Module talk:IPAc-en/pronunciation Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Module_talk:IPAc-en/pronunciation

To help centralize discussions and keep related topics together, Module talk:IPAc-enModule talk:IPAc-en redirects here.

Template:IPAc-en is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories. Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. Functionality of the template can be checked using test cases.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the IPAc-en template.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3Auto-archiving period: 6 months

view · edit Frequently asked questions The IPA is gibberish and I can't read it. Why doesn't Wikipedia use a normal pronunciation key? The IPA is the international standard for phonetic transcription, and therefore the Wikipedia standard as well. Many non-American and/or EFL-oriented dictionaries and pedagogical texts have adopted the IPA, and as a result, it is far less confusing for many people around the world than any alternative. It may be confusing in some aspects to some English speakers, but that is precisely because it is conceived with an international point of view. The sound of y in "yes" is spelled /j/ in the IPA, and this was chosen from German and several other languages which spell this sound j. For English words, Wikipedia does use a "normal" pronunciation key. It is Help:Pronunciation respelling key, and may be used in addition to the IPA, enclosed in the {{respell}} template. See the opening sentences of Beijing, Cochineal, and Lepidoptera for a few examples. But even this is not without problems; for example, cum laude would be respelled kuum-LOW-day, but this could easily be misread as koom-LOH-day. English orthography is simply too inconsistent in regard to its correspondence to pronunciation, and therefore a completely intuitive respelling system is infeasible. This is why our respelling system must be used merely to augment the IPA, not to replace it. Wikipedia deals with a vast number of topics from foreign languages, and many of these languages contain sounds that do not exist in English. In these cases, a respelling would be entirely inadequate. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Pronunciation for further discussion. The IPA should be specific to a particular national standard, and the national pronunciations should be listed separately. Listing multiple national pronunciations after every Wikipedia entry word quickly becomes unwieldy, and listing only one leads to accusations of bias. Therefore, we use a system that aims at being pan-dialectal. Of course, if a particular dialect or local pronunciation is relevant to the topic, it may be listed in addition to the wider pronunciation, using {{IPA|und|...}} or {{IPA|en|...|generic=yes}}. The use of /r/ for the rhotic consonant is inaccurate. It should be /ɹ/ instead. The English rhotic is pronounced in a wide variety of ways in accents of English around the world, and the goal of our diaphonemic system is to cover as many of them as possible. Moreover, where there is no phonological contrast to possibly cause confusion, using a more typographically recognizable letter for a sound represented by another symbol in the narrow IPA is totally within the confines of the IPA's principles (IPA Handbook, pp. 27–28). In fact, /r/ is arguably the more traditional IPA notation; not only is it used by most if not all dictionaries, but also in Le Maître Phonétique, the predecessor to the Journal of the IPA, which was written entirely in phonetic transcription, ⟨r⟩ was the norm for the English rhotic.

Archives (Index)

1 2 3

This page is archived by ClueBot III.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Description of suggested change: Let articles using this template be added to Category:Pages with English IPA.

Diff:

BigBullfrog (talk) 16:27, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not done for now: The whole point of the category is to surface uses of {{IPA}} for English so they can be converted to IPAc-en, which doesn't need a category because it's for only one language unlike {{IPA}}. This request makes the category useless. Nardog (talk) 11:27, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve opened a discussion on the possibility of introducing superscript symbols to the key. Opening a thread here for any discussions on the technical feasibility of their implementation in the template. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given how /lj/ as in 'lute' is included on the list, why isn't /rj/ as in 'rude' also on the list?

I don't use either in my dialect but, for the sake of objectivity and dialectal neutrality, if one is to be included then the other should be too. 1.126.110.116 (talk) 11:11, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In what accent is rude pronounced with /j/? Nardog (talk) 13:48, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some conservative Welsh accents. Wells (1982) gives the minimal pair 'rheum' (with a yod) vs. 'room' (without a yod). However, all of the examples he gives would be covered by this system's example of /juː/: 'u' in 'cute', but that's also true for all of the examples he gives for /lj/. But as I just pointed out in my own topic, a better example for /lj/ is 'million' - and that's not followed /u/. 1.127.104.240 (talk) 17:10, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's not /juː/ but /ɪʊ/, a diphthong not covered in the guide. It sounds like /ɪ/ followed by /w/, so it doesn't involve even a phonetic [j]. /lj/ doesn't work for "million" as /lj/ patterns with /nj tj dj sj zj/ which occur only before /uː/, sometimes /ʊ/. "Million" has /l/ followed by /j/, so two units by diaphonemic standards. Sol505000 (talk) 15:49, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Welsh accents are conservative. They retain /ɪ/ for the yod, having never shifted it to /j/. It's used in words like chews and threw (as distinct from choose and through). 1.127.110.31 (talk) 21:56, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Choose and chews aren't homophonous for them, yet we transcribe them the same in the diaphonemic system, because it does not account for this difference (nor does any dictionary AFAIK). Nardog (talk) 12:59, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the example word 'spheroidal'? As it's the 'er' part which matters, using 'spheroid' alone would be simpler and easier for most readers to understand. 1.126.109.66 (talk) 17:19, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are two entries that use 'spheroidal' as an example. The stress is probably of little importance for tooltips, but I agree that it would be a good idea to change the ɪəˌr one to something that has only secondary stress in the syllable following it like in 'spheroid' /ˈsfɪəˌrɔɪd/. Ditto for the 'plurality' in ʊəˌr which could be 'plural'. But something with the primary stress there seems better for ɪəˈr and 'spheroidal' /sfɪəˈrɔɪdəl/ works fine. Although it could also be something more common like 'theoretical'. – MwGamera (talk) 23:14, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Theoretical is /ˌθiːə-/. And since we don't use secondary stress after primary stress within the same word, spheroid does not have secondary stress. Plural doesn't have secondary stress even in analyses that permit it, as the last vowel is a weak one. Nardog (talk) 13:50, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, okay. I any case, I don't see any problem with spheroidal for ɪəˈr. But I imagine a word that actually needed the ɪəˌr for its transcription could be a better example of it and it appeared to me OP's spheroid would be one. No idea what I was even thinking when I typed plural. – MwGamera (talk) 19:07, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The non-rhotic /ɪə/ sound in "vehement" /'vɪə̯.mənt/ is missing from this list. Nobody includes the /r/ consonant in that word. It is the r-less form of the NEAR vowel. Some dialects also use it in the word "vehicle". 1.126.109.66 (talk) 17:54, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a problem with this template or its documentation. As described at Help:IPA/English, this sound is transcribed as /iːə/ under the system used here. – MwGamera (talk) 22:20, 27 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The disyllabic sound /iːə/ is clearly a different phoneme to the monosyllabic /ɪə̯/. 1.127.104.240 (talk) 16:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

/iːə/ -> [ɪə] in "vehement" follows the same logic as /aʊə/ -> [aə ~ ɑə] (or [aː ~ ɑː]) in "power". The glide gets dropped and the schwa becomes non-syllabic (or is deleted and the first vowel gets elongated), it's just that the established symbols for /iː/ and /uː/ are wrong, as shown by Geoff Lindsey. They should be transcribed /ɪj ʉw/, where the gliding is shown explicitly. Thus /ˈvɪj.ə.mənt/, which logically precedes [ˈvɪə.mənt], with one syllable less. Sol505000 (talk) 17:30, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the 'li' in 'million' be a better example for /lj/ (i.e. the Voiced palatal lateral approximant) than the 'l' in 'lute'? Lots of people drop the /j/ in 'lute' but nobody drops it in 'million'. 1.127.104.240 (talk) 16:48, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which is exactly why "million" has /l/ + /j/, not the diaphoneme /lj/. It doesn't work as an example. Sol505000 (talk) 16:16, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now I understand what you mean. Thanks. 1.127.110.31 (talk) 21:57, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The description for the Primary Stress symbol says, "primary stress follows". However in IPA, the stress mark 'precedes' the stressed syllable, not follows it. Could the descriptions for the primary and secondary stress symbols be changed to something less ambiguous like, "primary stress mark precedes the stressed syllable"? Sparkie82 (t•c) 16:58, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, go for it! Wolfdog (talk) 18:00, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing as it may be, the intent behind that wording is that a stressed syllable follows the stress mark. I find your suggested wording a bit too wordy. How about something like "primary/secondary stress on the following syllable"? Nardog (talk) 03:24, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like it should be possible to automatically generate respells in this template, which would be a good feature. To borrow sdkb's example from https://en.m.wikipedia.orghttps://demo.azizisearch.com/lite/wikipedia/page/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Pronunciation/Archive_10#h-Automating_Template:Respell_better-2020-12-08T01:44:00.000Z, the most recent discussion of this I could easily find, (and incorporating Nardog's point about syllabification):

I'd think it'd be a simple enough matter to just have {{IPAc-en|ə|.|ˈ|k|ɪ|l|.|iː|z|respell=yes}} → /ə.ˈkɪl.iːz/ ə-KIL-eez than to have to do {{IPAc-en|ə|.|ˈ|k|ɪ|l|.|iː|z}} {{respell|ə|KIL|eez}} → /ə.ˈkɪl.iːz/ ə-KIL-eez. This would help us avoid repeating ourselves, making it easier if we ever decide to e.g. change our pronunciation key. Would anyone be interested in coding the |respell= parameter?

Dingolover6969 (talk) 04:25, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reviving this discussion, @Dingolover6969! I still think this would be an excellent feature to develop if anyone has the time and technical knowhow. Sdkb ^talk 04:39, 10 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]