- That the IPA is inaccessible to the layman, and that therefore for a quick guide to the pronunciation of Wikipedia entry words we should use pronunciation respellings such as proh-NUN-see-AY-shun. However, such respellings are inaccessible to the non-native English speaker, who generally is familiar with the IPA. There is wide agreement that respellings are acceptable, but should be used in addition to the IPA. To this end, any verbal description or "sound-alike" guide may be used, but there is also a standardized format at Help:Pronunciation respelling key.
- That for English words, the IPA should be specific to a particular national standard, and that the national pronunciations should be listed separately. However, listing multiple national pronunciations after every Wikipedia entry word quickly becomes unwieldy, and listing only one leads to accusations of bias. Of course, if a particular dialect or local pronunciation is relevant to the topic, as is often the case with place names, it may be listed in addition to the wider pronunciation.
- That the current "pan-dialectal" English convention at Help:IPA for English is arbitrary/unreferenced/original research, and is therefore invalid. However, this is a help key, not an article, and no more needs to follow Wikipedia's no original research policy than the pronunciation guide of any other encyclopedia or dictionary, nearly all of which use in-house conventions.
- That Latin or Greco-Latin words in fields such as biology, astronomy, mythology and medicine are improperly transcribed. This is a problem because of multiple conflicting conventions of how to pronounce these words in English. In general, the traditional English pronunciation of Latin is the one that should be transcribed; the other conventions are straightforward and can all be covered, simultaneously, by including the Latin or Greek orthography, or Greek in Latin transcription. As long as Latin long vowels ā ē ī ō ū ȳ are indicated, readers will be able to pronounce the word according to the convention of their choice.
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