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Grammatical error in title

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There is more than 1 chart in this article so its title should be International Phonetic Alphabet charts for English dialects rather than the singular chart.

1.126.109.57 (talk) 17:16, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd argue that it is confusing to use the phrase 'International Phonetic Alphabet chart(s)' to refer to this article, as an IPA chart shows places and manners of articulation etc. and doesn't make distinctions between different languages. I think we should rename the article to something like 'Cross-dialectal Phonology of English', which is much clearer and actually describes what the article is about. The current title sounds like it describes an International Phonetic Alphabet chart that only uses English phones, which is way off. Citation unneeded (talk) 15:06, 27 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
forked to here Citation unneeded (talk) 13:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Dialect abbreviations in comments?

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I want to propose the addition of comments to the markup of at least the vowel chart to make it easier to find cells that editors are trying to edit. For example, the first few non-header cell of the vowel chart, which are currently: 

| colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" />
| rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}}
| colspan="2" |eə~ɛə

would instead become: 

| colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯ <-- AAVE -->
| colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" /> <-- Boston -->
| rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}} <-- Cajun -->
| colspan="2" |eə~ɛə <-- California -->

or: 

| <-- AAVE --> colspan="2" |ɛː~ɛə̯~eə̯
| <-- Boston --> colspan="2" | {{IPA|ɪə̯~eə̯~ɛɐ̯}}<ref name="shortatensing" />
| <-- Cajun --> rowspan="4" |{{IPA link|æ}}
| <-- California --> colspan="2" |eə~ɛə

As a related but separate proposal, I would find it helpful to include tags indicating the rows with the example word from the rightmost column; the first row, currently |-, would become |- <-- ham --> (or maybe |- <-- HAM -->).

Do other editors think these changes would make the current markup/code easier to use or more difficult? (I would of course volunteer to take on this effort; I'm not trying to propose more work for someone else.) -Literally Satan (talk) 21:03, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Less DEI please

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This page should be restricted to varieties of English with an educational basis. African voiceless lateral sounds and dialects from non-native countries do not belong here.

124.169.158.113 (talk) 13:56, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wider than tall

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The table as shown in the article is a lot wider than it is tall. Would it not be a better idea to reorient the table vertically, so that the dialects are at the left and the diaphonemes are at the top and bottom? It would still be too wide for many people's screens, but at least not by as much as the table is now. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rename page to be more logical

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Mainly reiterating my comment here. The current title is unintuitive and confusing. It suggests that the page is an International Phonetic Alphabet chart that only uses English phones, like the ones on English phonology but for many more dialects. What this page actually does is show the differences between the phonologies of different dialects of English (i.e. Cross-dialectal English phonology). Renaming it this also gets rid of the debate about whether it should be 'chart' or 'charts'. Citation unneeded (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's not very descriptive of the article. English phonology (and other ones like Australian English phonology) is already cross-dialectal, and little of this article is about phonology. Nardog (talk) 19:34, 6 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point. What about 'Phonetic realizations of English'? Citation unneeded (talk) 08:20, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
or just 'English phonetics' to contrast with 'English phonology'. Either way, surely something like this is better than the existing title? Citation unneeded (talk) 08:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 4 October 2024

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: move the page to Sound correspondences among English accents at this time, per the discussion below. I have used "among" rather than "between" according to generally accepted usage, but if any participant considers this a supervote, please feel free to move to Sound correspondences between English accents without consulting with me beforehand. Dekimasuよ! 03:45, 13 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects → English phonetics – The current title suggests the current page is an International Phonetic Alphabet chart limited to English phones, like the ones on English phonology but for many more dialects, while the page actually details the specific phonetic realizations of different English dialects. I suggest renaming it to English phonetics to contrast with English phonology, or else Phonetic realizations of English (though that title is less consise). Citation unneeded (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Making the Vowels section clearer and more useful

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The purpose of the Vowels section is to allow centralized referencing of the phonetic qualities (or 'sounds' if you prefer) of the vowels in English accents, thereby facilitating comparison. Currently, the section uses the table merge function

1) to demonstrate the splits and mergers within and between each accent's lexical sets,

2) to group together accents with the same realization for the same lexical sets and

3) to allow quick referencing of all shared mergers between accents, even when the realizations are different.

The current system is broadly effective at achieving these goals, but is ultimately flawed both because the table doesn't allow for exhaustive comparison (1, 2) and because its formatting makes it difficult to extract the information you're searching for (3). Namely, it fails to be completely exhaustive

at 1) because it is impossible to order the lexical sets in a table so that each is adjacent to all the other sets that it merges with (e.g. KIT should reflect its mergers with commA, happY and DRESS but it can only go next to two of them),

at 2) because accents which have the same realization in the same lexical set are often not directly next to each other on the table (e.g. Conservative RP and Cultivated SAE both have [æ] for TRAP, but this comparison cannot be neatly shown on the table and at present requires sideways scrolling that isn't suited to any device and only shows one of the two accents at a time).

at 3) because the current way to do this is to locate the two rows which you want to observe (hopefully next to each other) and scan across the different columns to find the right correspondence, which is needlessly complicated and fiddly (a result of the table being far too large to use or edit effectively; just try adding a new column to the left of the first one and watch how all the merged cells break).

I suggest rewriting the article so that there is a subheading in the Vowels section for each diaphoneme/lexical set. Within each of these, there would be a table with three groups of columns (rather than rows as scrolling down is better than scrolling across): the name of the accent (and its family), its realization of that lexical set (and splits or allophonic contrasts e.g. fur-fir-fern for NURSE) and any mergers it has with other lexical sets. My method has the advantage of being both easier to read and displaying much more information. It solves the problems of both 1) and 3), as well as reducing the severity of 2), since the sectioning off of different diaphonemes makes it much easier to navigate within one. Of course the major drawback is that it would increase the size of the article by quite a bit, but I'd argue that's worth it if it would make the article clearer and more useful.

For an example, see this section in my sandbox which compares the current system to my proposed one for the TRAP vowel. Let me know what you think! Citation unneeded (talk) 20:36, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am strongly supportive of this, in principle. The present chart is extremely cumbersome, due do its vast width making it difficult to find the information you are searching for, and makes comparing two accents very awkward if they are not close enough in the table to be displayed on-screen at the same time. It is also an absolute nightmare to edit, such much so that I have some edits that I have been meaning to make for a long time, but haven't managed to complete because of the complexity of the cell merging.
Queries and comments about your proposed new version:
  • How, if at all, do you propose to handle conditioned mergers (pin-pen, fool-fall, marry-merry etc)? I note that the current table doesn't contain rows for the "checked vowel before /r/" diaphonemes (/ær/, /ɛr/, /ɪr/, /ɒr/, /ʌr/, /ʊr/), do you think they could/should be incorporated? If so, where (given that Wells (unfortunately, in my view) defined the words as belonging to the "general" checked vowel lexical sets, so /ær/ words like marry were defined as TRAP, etc)?
  • How do you propose to handle the complexity of phonemic /æ/ raising in New York City and Philadelphia in relation to the TRAP and BATH lexical sets? The word pattern of the [æ]-[ɛə] split is similar to the RP trap-bath split, there are some differences. While virtually all BATH words are [ɛə] (if there's any exceptions, and I don't know of any, it will be a small enough number to just ignore), the TRAP set is split between [æ] and [ɛə] in both accents' systems. For example fan, lamb, stand, gas, mad are all TRAP words with [ɛə] in both NYC and Philly, and in NYC bag, grab, flash, sad are also [ɛə]. If you want to treat their [ɛə] as equivalent to BATH and [æ] as equivalent to TRAP, and just consider it to have a somewhat larger BATH set than RP (just as Australian English has a somewhat smaller BATH set than RP), I'm not necessarily opposed to that, as there is a lot of variation among about what gets assigned to which set and we can't list all of it in the table, but I just thought I'd flag it. Maybe inserting some notes would be a good idea here (also with Australian English's smaller BATH set), rather than making the table more complicated.
  • How will you indicate variable mergers in the "Merged or split-from sets" column(s) (e.g. cot-caught in General American)?
  • Some Welsh English, i.e. South Wales, does have the trap-bath split. Though, relating to the above, I'm not sure if each individual variety should be described as "variable" or not.
  • Your chart shows Conservative as not having the Trap-bath split, when in fact it does!
  • I do have some concerns about how the lexical sets with a more complex set of possible mergers and intra-set divisions (e.g. CURE, NURSE) will look on the chart. Let's face it, the CURE lexical set would not exist in the form Wells created it if the lexical sets were being created today as opposed to 45 years ago.
Offa29 (talk) 01:02, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm so glad you agree! I also have a few edits I want to to carry out but can't. As to your comments:
  • For conditioned mergers, I imagine that the subset (say pen) which has merged with the main set (KIT) would be listed in the "Merged or split-from sets" columns with a link or a note[i] (I prefer a straightforward link) explaining its inclusion. Having DRESS there would be misleading as it is not a KIT-DRESS merger. In the DRESS section, pen would be listed in the "Internal splits and allophonic contrasts" columns (because its realization would be different to the rest of the set) but there would be no mention of a merger in the "Merged or split-from sets" columns, because the separation of the pen column would already convey that information. Accordingly, for the rare sets where two subsets from different sets form a new relaization together (are there even any?), the second method would be applied to both. I've made a new section to illustrate this here.
    • As for the the "checked vowel before /r/" diaphonemes, I wonder why we don't treat all the "before /r/" diaphonemes as conditioned in the same way we might fool-fall. I think the inconsistency of seeing "START" as distinct but not "MARRy" is a little strange, but I think I lean more towards collapsing them than to separating them. Though I'm wary of WP:OR, surely that would be less like making an unattested analysis and more like merging some very related sets in the name of concision? Perhaps it's best to stick to Wells's analysis. I'd value others' opinions on this.
  • I think variations in the size of the mergers can be ignored for the most part, though it might be helpful to add notes. We still treat those sets as BATH and TRAP even if they aren't exactly, like how some accents with the bad–lad_split don't actually pronounce lad with the vowel of its group. I agree that we should try to keep the table as simple as possible, so best to just have a note.
  • For partial or variable mergers, I think we can make use of the {{Mby}} Orange tickY template alongside the {{aye}} Green tickY and {{nay}} Red XN templates (changed from checkY and ☒N so they're the same size). Where we're talking about groups inside one lexical set, I think the best thing is to show them as merged and add a note.
  • Welsh: I was just transposing the information from the existing version of the page. If you've got a source, feel free to change it!
  • Conservative RP: Oops. Fixed now.
  • I think one thing that's clear from looking at this article (and my old attempt at reformatting it in this old section of my sandbox) is that many of Wells's classifications are a little innacurate nowadays. However, deviating too much from his list would lead to confusion.
    • I think the easiest thing to do for CURE is to treat all the /j-/ ones (DUE) as if they can merge freely with the CURE ones (so we can show where the vowels converge and diverge), but with a note at the top saying that they all have /j-/ in front of them, unless otherwise indicated. The cells with something else (like /ɪ-/ for some Welsh accents) can be split off and given a note.
    • I designed the new layout with NURSE in mind. All you have to do to show the accents without the Nurse nergers is create columns in the "Internal splits and allophonic contrasts" part of the table. I think you may have been aluding to more, but I'm not sure what.
What I've done in the current version of the table is lay it out so that any mergers happen to the column on the far right, because I can't find any examples of sets splitting internally and then different parts merging with different sets; it seems to me that what generally happens is that one realization becomes the "merger" realization and all the mergers happen off it. Exceptions to this rule can simply be flagged with a note.
Please let me know if you disagree with me about anything or want me to clarify further. I think this is a good start to what could be a seriously useful reform of this article.
  1. ^ see pin–pen merger
Citation unneeded (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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