Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Phonology Template

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[edit] IPA as standard

Since the issue has come up in Swedish phonology, what does everyone think of using IPA as a standard for all phonetics articles and phonologies for all types of transcription (phonemic as well as narrower phonetic)? The suggestions by certain editors at Talk:Swedish phonology advocate the use of the less sketchy aspects of Swedish orthography, which is vaguely reminscent of that of German, instead of the characters most common in Swedish phonologies in print in either English or Swedish. The problem is that Swedish spelling is not consistent, even for vowels, and that it acts as a very effective intellectual barrier to anyone that doesn't know Swedish or perhaps Norwegian and Danish quite well.

I'm not really familiar with the aspects of systems like X-Sampa and Kirschenbaum myself, except that I myself can't recall having seen in any literature or the web. If someone can fill in about how these work and in what contexts they're used, please do. Peter Isotalo 11:20, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

I think the standard policy in Wikipedia is using IPA for everything. SAMPA, X-SAMPA, Kirschenbaum et al. are just mappings of IPA into 7-bit ASCII characters (i. e. English alphanumerics and common punctuation), used mostly in e-mail in order to avoid the mangling that results when older mail clients and/or mail servers cannot deal with Unicode characters. SAMPA in particular (or X-SAMPA?) is also a computer-readable mapping, i. e. it can be parsed and converted back and forth to IPA by a program (other schemes are ambiguous and need human intervention). See the very useful Don Blaheta's conversion table. --Pablo D. Flores 15:56, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Right, and the {{IPA}} template means that people using IE can now view IPA text as well. Personally, I don't see a good reason to use X-SAMPA or something else rather than just the IPA, which is the "original," so-to-speak, of all these ASCII transcription schemes. Since linguists and language enthusiasts the world over use the IPA, Wikipedia should be using it too when discussing phonology. So goes my opinion. --Whimemsz 22:08, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

Neither for nor against.

IPA is generally not used in the transcription of Native American languages. There are also several other notational systems in use by certain linguistic traditions (e.g. Chinese & Slavic linguistics). Quite a few disfavor IPA for several reasons (e.g. affricate symbolization, theoretical issues, terminology, etc.). I am using IPA in most of my wikipedia writing simply because that is what people are generally using and because one person (from Australia) said that s/he preferred it. Additionally, no one seems to know anything else (at least, I havent seen anything written in wikipedia). I note that in using IPA I am breaking with tradition and that I must convert most of my sources.

IPA is not really so international. But, I do think there is a growing preference for IPA in phonetic work (but not phonological or other general linguistics).

I suppose many encyclopedias and dictionaries would want to standarize. Much linguistic work, however, does not standardize and preserves the notational system of the original sources, thus allowing easy comparison of the new material and original source material.

I dont see a great problem in using non-IPA systems for phonological description. Sometimes, phonologists need other symbols to represent their phonological theory, e.g. functional phonologists use capital letters to represent archiphonemes. It is useful to use orthography (providing that it is adequately unambiguous) in endangered languages so that language learners can easily learn the sound system without the added burden of learning a new notational system.

Anyway, just some thoughts... peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 23:22, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Oh, I really find sampa & the like to be rather unreadable. I suggest if we dont need to use, then we shouldnt. These are, as mentioned above, just a workaround notation due to limitations of the earlier computers. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 23:27, 2005 May 2 (UTC)

Sampa and such are of no good use for anyone who isn't forced to keep within the 7-bit Latin alphabet that once was the rule at Usenet. IPA is of course to be preferred!

The issue with Swedish (and similarly some other languages) is not connected with 7- or more bits, but with whether the phonology is more closely correlated to the writing system or to spoken varieties of the standard language. As is evident from Standard Swedish and Talk:Swedish phonology, the issue is not selfevident, and I really wonder if there are any reasons to argue that Wikipedia needs a Wikipedia-wide standard that says that non-ASCII automatically are to be preferred over for ASCII.

/--Erik Olofsson (Family Olofsson 01:08, 3 May 2005 (UTC))

The problem with using orthographical characters for languages like Swedish is that the orthography is only partially consistent and in all too many cases coincides with the IPA for completely different sounds. Long <u> is /ʉ/, long <o> is /u/ (and sometimes /o/), <a> is either /a/ (short) or /ɑ/ (long) and short <e> and <ä> are used for the same sound in almost varieties and dialects. Vowel quality differs with quantity, unlike Finnish or Japanese.

Wouldn't a fairly good recommendation be to follow the transcription practices used in most phonologies in print? When it comes to Swedish, these are very consistent in their choice of IPA characters for phonemes. Peter Isotalo 11:51, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Re Swedish: yes, it seems to be a good idea to follow other phonologies. i assume that Swedish has a lot written on it, so perhaps if you can look at 5 (?) different phonologies & use what they use.

Re orthography: many orthographies have been created by linguists so these orthographies are good enough to use in phonological description. using orthography is beneficial to endangered languages. (of course Swedish is not really endangered.) peace — ishwar  (SPEAK) 15:22, 2005 May 8 (UTC)

Sounds like a good reason not to make IPA an absolute standard, then. Non-prestigous languages definetly need all the help they can get.

As for Swedish, I've already checked no fewer than 7 phonologies, and they are almost completely unanimous. The only differences are due to use of older IPA-characters and very minor disagreements in which characters to use. Hopefully that will be enough to satisfy those who claim I'm trying to sneak my Central Swedish POV into everything. :-)

Peter Isotalo 16:58, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with IPA template

I copied the broad transcription of The North Wind and the Sun from the IPA handbook and tried enclosing the entire text in the template, but instead I got the following result:

ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjutɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt in ə ˈwoɹm ˈklok. ðe əˈgɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈklok ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɑɹŋgɚ ðən ðɪ ˈəðɚ. ðɛn ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmoɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmoɹ ˈklosli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈfold hɪz ˈklok əˈɹand ɪm; ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌgev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwoɹmli ənd ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz klok. ən so ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪʒ tɪ kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ əv ðə ˈtu.

Hardly useful. Any suggestions? Peter Isotalo 17:47, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...you might have to manually insert <br /> tags:

{{IPA|ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjutɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt in ə ˈwoɹm ˈklok.}}<br />{{IPA|ðe əˈgɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈklok ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɑɹŋgɚ ðən}}<br />{{IPA|ðɪ ˈəðɚ. ðɛn ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmoɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmoɹ ˈklosli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈfold}}<br />{{IPA|hɪz ˈklok əˈɹand ɪm; ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌgev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwoɹmli ənd}}<br />{{IPA|ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz klok. ən so ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪʒ tɪ kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ}}<br />{{IPA|əv ðə ˈtu.}}

gives:

ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjutɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt in ə ˈwoɹm ˈklok.
ðe əˈgɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈklok ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɑɹŋgɚ ðən
ðɪ ˈəðɚ. ðɛn ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmoɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmoɹ ˈklosli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈfold
hɪz ˈklok əˈɹand ɪm; ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌgev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwoɹmli ənd
ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz klok. ən so ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪʒ tɪ kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ
əv ðə ˈtu.

--Whimemsz 18:15, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

this works (but it forces the font-family of {IPA fonts}):

ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ən ðə ˈsʌn wɚ dɪsˈpjutɪŋ ˈwɪtʃ wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ, wɛn ə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˌkem əˈlɑŋ ˈɹæpt in ə ˈwoɹm ˈklok. ðe əˈgɹid ðət ðə ˈwʌn hu ˈfɚst səkˈsidəd ɪn ˈmekɪŋ ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtek ɪz ˈklok ˌɑf ʃʊd bi kənˈsɪdɚd ˈstɑɹŋgɚ ðən ðɪ ˈəðɚ. ðɛn ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˈblu əz ˈhɑɹd əz i ˈkʊd, bət ðə ˈmoɹ hi ˈblu ðə ˈmoɹ ˈklosli dɪd ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈfold hɪz ˈklok əˈɹand ɪm; ˌæn ət ˈlæst ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd ˌgev ˈʌp ði əˈtɛmpt. ˈðɛn ðə ˈsʌn ˈʃaɪnd ˌaʊt ˈwoɹmli ənd ɪˈmidiətli ðə ˈtɹævəlɚ ˈtʊk ˌɑf ɪz klok. ən so ðə ˈnoɹθ ˌwɪnd wəz əˈblaɪʒ tɪ kənˈfɛs ðət ðə ˈsʌn wəz ðə ˈstɑɹŋgɚ əv ðə ˈtu.

<div style="font-family: {{IPA fonts}};"> </div>. peace – ishwar  (speak) 04:57, 2005 Jun 21 (UTC)

[edit] Avoiding orthography

I made an adjustment to the template to discourage people from writing about orthography in the phonology articles. When looking through a lot of the article, there seems to be a tendency for people to include spelling as soon as they see something that has to do with phonetics. To me this seems to be almost guaranteed to get messy with most languages (just imagine English). The orthography should be described in the main language article or in a seperate orthography article. Peter Isotalo 10:20, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Table trouble

I'm trying to figure out how to make the most decent table, but I really know far too little about CSS and all that to make any headway. Would anyone care to lend a hand in making tables that would look good but that are still fairly easy to apply. Personally, I would prefer the table used for the pulmonic consonants in IPA in Unicode over {{prettytable}}. The IPA-table is a lot more complicated, though, and when making phoneme tables, it's usually necessary to make the fields less narrow to reflect allophonic qualities (like in German phonology), making it even more complicated to use.

Any takers?

Peter Isotalo 18:04, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

i have been playing with this:

good? bad? – ishwar  (speak) 18:58, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

[edit] Prosody/Tone

Why is tone being kept separate from prosody? I can't find any info that really motivates this moreso than keeping separate sections for other similar suprasegmental features such as intonation, stress or quantity.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:37, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

In a language such as English then I would include intonation within prosody. But in a language such as Chinese where tone makes phonemic distinctions, it has the same level of important as vowel and consonant phonemes and very definitely merits its own section. This is what I meant by the explanatory sentence. Gailtb 21:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Chinese hsa phonemic differences in both tone and intonation and so do a lot of other languages. Both are prosodic features and should be described under the same header. I get the feeling that tone has gotten a separate section simply because it's not a distinctive feature in English.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:29, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Samples

I'm not at all convinced that it's a good idea to recommend adding a sound sample with an IPA transcription. If we use a previously existing sound sample and its previously existing IPA transcription, it will in almost every case be a copyright violation. If one of us makes a recording and transcribes it into the IPA, it's original research. Angr 15:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't that be a rather extreme interpretation of copyright policy? If a mere transcription of common words or phrases is OR, the obvious solution would be to broaden it or to make it phonemic. There's way too much detail in transcriptions as it is, and the details actually worth squabbling about are of virtually no interest to anyone except a few editors and a small minority of readers.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:07, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

If the sound sample is copyrighted, using it here would violate the copyright. How is that an extreme interpretation? And even a broad transcription still requires an interpretation of the language's phonemes, which is original research. Angr 16:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought you were referring to ordinary free licensed files... Were you talking about copyrighted sets like those that accompany the IPA handbook?

I don't see how it could be so unreasonable as to make transcriptions based on basic rules of phonology. This can mostly be supported fairly easily by sources. Sure, there are always some variations, but treating every phonetic transcription, no matter how basic, as an attempt at scholarly work is exaggerating the skills involved. If we analyzed in such detail that the end result would be considered OR they'd be irrelevant for an encyclopedia anyway. What you're referring to is information written by specialists for specialists (or afficionados).

Peter ^Isotalo 21:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Table order

Sheesh, the table template was mess. Ejectivs/implosivs and plzd/lbzd velars listed separately at the ends? I fixed that (so it's slightly closer to sonority hierarcy order now), but here's a few further thoughts on possible changes:

• How about uniting "stops" as a single row, with the different phonation types as subrows? (See eg. Abkhaz.) I understand that the "voiceless left, voiced right" distinction works if a language has no other phonation opposition, but if there's glottalized, aspirated etc. stops the system breiks down.
• And speaking of aspirates, there's no row for them @TM. Granted, they're transcribed by the means of a diacritic, but so are ejectivs.
• Also on the topic of diacritics, what does everyone think about the inclusion of the two secondary articulation columns? I suspect having a labialized uvular series is more common than palatalized velar; and if they're only there for example, wouldn't just one column suffice?
• Would it be sensible to erase the dnt/alv borders, when there's only a single commonly used symbol? Or would it be better to explicitely add /t̪/ etc?
• I furthermore consider putting the fricativ & approximant rows together in a similar fashion as the newest IPA. I'd have done it straight away, except I'm not sure how common it is to need something classified as ambiguous wrt. this distinction.

--Tropylium 22:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)