ɪ)	ā	bay [bā], face [fās], pay [pā], ace [ās], rate [rāt]
ɒ	o	RP only pot [pot], lot [lot], mop [mop], watch [woch], cloth [kloth]
ɑ(ː)	ä	father RP ['fädhə] GA ['fädhər], ah [ä] ; RP only barn [bän], far [fä] ; GA only pot [pät], lot [lät], mop [mäp], watch [wäch]
ɑr	är	GA only barn [bärn], far [fär]
ɛ	e	pet [pet], dress [dres], bet [bet], yet [yet]
ɛr	er	merry (RP ['meri]) GA ['merē] ; GA only pair [per], care [ker], Mary ['merē]
ɛə~ɛː	eə	RP only pair [peə], care [keə], Mary ['meəri]
æ.r	ar	marry ['mari] (not exactly GA)
i(ː)	ē	bean [bēn], fleece [flēs], bee [bē], easy (RP ['ēzi]) GA ['ēzē]
ɪ	i	pit [pit], -ness [nis], kit [kit], rabbit ['rabit], hit [hit], pity (RP ['piti]) GA ['pitē]
ɪr	ir	Sirius [siriəs] ; GA only peer/pier [pir], serious [siriəs]
ɪə	iə	RP only peer/pier [piə], serious [siəriəs]
aɪ	ī	buy [bī],price [prīs], pie [pī], by [bī], ice [īs], while [(h)wīl]
o(ʊ)	ō	GA only no [nō], goat [gōt], toe [tō], go [gō]
əʊ	əu	RP only no [nəu], goat [gəut], toe [təu], go [gəu]
ɔ(ː)	ɔ	thought [thɔt], caught [kɔt], paw [pɔ], law [lɔ], jaw [jɔ] ; RP only gorge [gɔj] ; GA only cloth [klɔθ]
ɔɪ	oi	boy [boi], choice [chois], noise [noiz], toy [toi]
ɔr	ɔr	GA only gorge [gɔrj]
ʊ	u	put [put], foot [fut], took [tuk], full [ful]
ʊr	ur	GA only tour [tur], cure [kyur]
ʊə	uə	RP only tour [tuə], cure [kyuə]
u(ː)	ū	boon [būn], goose [gūs], boot [būt], loot [lūt], prune [prūn], tooth [tūth]
aʊ	ou	now [nou], mouth [mouth], out [out], how [hou]
ʌ	ʌ	putt [pʌt], strut [strʌt], cut [kʌt]
ɝ	ûr	GA only burn [bûrn], nurse [nûrs], urge [ûrj], term [tûrm], firm [fûrm], word [wûrd], heard [hûrd], further ['fûrdhər]
ɜ(ː)	û	RP only burn [bûn], nurse [nûs], urge [ûj], term [tûm], firm [fûm], word [wûd], heard [hûd], further ['fûdhə]
ə	ə	another RP [ə'nʌdhe] GA [ə'nʌdhər], about [ə'bout], item ['ītəm], edible ['edəbəl], gallop ['galəp], circus RP ['sûkəs] GA ['sûrkəs], abut [ə'bʌt], kitten ['kitən], custom ['kʌstəm], above [ə'bʌv] ; RP only butter ['bʌtə]
ɚ	ər	GA only butter ['bʌtər]
ju	yū	cue [kyū], few [fyū], union RP ['yūniən] GA ['yūnyən], using [yūziŋ], fuse [fyūz]

About symbol choice:

• followed Consice Oxford English in using dh for [ð]
• vowel symbols are mostly American Heritage except (1) breves were omitted as in Random House & Webster's, (2) Webster's u was used for [ʊ] instead of American Heritage's o͝o
• since [ʌ] can be predicted as occurring in stressed syllables only and [ə] as only in unstressed syllables, Webster's was followed in using only ə for both [ʌ] and [ə].
• [ɝ, ɚ] are often analyzed as surface realizations of [ʌr, ər] in dictionaries and phonological descriptions of English. Thus, they are both represented as [ər] as in Webster's.
• Webster's ŋ was used over American Heritage's ng
• since [ɒ] has mostly merɡed with [ɑ] (and [ɔ]) in American Englishes, only a single symbol ä is used. This is the position of Webster's but not of American Heritage and Random House (who have both ä = [ɑ] and o = [ɒ]).
• accented syllable are indicated with a ' before the syllable as in IPA and Webster's Online practice. Many dictionaries place the mark after the stressed syllable. Changing this is trivial.

– ishwar  (speak) 22:51, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this is mostly reasonable, although I have a few comments:

• I don't think ô is any better than ɔ.
• o͞o looks like o?o in Firefox. There is a lot of history of the breve over two characters not displaying well, even in browsers/fonts that handle most of the other stuff fine. How about ū for /u/ and yū for /ju/ (boon [būn] goose [gūs] prune [pr(y)ūn] cue [kyū] few [fyū] union ['yūnyən])?
• If you maintain the [ɒ] / [ɑ] distinction (using [ä] and [o], at no additional cost), these pronunciations will be much more usable for non-Americans.

Nohat 23:26, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi.

• Yes, maintaining the [ɒ] / [ɑ] distinction is fine and very common and allows for non-American comparisons. A minor issue.
• I have debated over the oo vs. u because of the different spelling patterns ( . oo (used by American Heritage) seems more common than u (used by Webster's). I used a split system. But, if there is a technical issue, then definitely u is preferred. So, u = [ʊ], ū = [u]. Good.
• I dont think that ô is better either. In fact, I think it's worse and originally I contemplated using ɔ or aw. There would be 3 different o symbols (o, ō, ô and also oi, or). One issue is that if o = [ɒ], then oi, or should be changed so that these are not confused with [ɒɪ, ɒr]. Using ɔ would fix that problem easily. I used ô simply because it was commonly used and to avoid objection from the anti-IPA faction. If this is not an objectionable symbol to many, then I agree that it would be preferable.

Is there any thing else that is "unreasonable"? – ishwar  (speak) 23:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't really think a GenAm-only system is appropriate, and having a transcription which only covers one dialect maintains most of the disadvantages of IPA-based systems. Some comments on the system as proposed from a British perspective:

• I don't like the merger of schwa and the STRUT vowel. No British dictionary does this (as far as I know), and it feels very counterintuitive to me. The OED in fact has a minimal pair: muzz /mʌz/, one pronunciation of Ms /məz/.
• The vowels before /r/ need more explanation. Are we distinguishing merry/Mary (/mɛrɪ/ and /mɛːrɪ/) and serious/Sirius (/sɪəriːəs/ and /sɪriːəs/)? The symbols chosen for pair/care and pier/peer suggest not, which I don't find acceptable. These distinctions are made in eastern US accents too, and it wouldn't be much effort to add them. (Treat Mary/care like FACE before /r/ and serious/pier like FLEECE before /r/. This is what e.g. Chambers does.).
• Most British accents group CLOTH with LOT, not THOUGHT.
• I disagree with your transcription of union, which for me has three syllables (/juːniːən/ (unlike onion, which has /nj/), but this is probably a dialect variation issue.

--JHJ 09:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hi. If there should be an alternate system that attempts to cover both British and American Englishes, then this should be discussed. (Has it been discussed?) The question is do non-American readers need an alternate to the IPA? I dont see where this has been agreed upon. If no, then there is no need to adjust an alternate scheme to match an IPA transcription of British English.

If the answer is yes, then I see that there are two possible ways of doing this. Starting with two IPA pronunciations for the two Englishes, one may simply assign a single non-IPA symbol to an IPA symbol's sound value. For instance, we stipulate: "let k = [k], e = [ɛ], ə = [ə], r = [r]. Then for care we have (Brit) [kɛə] = keə and (US) [kɛr] = ker. Another possible way, which I would consider less preferable, is in certain cases to assign different values for different dialects, e.g. "let X = [Z] iff Brit, = [Y] iff US".

Also, I point out that this proposal does not attempt to do anything that the IPA does not do. It only proposes to transliterate IPA symbols into symbols more commonly used in American dictionaries. Whatever problems exist with IPA transcriptions will remain with this alternate system. The proposal also says nothing about how many dialects are to be indicated in given articles (which would also be using IPA in addition to the alternate). Some may want only two (Brit, US), others may want three (Brit, US, Austr). Since this is a separate issue, I have nothing to say about this here.

Thus, whether a Gen-Am-only system is appropriate will be determined by first answering if non-US readers need an alternate pronunciation guide. Then, the system would need further adjustments (and I would need help and/or names of British dictionaries that dont use IPA since I am not aware of what is popular in the UK).

• The [ʌ, ə] convention is that of Merriam-Webster's. However, many dictionaries do not follow this and have separate symbols for [ʌ, ə]. Changing this is trivial. (Regarding variation of [ɪ~ə~ɪ] in unstressed positions, this can be ignored as the full range of variation cannot practically be indicated. American Heritage, Random House, Merriam-Webster's all use i (i.e. [ɪ]) in things like Mrs., Ms., -ed, -es. OED lists [ɪ] in the first pronuncation (assuming that this is significant). Kenyon&Knot mention variation in their introductory remarks and list entries with [ɪ] first and [ə] second (first is more common). Thus, I would suggest only [mɪz] for Ms.. At any rate, using different symbols will resolve this issue.)

• About r is a good question. Let's break this up a bit.

• For a quick comparison of Mary/merry/marry, look below. What to do with this? The Webster's strategy is to record a "main" pronunciation (merē) and list variation. The American Heritage & Random House strategy is to record them as unmerged (with the use of three different symbols: a/ă, ā, â. OED only has a single form for US. I would not be opposed to using 3 symbols or 2 symbols or only 1 symbol for US pronunciations.

• Mary — Merriam-Webster's: [mer-ē ~ ma-rē ~ mā-rē]; American Heritage: [mârē]; Random House: [mârē]; Kenyon&Knott: [mɛrɪ ~ mɛːrɪ ~ merɪ ~ mærɪ]; OED: [mɛːri], (Brit) [mɛri] (US); Cambridge Advanced Learner's: [meəri] (Brit), [meri] (US)
• merry — Merriam-Webster's: [mer-ē ~ me-rē]; American Heritage: [mĕrē]; Random House: [merē]; Kenyon&Knott: [mɛrɪ]; OED: [mɛri] (Brit), [mɛri] (US) Cambridge Advanced Learner's: [meri]
• marry — Merriam-Webster's: [mer-ē ~ ma-rē]; American Heritage: [mărē]; Random House: [marē]; Kenyon&Knott: [mærɪ]; OED: [mari] (Brit), [mɛri] (US); Cambridge Advanced Learner's: [mæri] (Brit), [meri] (US)

• For pair and care these are represented as the same either both ...âr or ...er in US dictionaries. Thus, the US pronunciation should be different from the British pronunciation.
• serious and Sirius are also the same in Kenyon&Knott, Webster's, and Random House but different in American Heritage (using îr, ĭr). I would suggest following only one vowel for both US pronunciations. Again here there would need to be two pronunciation transcriptions.
• For peer and pier, American dictionaries and OED have the same vowel (so your English, if these dont rhyme for you, would be ignored here).

• There is variation within both US and British Englishes for cloth. The US vowel is aligned more commonly with thought. There would simply need to be two transcriptions.

• The transcription above of union (which is from dictionaries and not of my own creation) is correct. The pronunciation you indicate is British. There would need to be two pronunciations given.

– ishwar  (speak) 16:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood my point about pier/peer etc. I certainly pronounce them the same, and so does everyone else as far as I know. The point was that the current proposal implicitly identifies the vowel in them with that of KIT. In dialects with the Sirius/serious distinction, this is wrong: it's Sirius which is like KIT, and pier/peer are like serious.

I don't really see any point in just transliterating the IPA. For me the main advantage of non-IPA symbols is that they can be interpreted differently by different speakers. I can interpret a as [a], a General American speaker can interpret it as [æ] and a Northern Cities Shift speaker can interpret it as [iə] (or whatever it is they say exactly). (Note the variety in the IPA transcriptions you've quoted above; Oxford and Cambridge use different symbols for several vowels.)

You might like to have a look at the system described at Help:Pronunciation respelling key, which does try to cover both British and American accents. You could probably modify it to use similar symbols to those used in American dictionaries (and Chambers). I don't think there's a particularly satisfactory solution on the way, though.

--JHJ 17:21, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok. As the proposal stands now, that is only transliterating American IPA transcriptions, there is no distinction between Sirius/serious and no distinction will maintained through different symbols.

If the alternate scheme is to be used for RP as well as the US, then the words would need to be transcribed differently as they are in British dictionaries. This can be accompanished without the addition of new symbols: serious (IPA: Brit ['sɪərɪəs], US ['sɪrɪəs] / non-IPA: Brit [siəriəs], US [siriəs]); Sirius (IPA: ['sɪrɪəs] / non-IPA: ['siriəs]); peer/pier (IPA: Brit [pɪə], US [pɪr] / non-IPA: Brit [piə], US [pir]).

The point of transliterating the IPA is because many readers/editors have commented how they dont like the IPA, wont use the IPA, and oppose its use in Wikipedia. For a while these readers' needs have not been considered. Currently, on the project page, alternate pronunciation schemes are allowed to occur along with IPA transcriptions; however, there is no accepted standardized alternate system mentioned on the project page. Some have objected to a pronunciation scheme based more closely to English orthography that tries to accomodate many different English varieties. Therefore, I have proposed this scheme that does not attempt cover so many varieties, is a little more divorced from the orthography, and is very similar to the several schemes already in use in current popular American dictionaries. It would be better if readers would learn to overcome their reservations about learning IPA symbols for English sounds, but it is not clear that this will be happening.

After looking a little at this, I think that the alternate scheme can accomodate RP by the addition of only one more symbol to represent RP [ɜː~əː] as in nurse (which would of course correspond to GenAm [ʌr]). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ish ishwar (talk • contribs) 19:49, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

To comment further on the mergers above, if GenAm and RP are both transliterated, then there is no need to consider merry/marry/Mary distinct in GenAm pronunciation as this is not GenAm (that is, I would suggest following OED, Webster's, Cambridge). Kenyon & Knott do have marry as only [mærɪ] though, so it may be ok to leave this distinction even though it is not GenAm. Previously, in discussion with Nohat, I added o to accomodate RP & eastern US. However, if RP is also indicated in articles, then I suggest that only ä be used for US since GenAm doesnt have [ɒ]. Readers who do not speak GenAm may be able to deduce their pronunciation by comparing the RP pronunciations, but ultimately these speakers (including me) would be explicitly ignored. – ishwar  (speak) 21:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

But the American dictionary schemes (well, at least the AHD one mentioned below) and Chambers aren't transliterations of the IPA, and they don't need two transcriptions for words like care with predictable differences between accents. In the AHD scheme, â can be taken to mean [ɛ] in GenAm, [ɛː] (or a diphthong) in RP, [e] in Scottish English, etc., all in one transcription, and a note can make it clear that r isn't pronounced in non-rhotic accents except before a vowel. I've only had a quick look, but I get the impression that the AHD scheme, with appropriate interpretations of the symbols, is actually better than an RP-based IPA transcription at describing my British English.

What I'd actually like is something like the AHD scheme with a table showing IPA interpretations in a selection of accents. Of course you'd still need two transcriptions for less predictable cases like cloth, union and pasta.

--JHJ 20:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I see. Your suggestion would turn this back toward a system mostly the same as Help:Pronunciation respelling key (HPRK). The difference between AHD and Random House (and probably others I havent looked at, AHD & RHD are identical) and that proposal is that HPRK shows the differences in fern/fir/fur while AHD-RHD do not and AHD-RHD show the differences in hoarse/horse while HPRK does not. Additionally, HPRK has a symbol orr for the first V in orange while AHD-RHD list two different pronunciations. Cases like cloth, pasta are also listed with two pronunciations (union is only listed with one).

If you like a type of system, such as HPRK, why was it never implemented as an additional alternate to occur alongside the IPA transcriptions? These systems obvious have a precedent in dictionaries and also in the sister project Wiktionary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ish ishwar (talk • contribs) 00:12, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] IPA vs. American Heritage

Bearing in mind that any system is going to have pluses and minuses, what is the argument for using IPA vs. some dictionary system that uses the normal alphabet--say, American Heritage? Nareek 13:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It can be used for all languages, not just English. I doubt the American Heritage dictionary can describe the postalveolar click ([ǃ]) of the ǃKung language or the mid central rounded vowel ([ɵ̞]) of the Swedish language. --Kjoonlee 07:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree an old standard should be used. Something native English speakers grew up with, like a dictionary's method - something we were taught in elementary school and can all use without reading any primers. I can't count the number of times I've had to go to m-w.com or my printed dictionary to get a pronunciation of something I was reading about on Wikipedia. For one thing, I can't get IPA to work on my computer, as I apparently don't have the right fonts. For the record, IPA does not display on my stock Windows ME system. For another, I don't want to read the big primer and memorize new symbols. I participated in a national dialect poll a few years ago by a Harvard researcher who asked how you pronounced various words for the sake of determining regional dialects. His poll didn't use IPA or even long or short symbols - he used the capital letter system (whatever that's called (there was an argument about Chicago somewhere on here)) and asked if it rhymed with certain other words. I'm not suggesting that for Wikipedia, but pointing out that here's a Harvard researcher who probably knows IPA and everything else about pronouncing words, yet knows his audience well enough to realize that IPA or other systems will not work for them. I think Wikipedia should learn from that concept.

Here's a simple idea: put a poll on the first page of Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) and ask people whether they understand IPA. The three answers could be yes, no, and "what is IPA?"... I think the vast majority of people I know will think you are talking about beer, not a pronunciation system. Obviously, the poll would need to keep track of IP addresses or something to keep the elitists who run Wikipedia from stuffing the ballot box.
This whole argument reminds me of "Leet" - a system seemingly designed to be more nerdier than thou... You could rewrite all of Wikipedia in Leet! (please don't respond that there is a Leetapedia or some translator - I don't care) The arguments of IPA being superior do not work. Wikipedia is becoming the standard encyclopedia in the US and standard encyclopedias have pronunciation guides likes those found in dictionaries. There are plenty of examples of superior systems not working for the masses: Betamax was better than VHS; relativity is more accurate than Newtonian physics; the metric system is superior to the Imperial one; Linux and Mac are "better" than Windows - but you have to work with your standard audience... Formula One cars are "superior" to standard passenger cars, but 99% of us don't own one or know how to drive one, so designing public roads for that type of vehicle would be silly and a waste of time and resources. I'd bet the vast majority of Wikipedia users don't know what IPA is (or at least can't use it). It's the same reason numerical values on Wikipedia are in the base-ten number system instead of hexadecimal, binary or other such system - base-ten is a commonly known system and requires no explanation even though the use of hexadecimal could be deemed a "superior" system as it would require less storage space for multi-digit numbers.
As for the suggestion that the American Heritage dictionary's system (for the record, my favorite is Webster's II with a less-than-one-page pronunciation guide) is insufficient for the postalveolar click, I'd say A) I doubt there are any words in that dictionary that require that sound (whatever it is), and B) in that instance, use IPA and that reader can bother learning IPA to figure out how to say that word. This, again, goes with my elitism and Formula One arguments. I could say, a standard passenger car can't go over 150 mph, therefore the Formula One car is "superior", yet 99.999% of us don't need to go that fast. However, if one needs to go 150mph, they can learn to drive that type of car. It's the same with the postaveolar click - most of us don't need help pronouncing it because we don't know any words that use it (nor are we likely to look up one that does). If someone needs to use that sound, they can read the primer on IPA.
As far as the regional distinctions, dictionaries have tackled that obstacle for years: offer two different pronunciations! For example, my Webster's II says basil can be pronounced with both a short and long 'a' sound (they use the lines over the 'a' to denote this) and "laboratory" has four pronunciations.
One more answer suggestion for my poll: have a forth answer, "My computer cannot display IPA symbols."
So, in summary, I think standard dictionary style pronunciation should be the primary pronunciation guide and IPA should be optional. In the instance where a dictionary / elementary school type system won't work, then exclusive IPA use will suffice (and those readers can learn about IPA). And a poll would help define what the audience really knows. Thanks for listening. 208.64.241.229 21:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you are quite right that a system should be used that most people can understand. But if people feel that IPA is particularly tricky, that is not because it really is difficult, but just because it has not been sufficiently explained on Wikipedia. (For example, a lot of IPA transcriptions link you to the IPA page , as if what you needed was a dissertation on phonetics rather than a pronunciation guide.) When IPA is pared down to transcribe only English, it uses only a few symbols, most of them like the regular letters used to write English. The ones that are not used to write English are variants of the familiar letters, just as every dictionary has to use some creative mix of diacritics, digraphs, etc. See below on this page for info on a simple chart for IPA and how it might be put into a pop-up on every page.

There is no 'standard dictionary style pronunciation". All of them have to be looked up in the end.

--Gheuf 03:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

But it is hard to learn... and to get it to display on my computer... on another discussion board, someone told me it's normal for IPA not to work with Internet Explorer, which, to my memory is something like 80% of the browsers out there. How can a system that doesn't work on the majority of computers be the best system for Wikipedia?

I took your challenge, though, and looked at my Webster's II, which includes a guide for their system as well as IPA and I still disagree with your assertion that it's easy to learn. I think one could learn the basic Japanese "alphabet" (in Roman characters) faster than they could learn the IPA system for English. Case in point: the first listing is the short 'a' sound, as in the word "pat". Webster's chooses to go with the "short-hat" symbol over an 'a' to represent this, just like we learned in elementary school; IPA's symbol is a smashed together "ae". Reading this, I'm thinking, where have I seen an English word with that symbol in it? Or at least "ae" written out (not smashed) that is pronounced in a short 'a'? I can't think of one. So that's one new symbol to memorize and that I don't think is intuitive.

Next sound: long 'a', as in "pay". Webster's uses an 'a' with a line over it, again, like we learned in elementary school. IPA uses an 'e'. Yes, an 'e'. I try to think of an English word where a single 'e' is pronounced as a long 'a'. I can't think of one... That's two things, so far that aren't intuitive and need to be memorized.

Third sound: "ar" as in "care". Webster's uses "ar" with a hat (carrot?) over the 'a'. Okay, it's foreign enough to me I don't recognize it. It's not intuitive, as I think it looks like "ar" as in "car", but at least I've seen this symbol before. Compare that to IPA's symbol: a sigma (I think, but maybe it's an epsilon) followed by an 'r', or "er". So there are two representations for this sound, which is odd (and maybe they've narrowed it down since then). The sigma is definitely something to memorize, and non-intuitive. The "er" isn't bad, but without a guide I would think it meant "er" as in "jerk". So, it's no better than the Webster's system for this sound.

It keeps going on like that... That was only the first three sounds, I realize, but it just gets worse with more funny symbols including more Greek symbols, integral-signs, funny backwards letters and miniature capital letters. I can't even guess the name of many of these symbols let alone commit to wanting to memorize them. Contrast that to a Webster's type system: the only funny symbol is the schwa, and I remember learning that one in elementary school. So, by my count, that's one funny symbol for Webster's (the rest are at least in Roman characters), versus no less than 18 weird symbols for IPA's English sounds.

Finally, I ask this: if Webster's printed the IPA system next to theirs back in 1988, implying that it existed, yet they chose to go with a dictionary style system as professional printers of a device partially designed to teach pronunciation, why do you think they made that choice? And why have all the dictionaries I've seen also choose not to use the IPA system? Why should Wikipedia choose to go against that established grain and try to forge their own, new path? I think you may have consider that your existing knowledge of this system is influencing your ideas about how difficult this system is to learn.

208.64.241.229 20:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to throw this out one more time. The great thing about IPA is its generality; it can describe most phonemes from most languages, and dialectal variations within English. The awful thing about it is that it uses weird characters that (1) aren't in a lot of people's fontsets and (2) even if they are, they're hard to remember because most people don't have names for the characters, and a lot of them don't look like letters to which you'd assign such a sound (or indeed, letters at all).

There's a great solution to both problems at once: Kirshenbaum. It's exactly as general as IPA, because it's just a transliteration of IPA into ASCII symbols. But it's much easier (for Anglophones, or in general speakers of Western European languages) to learn and remember, because English phonemes are represented by (sometimes upper, sometimes lowercase) letters that in some contexts are associated with that phoneme.

I know it's not really standard anywhere; that's the biggest argument against it. But it's so easy to learn that it really could be a good solution. (By the way, you won't see how easy it is to learn from the existing Kirshenbaum article, because that article starts with an IPA table and shows the mapping -- what's really needed is a table that shows English phonemes in the context of English words, together with their Kirshenbaum representations. I think such a table can be found at http://www.totally-official.com). --Trovatore 21:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The problem I see is that people are replacing other pronunciations that are accessible to the average reader with IPA that is generally not known by the average reader. While IPA may be useful for non-English sounds, most pronunciations can be accurately described by reference to English words and do not need any of the extra, difficult functionality of IPA. —Centrx→talk • 16:25, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA quickhelp templates

I have an idea for making IPA symbols more comprehensible, using tooltips. I have made a template {{ʒ}} that contains [[ʒ as in beige=beɪʒ|ʒ]], and then a redirect at [[ʒ as in beige=beɪʒ]] to the appropriate phonetic page. The discussion of this concept is here: template talk:Ʒ. Without popups, this works wonderfully: someone who doesn't know IPA sees blue text, moves their mouse over the link, then sees the quickie pronunciation help in the tooltip, and if they want to know more, they click and get the appropriate article. The dev version of popups has now been fixed to work with this, but the production version of popups still is not compatible. Again, please do NOT only comment here, instead/also comment at template talk:Ʒ. If and when this starts to get a clearer consensus on whether and how to move forward, I'll be posting this at village pump (policy) and (technical). --Homunq 15:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the anti-IPA talk on this page has two bases: dialect issues and comprehensibility issues. This idea does nothing for the former, but goes a long way towards resolving the latter.--Homunq 10:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation Guide for Users of Wikipedia

[edit] And a Hover Template for the Guide

Every day, it seems somebody complains about the use of IPA on Wikipedia. Nobody understands it, they say. It is counterintuitive. A respelling system should be used using MAYK-SHIHFT SIGHNZ. Of course, people who know IPA realize the disadvantages of such a makeshift approach, and understand that IPA for English is actually quite simple to use, encouraging those who do not yet know IPA to learn it. But it is the responsibility of those of us who know it to present clearly and accurately the principles on which it is based.

There are many problems facing the new learner of IPA on Wikipedia, but there is one in particular I think responsible for their difficulties, and this is the lack of a real "pronunciation guide" on Wikipedia such as is found in most dictionaries. Most IPA transcriptions, if they link to anything at all, link to the main IPA page which is less than helpful if a mere pronunciation guide is what is wanted.

What we need is a simple chart based on KEYWORDS whose purpose is not to be accurate in cataloguing all the different pronunciations of English (still less listing all the symbols of IPA), but merely to show people how to read the transcriptions. The use of KEYWORDS is important for this purpose, because it allows speakers of different accents to read the transcriptions in their own way. So if I say that "ash" represents "a as in cat", everyone will be able to understand it according to his own accent, and no further phonetic detail will be necessary. The closest thing we have to a pronunciation chart, IPA Chart for English, is accurate as a reference for those studying accents, but unnecessarily detailed for a simple pronunciation key. So I propose something simpler.

1. THE PROPOSAL

I propose a pronunciation chart based on the KEYWORD system that would work across accents. For the vowel "o" as in "goat", it is not necessary to list three different symbols for GenAm, RP, and Australian English detailing the phonetic discrepancies in the realization of this vowel. It is necessary to give only one symbol, /oʊ/, along with the keyword "goat", and every person will read it in his own accent.

Under this system, it is only necessary to list multiple pronunciations of words when they differ in what J. C. Wells calls their "lexical incidence": that is, in layman's terms, when a word has a vowel in one accent that cannot be predicted from its vowel in another.

This is highly preferable to the current system, in which words can theoretically receive multiple transcriptions even if they differ only in phonetic detail, or, in some cases, in nothing more than notational convention. The newer articles in the OED online fall into this trap, so that, for example "poke" and "pack" get two transcriptions each: RP "p@Uk", GenAm "poUk"; RP "pak", GenAm "pæk". This kind of transcription is not only unnecessary, it is misleading, since the presence of alternative transcriptions implies that one transcription would not have been enough. The only purpose of listing pronunciations should be to make clear when these are not predictable across accents. Here again the OED online fails, giving, for example, "was" and "what" as /wQz/ and /hwQt/, with no indication that their vowel in GenAm is the unpredictable /wVz/ and /wVt/.

Let us be even more accurate than the OED and fulfill our goal of making Wikipedia the most thorough source of information in the world.

2. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROPOSAL

If this proposal were adopted, each IPA transcription of an English word would be accompanied by the template {{IPAGuide|transcription here}}. The Template does two things: it links to the full pronunciation guide (provisionally, I have linked it to IPA Chart for English); and it causes a pop up to appear listing only the "difficult" symbols (e.g. "dZ" and not "b"). Additionally, the link makes no underline (because of a CSS trick). Here is an example. Ultimately, I would like to have the template link to a simplified chart along the lines I have been discussing. I am working on one at User:Gheuf/Sandbox2: currently it retains the multiple transcriptions used for the vowels, but proposes a "diaphonemic" transcription that would stand for all of them.

3. ON THEORY AND TRICKY ISSUES

Acc. to this transcriptional scheme, each IPA symbol is taken as indicating not a sound, but a correspondence of sounds; not a phone or a phoneme, but what has been called a "diaphoneme." I hasten to add that I do not propose these "diaphonemes" as representation of the speaker-hearer's competence -- I do not suggest that the transcriptions given will necessarily correspond accurately to the mental representations in any one English-speaker's mind. It is rather intended simply as a lexicographical convenience, to allow transcriptions to be readable by many English-speakers from varying backgrounds.

The system works extremely well when there is a simple one-to-one correspondence across accents as in the case of the vowel "o" as in "goat". But we run into problems when accents differ in the phonological systems, that is in the number of phonemes they have and in the positions they allow them to occupy in the word.

As an example of the first kind of difficulty, we may consider short "o". In most American accents (or at least in mine), this vowel has merged entirely with "ah" of "father". So in my accent, "shahs" rhymes exactly with "Boz", "Iran" with "don", "dahlia" (give or take rhoticity) with "jollier". In most English accents, such as RP, these words have different vowels. What to do in a situation like this? I decided to use the UNMERGED variety as the standard: since from it the American pronunciation may be inferred, but not vice versa. This means a certain redundancy for American readeres. They will see "/A as in shah/" beside '/Q as in shod/' : for them there is no difference and the extra symbol is superfluous. But this superfluity may easily be explained in a note, and is necessary for the system to work.

In other cases, however, I have economized on such distinctions. It would, of course, be impossible to indicate every distinction made by every accent without severely bloating the transcriptional system and compromising its purpose. My system does not distinguish between the vowels of "eight" "late" and "wait", nor between "horse" and "hoarse". For new, "difficult" words such as are likely to be transcribed on wikipedia, it is likely that the difference would either not come up or be predictable by the speaker who already makes the distinction. For such a speaker, the symbol /or/ will mean: "pronounce /Q:/ or /o@/ according to context". If such a distinction were needed, the vowel of "origin" could be used for "horse".

As an example of the other kind of difficulty, we may consider the question of vowels before "r", which proved to be so problematic that I listed them in their own special chart. "R" is difficult because it tends to alter the quality of the preceding vowel, and, in a good number of accents (called "non-rhotic") to drop out of coda position altogether. I have opted to retain the "r", not because I believe it to be underlying in non-rhotic accents, but because it is needed for the rhotic ones. A speaker will simply see "ir" as in "here" and associate the signs "ir" with the pronunciation "I@".

I have, furthermore, written the SQUARE, FORCE, CURE, and NEAR vowels as "tense": this is because they contrast in some accents with lax counterparts, as in those accents that contrast "Mary" and "marry", and "spear it" and "spirit" (and even "force" with "north!"). They are of course not necessarily pronounced very tense, although in some accents they are (Scottish English /skwe:r/), and indeed in non-rhotic accents they are almost always transcribed lax -- but they need to be distinguished from the truly lax vowels. Historically, they were all "long" (=tense), since all short vowels before "r" merged in NURSE (with the exception of "start", and, of course, "north" again).

The last kind of problem for this system is words that differ in their "lexical incidence", like "was". Such words (and only such words) will have to be given separate transcriptions for each dialect. This is as it should be, as these relationships are not systematic, although such "anomalous" words often pattern together, whether in small groups (such as "was" and "what"), or larger (such as CLOTH and BATH) -- sometimes only a single word seems to be anomalous (as "pasta", although we might also list "Milan").

4. THAT THIS PROPOSAL IS NOT AGAINST WIKIPEDIA'S GUIDELINES

I would like to show that this proposal is not against Wikipedia's Guidelines, in particular the guideline against original research. The basis for the content of this proposal is of course not original -- it is drawn from standard pronunciation books on English, and J. C. Wells's "Accents of English". All that is new is the proposal of a certain sort of transcription as a Wikipedia convention -- just like all other conventions on Wikipedia, it is not covered by the ban on "originality" in the same sense as contentful articles are. And even if it were covered by the ban, it would still not be original, since it is not my opinion alone that I want to impose, but the consensus of various editors who will, I hope, visit my sandbox page and edit it.

Lastly, I want to calm people who think that this kind of a transcription is "impossible." On this page when similar systems were discussed, some editors suggested that such a transcription had been unreachable even by "professional linguists" and that it was therefore not our place to meddle. But I do not see this as a linguistic-theoretic issue: as I said in the paragraph before, I see this as an issue of a lexicographical convention, just like an other convention on Wikipedia. The great foundation on which it rests, yes, that is the province of linguists -- in particular, I have relied on J.C. Wells's insightful analyses of English accents and his concept of "lexical sets". But the choice of the symbols to represent those "sets" or "diaphonemes" must, of course, be our own. It is not a linguistic, but a lexicographical question. If Wells did not himself assign symbols to his lexical sets by which they might be recorded in international dictionaries, it is not because such an endeavor is impossible or absurd, but because he is not in the business of making dictionaries.

We are.--Gheuf 20:17, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I like your proposal (see my comment here), and I think it's probably better than the one I proposed above. I support this as the standard transcription for English words on Wikipedia. --Lazar Taxon 06:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

• Support. This is the best idea yet that I have seen for the pronunciation problem. It should quell most complaints that IPA is too hard to use if everything you need to know to decipher a pronunciation can fit in that tiny hovering box. I completely agree with all the phonological decisions made here, too. My only suggestion is that in the guide itself, the phoneme symbols don't need enclosing slashes, but they should be joined to the example word with an en dash or similar, this example. Nohat 08:25, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

  It's too bad, of course, that the popup guide is broken in Firefox (it truncates it). The only way around it at present is to emulate the tooltip behavior using Javascript and CSS. Nohat 00:50, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

  Also, if we have to use Javscript, it would be extra neat if we parse the IPA text and only display the key for symbols which actually appear in the transcription. I'll try to hack up a demo of that. Nohat 01:16, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Homunq is working on just that, at Template:IPA_hover. I've discussed with him the idea of combining his template with my pronunciation scheme, an idea he seemed to like.--Gheuf 05:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to try it out, I have a working prototype of this functionality. Just add {{subst:User:Nohat/monobook.js}} to your own [[User:Username/monobook.js]] page and then go to any page with IPA pronunciations (in <span class="IPA"> elements), and try hovering over an IPA pronunciation. It should show an informational popup with just the information for the symbols contained in that pronunciation. Nohat 02:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Has any progress been made on this lately? If people seem in broad agreeement, I think a pronunciation guide should be put on the page Wikipedia:Pronunciation, and a pop-up should be made a standard part of the IPA template.--Gheuf 03:15, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do we obtain this IPA pronunciation?

Does it need to be sourced? After all, obtaining it from a different pronunciation style given is not exactly something the average reader could reproduce, at least not effectively. -Amarkov moo! 05:49, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

The idea behind this is that it would be a convention agreed upon by editors for the use of writing articles in Wikipedia. It is based on other standard IPA transcriptions for English from various dictionaries and books. I cannot understand the sentence "Obtaining it from a different pronunciation style given is not exactly something the average reader could reproduce, at least not effectively." I'm not sure in what sense the reader needs to be able to reproduce the "[process of] obtaining [the guide] from a different pronunciation style given" (?). If he needs to know what the guide is, he'll simply look it up at Wikipedia:Pronunciation. There is more about this in my original posting under the heading "THAT THE PROPOSAL IS NOT AGAINST WIKIPEDIA'S GUIDELINES".--Gheuf 14:40, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I made my concern clear, but it looks like you answered it anyway. Thanks. -Amarkov moo! 02:08, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To sum up

To sum up the "anti-IPA" position here: no one is going to learn "approximately 107 base symbols and 55 modifiers" as a prerequisite to using Wikipedia. 70.20.136.170 00:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

But nobody is saying that you have to. The guideline doesn't say "use IPA and nothing else", it just says that IPA should be provided. -Amarkov moo! 00:15, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

And even if IPA were the only pronunciation guides offered, it is no more necessarily to learn every last character of IPA in order to transcribe English, than it is necessary to know every last word in English in order to speak it fluently. The analogy is shaky but the point is true: for most purposes, you will only need to know a small subset of the total number of characters available. The additional advantage of IPA is that if you should encounter an unfamiliar character, its meaning is standardized and can be easily checked at the IPA page.--Gheuf 06:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Precisely. It also has the further advantage that it actually can represent the pronunciation of foreign words reliably: 'spelling pronunciations' are shaky at best in this respect. Day-zha voo is quite a good hint at how déja vu is pronounced in English, but it's so much less accurate than deʒa vy as a representation of French pronunciation. This is not to say that spelling pronunciations shouldn't be provided in addition: I happen to think they probably should, provided it's clear that they provide only a limited approximation. garik 14:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

"oo" in this case would also represent the minimal pair /y/ & /u/ in French—if you want to say "beaucoup" (/boku/) but end up saying "beau cu" (/boky/), you run the risk of highly offending people, and generally being misunderstood (consider also the difference between "dessus" (above) and "dessous" (below). The Jade Knight 08:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)