Talk:Sierra Nevada

Major update

The edits by the IP editor on May 30, 2010 add some useful material, but also negatively impact the formatting of the article, and also I believe the writing. I will copy the current version of the article to /Temp and revert the edit. I will start to work on /Temp: all other editors are welcome to work on that version, too. When we reach a version we are happy with, we can replace the article contents. —hike395 (talk) 07:19, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm finished with editing /Temp for today. Other editors: feel free to improve it further. —hike395 (talk) 09:38, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I've copied the version from /Temp back into the main article. There have been a number of changes:

• I wrote a new lede (a three-paragraph summary of the rest of the article)
• Geography section somewhat compressed: some details were sent to the infobox by anon editor
• Table of road passes sent to their own list article (to make this article more prose-filled)
• Sections re-ordered
• Ecology section compressed: list of species deleted (still in Ecology of the Sierra Nevada)
• History section expanded
  • Anon editor added more material
  • I added section on 20th century protection from development
• Pictures re-arranged, some dropped, some added
• See also and external links compressed: links incorporated into main text by anon editor

As usual, everyone is free to improve on the article directly, or please add your comments here. Is there still missing material? I'm thinking we need a section on economic activity/tourism, and perhaps one on mountaineering.

Happy editing! —hike395 (talk) 10:47, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Later: User:71.219.171.61 has some good feedback on the article (inline questions as HTML), I'll investigate the 1542 evidence, and other clarifications.

User:71.219.171.61 may not be familiar with the guidelines of writing a wikipedia article, however. Note that WP:LEAD states that the lede should be a stand-alone summary of the whole article. Therefore, it is OK to include the same information in the lede and in the infobox, or in the lede and in the whole article. Also note that WP:SEEALSO states: Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question. Having a link to Sierra Nevada-Great Valley Block in See Also does not require the Geology section to describe it.

I'll get to work on clarifying —hike395 (talk) 18:43, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

During editing:

• {{Wide image}} is needed to properly format a large image for smaller displays. Note that WP:IMGSIZE directs us to not have images directly included larger than 500px. MOS:IMAGES directs us to use {{Wide image}}.
• MOS:IMAGES also directs us to put images in the section that is most relevant: I moved the photo of General Sherman down to the conservation section, next to discussion of logging of Giant Sequoia.
• There is no reliable, commonly-agreed upon "lowest" part of a mountain range. That parameter to the geobox is meant for other geographical features.
• The Yosemite Online Library is a valuable source of public domain books/documents about the whole Sierra (despite its name). It's maintained by Dan Anderson.

Dear Anon Editor: are you reading this discussion page? If so, please indicate here. I have been addressing your concerns (e.g., I put a page number in for the 1912 date), but you reverted my edits and put back several of the notifications that my edit had addressed. Further, some of my edits are to make the article obey Wikipedia guidelines, but you revert those changes.

I left some notes as HTML comments on the article (a very poor practice, because it is impossible to add wikilinks and keep track of who is saying what). Let's confine our discussion here.

Other editors: I'm getting somewhat frustrated at the difficulty in cooperating with the Anon editor. Judging from the edit comments and the HTML comments left by the Anon editor, I think he/she may have an issue with my edits. I would welcome other editors to come in and help with some of these issues. Thanks!

--- —hike395 (talk) 01:49, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I don't think I can work with Anon Editor, keep my cool, and have a productive collaborative editing session. He/she is saying I'm making "false claims" in the edit summary. I cannot get him to discuss on the talk page: he keeps wanting to use HTML comments. I try and fix his concerns, but then he reverts the fixes and reposts the concerns. For example, he labeled "northern Sierra" as ambiguous in the Geologic History section. I did a bunch of research, cleaned up the section, removed the offending "ambiguous" phrase, and added references: that should have addressed the concern. He promptly restores the sentence with his concern again.

In previous edit disputes, I've seen some editors personalize a dispute with a single other editor. That's very likely to be happening here. It's not healthy for an article to simply ping-pong unproductively between two editors. There's no deadline: I'm willing to step back for a while and see if consensus will build without me.

—hike395 (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

I've undone the last anon edit and removed the hidden comments. Discussion should be here not in hidden comments. The anon needs to discuss here and focus on content - avoiding the comments about other editors. To that end I've semi-protected the article for a couple weeks. Vsmith (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Restoring deleted information

In the editing back-and-forth on 30 May-1 June, some information was deleted. I also believe that the format and writing of the article suffered. I will fix what I perceive as the problems, and keep track of the fixes, below. If other editors disagree, then can comment here or continue to improve the article directly.

• Sequoia picture causes bunching, moved down to conservation section, where it is more topical
• Infobox width: removed (50-80), no units specified
• Infobox lowest: lowest part of Lower Montane Forest does not correspond to lowest part of range (an ambiguous concept). No RS: deleted
• Infobox period: changed to Mesozoic --- most of the granite dates to the Cretaceous, but not all
• Restored parenthetical translation to first sentence (redundancy with infobox is OK)
• Mention of ecology and geology from lede restored
• Geography: restore paragraphs describing boundaries of range
• Geography: convert bullet list of summit peaks back into prose paragraph, eliminate subsection
• Move list article wlinks back into See Also section (rather than somewhat artificial see also in different section)
• History: restore facts (Fremont saw Lake Tahoe, legislature authorized California Geological Survey)
• Protected areas: clarify that 15.4% are protected from logging, rather than the total area of all of the parks/wildernesses (somewhat different)

I shall go back and add more relevant photos to the article: the editing seemed to remove a number of them. Also, the Anon editor raised some valid points in his/her last edit, which I will attempt to address, if these edits reach consensus. Thanks! —hike395 (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts, hike395. For me, it is important that when someone who wants to make major revisions to an article that many editors have worked on, that editor (anonymous or not) explains their rationale for changes, participates in open discussion about the changes, and accepts consensus decisions. Cullen328 (talk) 15:25, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry for being late: It looks like Vsmith has given Hike some breathing room by semi-protecting the article. If the Anon comes back and acts in the same way, you can email me and I'll try to help. I tend to only edit Wikipedia during the weekends now, so comments on my talk page during the week may languish until the weekend. Sorry about that. --mav (reviews needed) 13:23, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Plural in the name?

The name is singular Sierra Nevada, so therefore "the Sierra Nevada". However are they known as the Sierra Nevadas with an "s"? Other mountain ranges are plural such as the Alps, the Himalayas or the Appalachians? Can this not be the case here?109.151.101.18 (talk) 09:56, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Strictly, no: "Sierra Nevada" means "snowy mountain range" or "snowy saw teeth" in Spanish. "Nevada" means "snowy". So, Sierra Nevadas would mean "snowys mountain range". See [1] Colloquially, people do use "Sierra Nevadas", but that is minority usage.[2]

More strictly, never: since "Sierra" means range, the real question is how many ranges comprise the Sierra Nevada. The geologic answer is one. The Sierra is but a single, huge, block of granite that forms a single range of mountains from north to south. This article is inconsistent, using both the singular and plural forms throughout. It really should be cleaned up to use the term "Sierra" and "Sierra Nevada" exclusively.DRLWorthington (talk) 18:45, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I only found one plural usage in the article, which I just fixed. If you see any others (other than in the infobox, which lists plural usage as alternative names), please feel free to fix them. —hike395 (talk) 02:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Note, too, that "Himalaya" is the strictly correct term for the montain range. The singular (mountain) form is "Himal". There has been a fair amount of controversy over the article title of Himalayas, see Talk:Himalayas —hike395 (talk) 06:09, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a very old conversation, but I do think it's notable that English speakers tend to say "the Sierra Nevadas". Perhaps there is something to be researched and cited to see if this counts as a case of American English. RobotGoggles (talk) 08:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 20 April 2020

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: Clear consensus to move buidhe 00:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

---

• Sierra Nevada → Sierra Nevada (disambiguation)
• Sierra Nevada (U.S.) → Sierra Nevada

– Per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.

Averaged over the past ~5 years (the earliest data in the pageviews tool), this article has more than twice as many page views as the articles for all other Sierra Nevada mountain ranges combined.

Average monthly pageviews:

• 41,957 – Sierra Nevada (U.S.) (73.7%)
• 8,641 – Sierra Nevada (Spain) (15.2%)
• 3,615 – Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (6.3%)
• 2,128 – Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (3.7%)
• 320 – Sierra Nevada de Mérida (0.6%)
• 154 – Sierra Nevada (stratovolcano) (0.3%)
• 141 – Sierra Nevada de Lagunas Bravas (0.2%)
• 56,956 total

Number of backlinks in article namespace:

• 3,675 – Sierra Nevada (U.S.) (75.7%)
• 410 – Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (8.4%)
• 363 – Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (7.5%)
• 336 – Sierra Nevada (Spain) (6.9%)
• 43 – Sierra Nevada de Mérida (0.9%)
• 19 – Sierra Nevada (stratovolcano) (0.4%)
• 11 – Sierra Nevada de Lagunas Bravas (0.2%)
• 4,857 total

When I did a Google search for "Sierra Nevada", all the first page web results were either for the mountain range in California and Nevada or for the various US companies that derive their name from that mountain range. When I did a search from Madrid, Spain in Bing (which lets you change your search location), the same thing happened.

The article for macOS Sierra, which is listed on the Sierra Nevada dab page, does get a similar amount of pageview traffic to Sierra Nevada (U.S.). However, very few people are searching for that OS as "Sierra Nevada" instead of "Sierra", so it is hard to imagine many of those pageviews coming from this dab page in particular.

References

• Support as proposer. CJK09 (talk) 01:24, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support --- one more data point: in Google Scholar, "Sierra Nevada" California = 277,000 results vs. "Sierra Nevada" Spain = 58,100 results. — hike395 (talk) 01:58, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support Rreagan007 (talk) 04:18, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Seems reasonable but I would like to take time to hear from some contributors from Spain. --Trovatore (talk) 04:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support The mountain range in Spain is also important, but our readers are predominantly English-speaking and this is what they would most likely expect to see by a significant margin. Note that if the RM is rejected, the U.S. range needs to be moved to Sierra Nevada (United States), which is the typical way we write the name of the country except in special circumstances, such as "U.S. TV series" (formerly; now superseded by "American TV series") and "U.S. state" (since "United States state" would just be really awkward). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:29, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Schazjmd (talk) 14:25, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support per all; it's really hard to say that one mountain range has more significance than another, so it's fine to just follow page views. I think this is only going to be controversial for nationalists; I'd like to think that if pageviews were reversed, we'd allow for Spain's range to be primary topic. Sorry for the Spaniards here, but vuestros antepasados debieron ser más creativos en cuanto a nombrar las cordilleras. Red Slash 21:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

  Incidentally, Americans allow UK to have the primary topic on Channel Islands (over Channel Islands (California)) despite outnumbering them 5:1. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  The Channel Islands in the English Channel have much more long-term significance, a much larger population and much more coverage! So not comparing like with like. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. Move to Sierra Nevada (United States), but the Spanish range has just as much long-term significance. This being English Wikipedia is utterly irrelevant as to which is more significant. It may be more more significant to Americans, but not to Europeans (which does have quite a few English speakers, you know, and many of us are even native English speakers!). -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment If this is not moved to Sierra Nevada, then it should be moved to Sierra Nevada (United States) per WP:NCA. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:02, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

---

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.

Pronunciation

Sol505000 changed the IPA pronuciation of "Nevada" from be from "Nuh-vada" to "Nih-vada" (from the "uh" sound in "abbot" to the "ih" sound in "kit"). The edit comment was:

1. See note 42 in Help:IPA/English
2. The two vowels are the same in American English

The problem with this edit is

1. There is no note 42 in Help:IPA/English
2. Native American English speakers pronounce abbot differently than kit

I would like to restore the original IPA. Comments? — hike395 (talk) 19:53, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I also am unconvinced by the substitution of /ɪ/; that sounds wrong to me.

That said, "abbot" vs "kit" is not an adequate refutation, because when saying they're the same in American English, Sol505000 is referring to the so-called weak vowel merger. Those of us with the merger typically do not make much distinction among reduced vowels in unstressed syllables. That doesn't apply to "kit"; monosyllabic words are typically treated according to the same rules as stressed syllables.

Just the same, it would sound weird to me to hear a speaker (at least a speaker with a GA accent) pronounce it /nɪˈvædə/. --Trovatore (talk) 20:15, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I also agree with restoring the original IPA. As a resident of the Sierra Nevada, it also seems to me that /ni .../ is not the accurate representation of the pronunciation.

It's probably also worth noting that said user also made the change on the page for the state of Nevada and provided a differing reason there. Said reason there seems to be based on the Spanish language pronunciation, which the American pronunciation has drifted significantly away from. Crescent77 (talk) 22:32, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

There are thousands of transcriptions with word-internal /ə/ (that is also morpheme-internal) that are also "wrong" when you apply literal reading of the IPA symbols and you speak American English. "Las Vegas" //lɑːs ˈveɪɡəs// is [lɑs ˈveɪɡɨs] in AmE. American [lɑs ˈveɪɡəs] would be //lɑːs ˈveɪɡʌs// in our system (with all of the vowels being full/unreduced), or at least ambiguous between that and the former. In RP //ə// is really [ə] and //ʌ// can only be [ʌ] or [ɐ], so that "Las Vegas" //læs ˈveɪɡəs// (with the TRAP vowel) is [læs ˈveɪɡəs] (you could get [las ˈveːɡɐs] in Geordie, which is about as far away as you can get from RP in England. That's still //-əs// in our system, obviously, due to the lack of the foot-strut split). Our transcriptions are neither phonetic nor phonemic but diaphonemic. The initial syllable of "Nevada" is pronounced /nɪ/ in conservative RP and therefore the correct diaphoneme is //ɪ//. For many if not most speakers, this will actually be /ə/ in the syllable-final position immediately before stress just as //hw// is /w/ in most dialects.

My edits regarding the Spanish pronunciation of "Nevada" have nothing to do with the weak vowel merger but the pronunciation of the first ⟨a⟩. Sol505000 (talk) 01:38, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Are you under the impression that our transcriptions privilege conservative RP? I don't think that's true at all, or at least should not be true. --Trovatore (talk) 01:47, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

That's not my impression, it's literally what the guide says. It tells us not to transcribe the weak vowel merger at all. Brits can also complain about the US pronunciation of "Las Vegas" being transcribed as /lɑːs ˈveɪɡəs/ and not /lɑːs ˈveɪɡɪs/, which is how they hear it (unstressed /ɪ/ spelled ⟨a⟩ is exceptional, IIRC, and occurs only in words that had /aː/ in that position before the Great Vowel Shift, such as "orange"). This is why we need the double slashes: //lɑːs ˈveɪɡəs// for the US pron, //læs ˈveɪɡəs// for the UK pron. The only diaphonemic difference here is in how the A in "Las" is pronounced: in the US it gets the usual PALM vowel, whereas in the UK it gets the usual TRAP vowel, both reflecting how the foreign ⟨a⟩ is treated in the respective dialect. The American schwa/schwi is close in the morpheme-internal word-internal position and mid elsewhere, AFAIK. It's an allophonic difference, for the most part. Sol505000 ( talk) 01:48, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It is always amazing to me how long and detailed and technical these debates about minor pronunciation variations can be. I am not an IPA guy. I am a guy who was born in Michigan but has lived in California for 51 years. I started visiting the Sierra Nevada in 1975 and have spent many months deep in its wilderness over the years. I am an old mountaineer who spent time around with great climbers who talk about these mountains with great reverence. I now live in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in Nevada County, California. The fact is that some people say "Nuhvada" and some people say "Nehvada", and nobody has any problem with either pronunciation, and nobody argues about it or misunderstands. The pronunciation is the same, whether discussing the mountain range or the state where gambling is the main industry. The entire issue is so utterly trivial that electrons should not be wasted on it. In the real world, nobody cares. But people do care about "Sierra Nevadas", as Ansel Adams fans are well aware. Cullen328 (talk) 06:31, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

As a former resident of Nevada County currently living in the Sierra(s) closer to the state of Nevada, folks do argue about a pronunciation difference, but it's whether the second syllable is æ or a:. With the mountains, both are accepted, with the state it's generally only the former residents find acceptable. WP does seem to have that covered. Crescent77 (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Instead of a long and technical debate, I think we should follow standard WP procedure in case of a factual dispute, and consult reliable sources. I consulted four different online dictionaries:

1. Merriam-Webster --- nə-ˈva-də
2. Britannica --- /siˌerənəˈvædə/ /siˌerənəˈvɑːdə/
3. Collins (American English) --- siˈɛrə nəˈvædə ; siˈɛrə nəˈvɑdə
4. Dictionary.com --- siˈɛr ə nəˈvæd ə, -ˈvɑ də

In all cases, these RSes use a schwa ə. The possible source of the dispute is that Collins says that it's sɪˈɛərə nɪˈvɑːdə in British English. Since the mountain range is in the US, I believe we should use the American pronunciation, per MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN.

I really think we need to revert to the schwa ə. — hike395 (talk) 14:14, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree, the WP guidelines Sol505000 references leave much open for interpretation, following the reliable sources is much more WP appropriate. Crescent77 (talk) 19:32, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary gives both /ə/ and /ɪ/ in the first syllable and recommends the latter for RP (so the pronunciation is not limited to Conservative RP - Wells would not recommend it in that case). Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary gives both but recommends the pronunciation with /ə/ for both dialects. The correct diaphoneme is clearly //ɪ//.

A local consensus here does not override MOS:DIAPHONEMIC. We've been through this before on Melbourne and other pages. Per Help:IPA/English, //ɪ// is always distinguished from //ə// in unstressed syllables per note 24 and 35. Americans should interpret //ɪ// in this position as their /ə/. Sol505000 (talk) 20:34, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

None of the sources you provide show clear support for your position. Crescent77 (talk) 21:29, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

They do. An unstressed /ɪ/ in the British pronunciation (or one British pronunciation) that corresponds to /ə/ in the American pronunciation is our //ɪ// diaphoneme. Sol505000 (talk) 21:41, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Wow, that's a perplexing response. You seem to be indicating you have nothing to support your position. Why are you pushing for the change? Crescent77 (talk) 21:46, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I am not indicating that though? Sol505000 (talk) 21:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay, I'm on mobile so it's hot easy to edit to match your edits, so I'll just continue the thread. So who are you referencing when tou say "our"? Crescent77 (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Help:IPA/English, obviously. Sol505000 (talk) 21:50, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It's not obvious when it's not stated in the comment itself, and the previous comment references multiple different locations. Crescent77 (talk) 21:53, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Help:IPA/English is the only IPA guide on Wikipedia that deals with diaphonemes rather than phones (actual sounds) themselves. I thought it was clear. Sol505000 (talk) 22:23, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

And it says the two are interchangeable. I don't understand why you're pushing one over the other, when both references and consensus suggest the opposite. Crescent77 (talk) 22:49, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Where does it say that? Sol505000 (talk) 22:50, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

The key shows a schwa as acceptable, with no notes suggesting otherwise. Note 35 says the 2 are not distinguished in certain circumstances, but does not advise against the use of schwa. I don't see anything saying we're required to replace the schwa with the i, which if I understand correctly, is what you seem to be indicating. Crescent77 (talk) 23:06, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

It does. It clearly tells us to use ⟨ɪ⟩ whenever RP and GA diverge and the latter uses a schwa to the exclusion of /ɪ/. Sol505000 (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Where? Please reference that. Crescent77 (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

You reference where it says that ⟨ə⟩ can be used in this context. Sol505000 (talk) 23:17, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

The key at the top of the IPA guide.. The references hike395 provided. Crescent77 (talk) 23:40, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Just to ask, your responses are confusing, are you a native English speaker? Crescent77 (talk) 21:51, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

That is not relevant to this discussion. Sol505000 (talk) 22:12, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

No offense intended, you don't need to answer

I'm just trying to give you a chance to explain yourself and support your point of view so I better understand it. Your suggestion seems to be based purely on a personal subjective interpretation of a vague guideline, the issue being hat both consensus and references support the opposite.

You seem to operating in good faith, have thought about this alot, and have a strong conviction you are making a positive change. I'd like to believe you are making the correct interpretation and be able support your efforts, but with Wikipedia we need you to make arguments supported by references and guidelines. No offense, but you're kind of all over the place. Your opening statement references notes than don't exist, and your arguments haven't had clear support from references nor guidelines since. I'm just trying to give you a chance to better explain yourself, because at this point it seems a revert of your edit is the WP appropriate thing to do. Crescent77 (talk) 22:59, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I can't see how my interpretation is subjective or how the guideline is vague. Maybe you just don't understand it? Sol505000 (talk) 23:05, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand it, my issue is that I'm not so sure you to do either .

If you have a reference showing clear support for your specific change, please copypaste the specific wording showing so. Linkspam to general guidelines full of material unrelated to the discussion at hand are not helpful. Crescent77 (talk) 23:11, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

If you don't understand the Help:IPA/English guide then this discussion should be ended. Sol505000 (talk) 23:20, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

I understand the guide, what I don't understand is how you are using it as a justification for your change. I need you to reference the specific phrasing in that guide supporting your change, which you have failed to do upon previous requests.

If you wish to end the discussion here, feel free to do so, but please undertand, at this point, it seems pretty clear that a revison to schwa is in order. Crescent77 (talk) 23:39, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

You clearly don't understand the guide. If you did, you'd know that the weak vowel in rabbit, bizarre, Latin, usually spelled with ⟨i⟩ or ⟨e⟩, is the diaphoneme we're discussing here. Per guide, the only allowed transcription of that vowel is ⟨ɪ⟩. regardless of how it is realized in any specific dialect. Help:IPA/English deals with diaphonemes, not sounds per se.

I am just going to repeat that a local consensus here does not override MOS:DIAPHONEMIC. I will revert any changes to a schwa symbol. Sol505000 (talk) 23:50, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

A consensus most certainly does, that's how WP operates. Please reconsider your position, your comment suggests an intent to violate the Wikipedia:Edit warring policy which could result in block. Crescent77 (talk) 00:01, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

No, it does not. If you want to change MOS:DIAPHONEMIC you can go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation and make your case there. If you want to change the guide, go to Help talk:IPA/English. This discussion here has no bearing on either of them. Sol505000 (talk) 00:04, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Please review Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines as well as Wikipedia:Five pillars. Crescent77 (talk) 00:17, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style. "This Manual of Style (MoS or MOS) is the style manual for all English Wikipedia articles (though provisions related to accessibility apply across the entire project, not just to articles)." MOS:DIAPHONEMIC is not mentioned there but MOS:PRON is. MOS:DIAPHONEMIC is a mere subsection of that. Sol505000 (talk) 00:29, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Please review the material I suggested. Note that WP:MOS is a guideline, whereas WP:Consensus is a policy. Crescent77 (talk) 00:37, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

A consensus based on a lack of understanding of Help:IPA/English and MOS:DIAPHONEMIC is not valid. You have shown your lack of understanding of the guide so I consider this conversation to be over. Sol505000 (talk) 00:41, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately it looks like you also need to review Wikipedia:No personal attacks. Crescent77 (talk) 01:18, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

OK, everybody, let's take a deep breath. People are getting entrenched into emotional positions that aren't going to be helpful in the long run.

Sol505000, you're coming across a bit imperious here. It would be productive to dial it back a little.

My fellow Americans, I can understand the frustration at having someone come tell us we have to write a symbol meaning the "ih" sound in our pronunciation key, when we can hear the "ih" sound but just don't say it that way. But consider on the other side: We consistently transcribe the diphthong in "out" as /aʊ/, whereas RP speakers would say /ɛʊ/. They can hear the difference between that and /aʊ/, but just don't say it (the latter) way. Similarly for r's after vowels.

This diaphonemic scheme is pretty complicated but does seem to be designed to preserve information as best possible. If you know the details and have a pronunciation key from the scheme, you can accurately predict the pronunciation in a wide variety of accents. It's a fair criticism that the learning burden required to do that is high. --Trovatore (talk) 01:04, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the constructive input.

I'm still trying to understand Sol's viewpoint, do you agree with them? What do you understand to be the appropriate symbology in this situation? Crescent77 (talk) 01:15, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the idea goes something like this: Although those of us with the weak vowel merger can hear the difference between /nɪˈvædə/ and /nəˈvædə/, we shouldn't be misled by it, because we don't distinguish /ɪ/ from /ə/ phonemically in unstressed syllables. That is, there's no pair of words with different meanings, where we would understand one of them if it used /ɪ/ in an unstressed syllable, and the other if it used /ə/.

On the other hand, RP speakers do use it distinctively even in unstressed syllables ("Lenin" vs "Lennon"), and therefore might be misled, given that they would specifically say /nɪˈvædə/.

(As an aside, I'm not really so sure that Americans don't distinguish "Lenin" from "Lennon" the same way, at least in careful speech, which is a possible flaw here.)

As for preferred typology — I'm not sure. The /nɪˈvædə/ strikes me as odd enough in GA that it might make sense to call it out as a specifically UK pronunciation, but in fairness note the point about the "out" diphthong I raised above.

On a related note, at some point the use of the reduced-vowel version /ᵻ/ seems to have been deprecated in our pronunciation keys. I'm not sure that was a great decision. But it wouldn't help much here, because as far as I'm aware there is no common American pronunciation of "Nevada" that uses [ᵻ]. --Trovatore (talk) 05:31, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the whole point is that the distinction between //ɪ// and //ə// in unstressed syllables applies only to those speakers that do not have the weak vowel merger. Therefore, we need to follow British sources on that because the distinction is as British as the distinction between //ɒ// and //ɑː//.

The fact that even RP speakers can use /ə/ in the first syllable of "Nevada" is no reason for a separate transcription. There's thousands of words in which this is the case (yet, other words, such as "rabbit", are heard only with an unstressed /ɪ/ in RP: /ˈræbɪt/, not */ˈræbət/). Modern RP features a partial merger that is particularly resisted in some environments (/ɪd/ in "batted" /ˈbæt#ɪd/ is typically distinguished from /əd/ in battered /ˈbætə#d/. ⟨#⟩ marks a morpheme boundary here. Non-rhotic Americans with the merger (as in older New York City English but not Boston or Southern American English) also distinguish the two (cf. "roses" /ˈroʊz#əz/, [ˈroʊzɨz] vs. "Rosa's" /ˈroʊzə#z/, [ˈroʊzəz]), but they rhyme "rabbit" /ˈræbət/, [ˈræbɨt] with "abbot" /ˈæbət/, [ˈæbɨt] which RP speakers do not. That's the weak vowel merger: the vowel is closer to /ɪ/ in some environments and to /ə/ in others, which is sadly not reflected in most dictionaries, which give /ɪ/ in some words and /ə/ in others not according to how the merged vowel really sounds in AmE (which would make the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ far more common than it is now and the difference between /ə/ and /ʌ/ could be scrapped for AmE) but according to the RP distribution (more or less) which makes zero sense (nor do they consistently use ⟨ə⟩ for the merged vowel: batting is /ˈbætəŋ/ in AmE, not /ˈbætɪŋ/, because /ə/ triggers flapping and the nasal can be syllabic after g-dropping. If "Latin" has /ə/ then so does "batting"). If ⟨ə⟩ is good enough for /lɑːs ˈveɪɡəs/ then ⟨ɪ⟩ is good enough for /nɪˈvædə/. Sol505000 (talk) 10:07, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

Not all of that really rings true to me for AmE. Especially I don't agree with conflating /ə/ and /ʌ/. As I see it, the weak vowel merger creates a phoneme, most conveniently represented phonemically for AmE as /ə/, but this phoneme exists only for weak vowels; it has no stressed counterpart. The way you can tell that is the fact that it can be realized as many different phonetic vowels that in stressed positions are all phonemically distinct. The weak vowel is sometimes rendered as [ʌ], sometimes as [ɪ], sometimes as [ʊ], or somewhere indistinct among these, and while there may be certain statistical regularities, the realizations are more or less in free variation. I see no reason to pick out the ʌ particularly from among these. --Trovatore (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

I think I understand the argument, which appears to be saying there are two groups of pronunciations:

• British pronunciation, which is /nɪˈvædə/
• All others (including Americans), who have weak vowel merger, and should read /ɪ/ as /ə/

therefore, /nɪˈvædə/ "covers" the pronunciations and should be the only one (per MOS:DIAPHONEMIC).

The problem with this argument is that there are a substantial number of Americans (including myself) who do not have weak vowel merger, and hear and pronounce /ɪ/ distinctly from /ə/. Only showing /nɪˈvædə/ would thus direct a large number of non-vowel-merging Americans to mispronounce the word (i.e., not use their normal accent, but use an artificial British accent). This would be phonetic underdifferentiation.

Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a diaphoneme that is acceptable for use in WP in this case. As Trovatore pointed out, the symbol //ᵻ// used by the OED was deprecated in 2017, and //ə̇// has never been adopted by WP.

One way to resolve this conflict is to follow the second paragraph of MOS:DIAPHONEMIC, which says that alternative pronunciations can be used, and also points out that local pronunciations are of particular interest for place names. Thus, I would propose following Collins and use

/siˈɛrə nəˈvædə/, /siˈɛrə nəˈvɑdə/ (American English); /sɪˈɛərə nɪˈvɑːdə/ (British English)

Would that satisfy everyone? — hike395 (talk) 23:44, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

The vast majority of Americans (and all Canadians, AFAIK) have the merger (see weak vowel merger). Only some Southern American English doesn't. The unstressed //ɪ// and //ə// are both closer to /ə/ in some positions and /ɪ/ in others in AmE. Using the symbol ⟨ɪ⟩ is not a judgement on the quality of the vowel, especially in AmE.

//ɪ// is the diaphoneme to be used in this case. It is listed twice, as a full vowel and as a reduced vowel subject to a merger with /ə/ in accents with the weak vowel merger.

That doesn't work: /nəˈv*də/ vs. /nɪˈv*də/ is not a diaphonemic difference but a phonemic one. The diaphoneme is //ɪ//: //nɪˈv*də//. The variation in the pronunciation of the second vowel is the only diaphonemic difference here: //nɪˈvædə//, //nɪˈvɑːdə//.

/siˈɛərə/ is an alternative pronunciation in BrE that coexists with /siˈɛrə/ and /ˈsɪərə/. It's not the same as the Mary-merry merger, in which case /siˈɛrə/ would not be possible in BrE. We can list /siˈɛərə/ and /ˈsɪərə/ as alternative BrE pronunciations. Sol505000 (talk) 02:24, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Please check your claims, specifically "only some southern american english..." as your first link specifically mentions new england english. It's also a documented part of other vernaculars derived from such during westward expansion. Crescent77 (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

there are a substantial number of Americans (including myself) who do not have weak vowel merger That runs directly counter to what literature says. I wonder if you're not mistaking phones for phonemes. (The lack of the merger doesn't just mean you "hear and pronounce /ɪ/ distinctly from /ə/". It means they're in contrastive distribution in unstressed syllables.) Are Lenin and Lennon, bizarre and bazaar, etc. really distinct for you? Nardog (talk) 07:03, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Speaking for myself unscientifically, I don't think I distinguish Lenin and Lennon, but I do think I distinguish bizarre and bazaar. --Trovatore (talk) 16:19, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I agree, local vernacular does distinguish between bizarre and bazaar. Crescent77 (talk) 16:32, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

If this is backed up by sources then we need to update our definition of the weak vowel merger (currently, it only says that Rosa's is distinct from roses), Help:IPA/English and all transcriptions with a prevocalic /ɪ/ that is actually /ə/ in AmE. Nevada is not special in this regard, and I don't believe that this distinction (assuming that it exists) is limited to the local vernacular of Nevada. Sol505000 (talk) 11:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your continuing efforts on this topic.

I would just like to reiterate that the issue at hand may revolve around to what extent the weak vowel merger is present in the local vernacular in question. As noted above, it is heavily derived from American dialects which do not have the weak vowel merger. Crescent77 (talk) 04:59, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

We used to distinguish these possibilities, with ⟨ᵻ⟩ for the high reduced vowel. RP merges this with the KIT vowel, and GA with the COMMA vowel. Since we now have to choose between dialects, we should go with GA for US place names and RP for UK place names.

As for bizarre ~ bazaar distinction in GA, that's a matter of vowel reduction: with a reduced vowel, the two are homonyms, but without one the first has the KIT vowel, distinguishing it from Nevada, which does not. Without vowel reduction, Nevada has the DRESS vowel, as a local mentioned above.

Although /ə/ sometimes approaches [ɪ] in GA, esp. around /t/ and /d/, that's a phonetic detail, on par with aspiration, and we don't transcribe phonetic details.

Personally, I think we should just restore ⟨ᵻ⟩ to the template so that we can have pan-dialectal transcriptions again, rather than having to choose between RP and GA whenever it appears. — kwami (talk) 04:51, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree that restoring ⟨ᵻ⟩ to the template would be the best option. But how likely is that to happen? Can we just use it at this article to resolve the dispute? — hike395 (talk) 22:49, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

No, changing the template would make it WP-wide. The argument to stop supporting ⟨ᵻ⟩ was that it was hard to know when to use it. If we have the KIT vowel in RP and the COMMA vowel in GA, then we'd use ⟨ᵻ⟩. The problem occurs when we don't have RS's for both RP and GA, but really it's usually pretty easy to figure out. — kwami (talk) 03:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

+1 Double sharp (talk) 04:05, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

To clarify, kwami, you're in favor of using ⟨ᵻ⟩ in this article? — hike395 (talk) 23:07, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm in favor of restoring support of ⟨ᵻ⟩ to the template. I don't think it's appropriate to add a letter to a specific article if it isn't included in the key. If we don't have support of ⟨ᵻ⟩, then I think we should go with the GA pronunciation (i.e. schwa) over the RP, unless we list both, which IMO would be overkill. — kwami (talk) 00:40, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

What do you think of the argument (above) that MOS:DIAPHONEMIC implies that GA speakers will known to read /ɪ/ as /ə/? — hike395 (talk) 07:24, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

They'll just pronounce it wrong. That wouldn't matter much in cases where /ə/ is pronounced more or less as [ɪ], e.g. after /t/ or /d/, but it isn't in this case. It isn't diaphonemic, and won't work for Australians either. If we keep it as-is, we should mark it as the UK pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 09:32, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

The respelling is also wrong. Even if we transcribe it as /ɪ/ in IPA, the corresponding respelling is "nə-VAD-ə", not "niv-AD-ə", which makes no sense at all. — kwami (talk) 09:36, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree with you: the current IPA is doing a disservice to our readers who will be misled into thinking the RP is the universal pronunciation for the mountain chain. I would support going back to /ə/ and fixing the respelling. — hike395 (talk) 10:07, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Mass noun

Context is this edit.

@Dogwith4shoes: can you explain your reasoning here, and ideally give a source? Right now your text makes it sound like "range" in English (in the sense of "mountain range") is a mass noun, but that is not true. "Range" is a count noun. You can say the Sierra Nevada is a range, but you can't say that it's "range", which you could if "range" were a mass noun. --Trovatore (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Source for "Sierra Nevada" that mentions "mass noun"? This looks like WP:SYNTH and WP:OR to me. BBQboffin^{grill me} 05:08, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and undone the edit for the moment. @Dogwith4shoes: please feel free to discuss here! Maybe there is some aspect of the edit that should be restored. --Trovatore (talk) 20:19, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

That's my mistake, I meant a collective noun, not a mass noun. I know one of the sources mentioned that sierra is plural but that is simply false, and my understanding of WP:OR is that basic language data like whether a word is plural does not need to be sourced. Dogwith4shoes (talk) 20:40, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

We certainly shouldn't say sierra is plural, since as you say that's clearly false. We don't have to copy obvious errors from sources. That said, I don't think it's enlightening to bring in collective nouns here. Often the best solution in these cases is just to say less, rather than digressing into matters that are not closely related to the subject of the article. --Trovatore (talk) 18:49, 20 November 2024 (UTC)