Talk:Voiced velar plosive

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Isn't the HTML entity for the phonetic symbol ɡ rather than g? --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 09:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

And I wonder why they chose to make a separate symbol in Unicode for it, unlike the other common plosives (p, b, t, d, k). Is it true that the normal Latin g from Unicode has no meaning in IPA transcription?--Imz 18:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The IPA uses specifically the "g" that's shaped like a "q" but with a tail that curves around to the left. In most sans-serif fonts, that's the same as the normal Latin "g", but in serif fonts the normal Latin "g" is curlier, with a little circle above the line, a little circle below the line, and a little curlycue in the upper right-hand corner. That shape of "g" is technically not supposed be used in IPA transcriptions (though compliance with this rule is rather spotty). --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 18:43, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The Handbook of the IPA actually says that it's OK to use regular g instead of IPA-specific g. It is true that IPA-specific g does have a distinct character in Unicode and the IPA character set and ɡ is certainly impeccably correct, but g is not quite "wrong" and has the benefit of being much easier to type as well as more widely supported. Nohat 18:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

All I can find in my copy is the statement on p. 167 that no. 110 (opentail G) is equivalent to no. 210 (looptail G) and vice versa. Do they state it more explicitly in prose anywhere? For anyone who doesn't understand what we're talking about, the rightmost letter at [1] is the "looptail G" (g U+0067), which is not strictly an IPA symbol (but is an acceptable alternative in phonetic transcription), while the image at [2] is the "opentail G" (ɡ U+0261), which is an IPA symbol. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:05, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments, it becomes clearer to me! I think a note on this would be valuable in this article and/or IPA. Since you have the handbook, probably you have the most authorative information, but I've been searching the web for information on it and want to mention what I have seen:

• [3] says Equivalent symbol for "voiced velar plosive" IPA #110 (above) and IPA #210 (left) are equivalent "Voiced velar plosive" symbols. IPA #110's symbol name is "Opentail G" while #210's is "Looptail G".,
• Difference list of Unicode vs. IPA says g 210 Looptail G C0 Controls and Basic Latin U+0067 is used. Equivalent to 110(U+0261). (IPA Handbook),
• IPA in Unicode says ɡ 609 0261 vd velar plosive (but the IPA has ruled that an ordinary g is also acceptable).

--Imz 19:26, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

The first and second link you provide are rather unfortunate because they've chosen to use a sans-serif font in which U+0067 is rendered as an opentail G, which is likely to confuse people as to the difference between the two characters. Only the third link makes it clear. --Angr/_{tɔk tə mi} 19:45, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the note in the article! I'm also concerned with the semantical side of this issue. Do the IPA "recommendations" on the usage of characters and Unicode have any "semantical" side, do they have some notion of the "semantics" of the codes? To state simpler, by "semantical", I mean not what the renderings are, but how they are processed: Must the processing software that has to deal with transcriptions accept both Gs as valid codes in transcriptions? (For exmaple, there is a semantical distinction between the Latin a and the Cyrillic а: they would never be accepted as equivalent characters by processing software---although they are commonly rendered exactly the same way.)--Imz 21:09, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox bug?

I'm running firefox 1.5 on Windows, and the table in the upper right of the article shows a perplexing difference between IPA-text and IPA-image. IPA-text looks like a lowered upper-case ypsilon, while IPA-image looks like a lower-case g. From discussion on this page, I see that the lower-case g is intended. Do other people see the upper case Y? Here's entity 609: ɡ it looks like a Y to me. AxelBoldt 17:55, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I just saw the very first comment on this page, were entity 103 was mentioned. This looks like g which is indeed a lower-case g. So should we use 103 here? AxelBoldt 17:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

No, because the difference between entity 609 and entity 103 is crucial to the discussion here. I used to have the same problem you're having; it's a problem with your fonts. The font "MS Reference Sans Serif" has totally the wrong glyph associated with 609. (The character you're seeing is the one that's supposed to be at 611, the character for the voiced velar fricative.) You could uninstall MS Reference Sans Serif, or you can go to User:AxelBoldt/monobook.css and force the fonts to appear correctly. I don't know what IPA-compatible fonts you have installed, but if you type the following into your monobook.css:

span.IPA { font-family: X, Y, Z !important;  }

and replace X, Y, Z with the names of some IPA-compatible fonts you have installed that display entity 609 correctly (so it looks like the IPA-image), the problem should be solved. If you have Lucida Sans Unicode or Arial Unicode, list those; they work fine. --Angr (t·c) 18:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Ok, thanks a lot for the clear explanation. I'm not so much concerned with solving the problem for me, but mainly for our readers, so I'll mention this bug in the article's text. AxelBoldt 17:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I saw your message, but (1) I do kinda wonder if your average user will know how to switch to Lucida Sans Unicode or Arial Unicode (setting them in your browser's preferences will not work, as I know from experience), and (2) it'll help people reading this page, but anyone with the problem will see it on any page where the letter ɡ is used. --Angr (t·c) 18:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Should we modify the IPA template to take care of this? kwami 21:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Angr, regarding (1): I just removed my MS Reference Sans Serif font altogether, rebooted, and now the entity 609 does look like a sans-serif g. I have both Lucida Sans Unicod and Arial Unicode installed. Maybe that's the way to go?

Regarding (2): I thought that people who want to find out what the strange Y is all about will eventually end up here, directed from IPA. But if you think the message fits better elsewhere, or should be removed altogether, go right ahead.

We should really explore a technical solution though. Template:IPA uses class IPA. Can't we globally specify in our css style file that class IPA should never use MS Reference Sans Serif, or only if none of the other unicode fonts is installed? I'm not a css hacker, but I could ask around on the tech mailing list. AxelBoldt 21:17, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand anything about css or class IPA myself. I just did what someone who does understand them told me to do, and then repeated that informatin to you. There is a template {{IPA fonts}} that specifies which fonts should be used for anything enclosed by the IPA template, and MS Reference Sans Serif isn't there. In my browser preferences I said to use Arial Unicode. Nevertheless my browser defaulted to MS Reference Sans Serif until I specifically told my personal css to force the use of other fonts. It only worked when I added the !important; tag. --Angr (t·c) 21:36, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Are you using Firefox 1.5? The .IPA line of MediaWiki:Common.css doesn't list MS Reference Sans Serif, yet it does contain Lucida Sans Unicode and Arial Unicode. However the comment says that it only applies to Internet Explorer; that seems to be the problem: Firefox also needs to be informed that the MS font is broken. Do you remember who told you about the CSS trick with !important; ? AxelBoldt 21:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it was User:Nickshanks. I'm using Firefox 1.5 now, but I wasn't when I was having the problem (last April). I can't remember if I was using Firefox 1.0.7 then or if I was still using Netscape 7.2. BTW, thanks for posting to Template talk:IPA and Template talk:IPA fonts. I was just about to when I saw you already had! --Angr (t·c) 22:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What to do?

Hi, I'm sorry if this has been covered elsewhere, but if there's an article with IPA transcriptions that use /g/ rather than /ɡ/, should I replace them with the latter symbol, or should I just leave it alone? Waynem 00:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Just leave it alone. g is "open-tail" in a lot of fonts anyway, and even the "loop-tail" g is acceptable in the IPA. --Angr (tɔk) 01:16, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes. This article, the articles on velar and labial-velar consonants, and the IPA article itself should use open-tail g, because it's the official symbol, but otherwise it really doesn't matter. kwami 01:48, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Both of Waynem's g's look the same in my browser. Never assume everyone's browser displays things the same way or has the same fonts as yours. Specify the character explicitly, when the difference is important. —Michael Z. 2006-02-05 22:45 Z

[edit] Important note

The sound is damaged. But I'm not sure, if it is so. Test it please. Soshial 21:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)