User talk:Aeusoes1/Archive 6

The following is an archive of debate between various editors of Wikipedia and User:Aeusoes1 regarding the awful things he's done on Wikipedia. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on AE's talk page. No further edits should be made to this page.

CMT

Thank you for your edits to Central Morocco Tamazight. The one issue which I'm unsure about is the Latin transcription of the Berber. I'm still unclear as to whether the Berber Latin alphabet is used for CMT; assuming its not I can understand your decision to change it to IPA. However it seems somewhat unwieldy to enclose every word in phonemic brackets //. I'm not sure what the practice of well-established articles on languages without an official orthography is; however I would think that it would become cumbersome. Mo-Al (talk) 21:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I wasn't sure of the transcription system either, but I figured it would be simplest for the reader to be presented with IPA (which Wikipedia already uses to indicate pronunciation) rather than use a transcription system that readers will have to learn. This is how it's done in Ubykh language (a language with no writing system) and Yanesha' language (a language with a writing system). Slashes aren't too much more cumbersome than italicizing words. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

My questions

Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions between the difference of J and tɕ. :) --Bluesoju (talk) 06:43, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Hard/soft C/G

You redirected these pages, effectively destroying the contents, with the comment that the redirection should account for the exceptions. Well, clearly, it doesn't! Do you see any accounting for the exceptions? I don't!

Any general principles are noted in the page you redirected from: GG is hard, NG is as in "thing". But exceptions from these rules are not accounted for by any otherrules, so why not have a list to gather them all together?

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 02:05, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

1. Both pages have huge OR problems, not just in content but in scope. Added to that are POV problems. "Pronunced exceptionally" according to whom? It's not stated and the G page has "rules" that don't go in accordance with the facts.
2. Both pages also have problems in that they purport to list words that have an orthographic or phonetic peculiarity. That is the job of a dictionary, not an encyclopedia.
3. After the merger, I tried to account for such "exceptions" though the list may not have been exhaustive, it was illustrative enough. Any of the unincluded content from those two pages that is encyclopedic can still go to where the pages are redirected.
4. A number of these exceptions aren't really exceptions at all, especially after the Hard and soft C and Hard and soft G articles got a whallop of a restructuring themselves so that they already account for those things. Namely, all of the Hard c where soft c expected words are mentioned, as are the digraphs <ae>, <oe>, and <sc>. More problematic is your assumption that soft g is expected before <e i y> when that isn't the rule at all for quite a few words.
5. Calm down. It's just an encyclopedia. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

"Both pages have huge OR problems, not just in content but in scope. "

Nonsense. Any dictionary confirms these lists.

"Added to that are POV problems. "Pronunced exceptionally" according to whom? It's not stated and the G page has "rules" that don't go in accordance with the facts."

Nonsense. The rule is that C and G are soft before E, I and Y and hard elsewhere. This is clearly stated in the referred articles.

"Both pages also have problems in that they purport to list words that have an orthographic or phonetic peculiarity. That is the job of a dictionary, not an encyclopedia."

Then please cite a dictionary which does so.

Also, please explain the existence of the articles in "http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Category:Lists_of_English_words".

"After the merger, I tried to account for such "exceptions" though the list may not have been exhaustive, it was illustrative enough. Any of the unincluded content from those two pages that is encyclopedic can still go to where the pages are redirected."

You should have done that yourself, or else you have removed content. For example, the word "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" is not mentioned.

"A number of these exceptions aren't really exceptions at all, especially after the Hard and soft C and Hard and soft G articles got a whallop of a restructuring themselves so that they already account for those things. Namely, all of the Hard c where soft c expected words are mentioned, as are the digraphs <ae>, <oe>, and <sc>. More problematic is your assumption that soft g is expected before <e i y> when that isn't the rule at all for quite a few words."

Having the list is still useful. Redundancy is not a crime. In any case, who appointed you the guardian of redundancy? If you don't like the article, don't read it. Others may find it useful.

"Calm down. It's just an encyclopedia."

Don't be patronising.

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 22:44, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You got me. It is possible for Wikipedia to have articles with lists of words that have orthographic features. The dictionary I was thinking of was wiktionary.

My other points still stand. Just because "any dictionary" can confirm whatever is on these pages doesn't mean the page is sourced. I also don't buy that claim. Per WP:V, "...any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." I'm challenging anything I've not duplicated in Hard and soft C and Hard and soft G. As for the "rules", Hard and soft G states: "In word roots of Romance origin, the soft ‹g› pronunciation occurs before ‹i e y› while the hard ‹g› pronunciation occurs elsewhere; in words of non-Romance origin, ‹g› is typically hard." If you continue to maintain an article that says altogether, girl, and angel violate this then you're making two articles contradict each other.

I don't get how you can intepret "these aren't actually exceptions" to mean that I'm saying the page is redundant. I'm saying that they aren't exceptions. When you take out what's accounted for, the remaining words are so few that it's not worthwhile to maintain a separate page. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is not mentioned by name (it's a rediculous nonce word, anyway) but it is accounted for. Have you read the article?

You'll have to pardon my patronizing tone. I see now that, although you've been at Wikipedia for a year and a half, in the past five months you've done almost nothing but work on these two articles. You must be taking it hard that other editors seem to find your contributions worthless. But your personal feelings of attachment should not play into this (see WP:OWN). I don't need to be a "guardian of redundancy" to take my position (again, see WP:OWN) and implying that I think you're a criminal is strawmaning my position.

If you want to contribute to Wikipedia in regards to hard and soft C/G, we have articles where you can direct your attention. If all you want is to brandish a list of accomplishments in your user page, then you don't have Wikipedia's best interests in mind. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

---

"You got me. It is possible for Wikipedia to have articles with lists of words that have orthographic features."

Well, I only need one of my points to stand, and the whole argument stands. Hopefully you will respect the logic of this, but if you do not, I will continue to make my case.

I really don't understand your motivation here. What possible benefit can removing an article have? If you don't like it---don't read it! Easy!

"Just because "any dictionary" can confirm whatever is on these pages doesn't mean the page is sourced."

It is not Wikipedia policy to remove unsourced material. Add a copy of the standard warning, if you like. I or someone else can fix it easily enough.

The rule "in words of non-Romance origin, ‹g› is typically hard" is not lexical. This information is not intuitive to a non-native speaker. So let's make a list!

"If you continue to maintain an article that says altogether, girl, and angel violate this then you're making two articles contradict each other."

Not really. The rule is stated at the top; the exceptions follow. The "Hard/soft G" article explains why these exceptions exist, but it does not enumerate them.

"When you take out what's accounted for, the remaining words are so few that it's not worthwhile to maintain a separate page."

That's your judgement. Obviously, I differ. Anyway, no-one is asking you to maintain a separate page. So don't!

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is not mentioned by name (it's a rediculous nonce word, anyway) but it is accounted for."

That's a prescriptive statement. Modern encyclopedias strive to be descriptive.

Also, your case would be stronger if you could spell "ridiculous".

"Have you read the article?"

Wow! I hadn't thought of that! I'll do it right now!

Sarcasm. Apologies.

"You'll have to pardon my patronizing tone. I see now that, although you've been at Wikipedia for a year and a half, in the past five months you've done almost nothing but work on these two articles. You must be taking it hard that other editors seem to find your contributions worthless."

One other editor, in fact, namely you. Yes, you are very annoying. Please stop!

"But your personal feelings of attachment should not play into this (see WP:OWN)."

Neither should yours. If you want to make a useful contribution, go ahead. If you want to be a vandal, go elsewhere. My contributions do not diminish yours in any way. Please try to respect them for what they are, which may indeed not be much, and if you don't want to improve them, kindly leave them alone.

"I don't need to be a "guardian of redundancy" to take my position (again, see WP:OWN) and implying that I think you're a criminal is strawmaning my position."

My apologies; I intended no such thing.

"If you want to contribute to Wikipedia in regards to hard and soft C/G, we have articles where you can direct your attention."

No, that's not my motivation at all. I had these lists available from another project, I couldn't find them online anywhere, and it seemed to fit into Wikipedia's framework. So it seemed worthwhile to share them with others. If it is actually of no interest to anyone else, no harm done, eh?

I have some more I may also contribute: TH pronounced voiced/unvoiced; Y as a vowel or a consonant; various pronunciations of GH, etc. Just lists of words that may enhance Wikipedia in some small way.

"If all you want is to brandish a list of accomplishments in your user page, then you don't have Wikipedia's best interests in mind."

No, I'm not very interested in brandishing. Do you see any evidence of brandishing anywhere? Maybe you are confusing your own motivations with mine; I couldn't say.

Well, as I said at the top, as long as you agree that one of my points stands, you logically should respect the integrity of my contribution. I hope you do.

Cheers

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 08:31, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

From WP:BURDEN: "Any material lacking a reliable source may be removed, but editors might object if you remove material without giving them sufficient time to provide references, and it has always been good practice, and expected behavior of Wikipedia editors (in line with our editing policy), to make reasonable efforts to find sources oneself that support such material, and cite them."

Please follow this rule!

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 09:02, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

How am I not following it? You've had two weeks to provide sources after asked and instead you've chosen to revert war and antagonize other editors. Have you even tried to look up sources? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:42, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Lots of sources added.

"How am I not following it?" You removed the page BEFORE you asked for sources. Please strive to be accurate in your claims. How is that "giving time"? Also, there is a recognised template you could put in the page to request sources; you didn't do that.

"You've chosen to revert war". I think you'll find the first move was yours, not mine. Again, please strive to be accurate in your claims.

I'm starting to think you are acting in bad faith, though I don't know why. (It seems you think of Wikipedia as some sort of competition, rather than as a way of sharing knowledge, and that my contribution makes you look bad in some way. This is not the case!)

If you revert again, I will investigate reporting your actions as vandalism.

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 19:40, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that you've attempted to find sources, but finding sources on the pronunciations is not finding a source for the biggest claim in both of these articles, that they are exceptions to some sort of rule. You also still haven't demonstrated how this information can't be covered in Hard and soft G and Hard and soft C. As I said in an edit summary, I think we should move this discussion to those pages so it's not just you and me talking about this.

As for my behavior or the "accuracy" of my claims. Here's how I see it: I reformatted and reorganized Hard and soft G and Hard and soft C. Part of this reorganization involved the two articles in question here which had the problems I've mentioned. I incorporated as much information as I felt was appropriate and anything I didn't include was (IMHO) either redundant or seemed self-contradictory. Thus, by removing it, I was inherently questioning the accuracy. This was clarified above (on June 13, about two weeks ago) when I mentioned the OR problems. The tags are one way of calling attention to citation problems, but the absence of tags is not absence of a problem.

I don't think you understand what "bad faith" or "vandalism" mean. Bad faith means in contradiction to the aims of Wikipedia. This includes accurate verified information and use of consensus to make agreements. Vandalism is not simply contentious editing. It is a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of a page.

Here's what I'll do. For a short period of time, I will not revert to the merger for those two pages if you start a discussion either at Talk:Hard and soft G or Talk:Hard and soft C. The case you should be making is whether the pages should be split (what you want) or combined (what I want). If you don't bother starting a discussion, it will tell me you're not interested in contributing to Wikipedia in a way that runs with our practice of consensus. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:04, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want sources for any claims, you know what to do: you annotate the page itself. The "fact" tag is your friend.

Yes, I know what "bad faith" and "vandalism" are. Repeatedly removing content is more than contentious: it is destructive. Even if the content is redundant, it does no harm. I expect most of the lists in Wikipedia are redundant: are you going to remove them all?

Take "caesium", for example. The remark that "The soft ‹c› pronunciation occurs before ‹i e y› as well as ‹ae› and ‹oe› in a number of Greek loanwords (e.g. coelacanth, caecum)" is not enough to tell you that "caesium" is such a word; for that, you need a list. But why burden an encyclopedia entry with that list? It is logical and sensible to leave the list in a separate place. It may be a failure of my imagination, but I see no constructive reason to remove the list. The nearest I see above is that it is "redundant or self-contradictory". I think the "caesium" example proves it's not redundant. If it's self-contradictory then, the contradiction must be the result of one (or more) incorrect statements. If all the content is true, there can be no contradiction; so let's fix it by correcting the falsehoods, not by deleting content which is actually true (and now---ta daaaaa!!---sourced).

BTW, "caesium" is latin, not greek. So is "Caesar". I suppose I should fix that. Ho hum ...

Thanks for motivating me to source the articles, BTW. I think they are better as a result.

So then, OK, I accept your suggestion of a discussion elsewhere. Give me a couple of weeks, please.

Cheers

Jonathanrcoxhead (talk) 22:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Affricates

Regarding this edit you made, I just want to make sure one thing, because I don't know if I made my point clearly enough. Do you actually realize that those phonetic symbols written with and without the tie-bar represent completely different pronunciations?

I'm asking you this in good faith, as I know it can be difficult for English native speakers to hear the difference between affricates and their plosive-fricative sequence counterparts, so it is quite understandable for them to consider that the tie-bar is not really necessary, especially when it doesn't always display correctly.

By the way, I still don't know what "does not display correctly" looks like. On my computer, both in IE and Firefox, I have no problems (and I don't use IE at all, so I haven't adjusted any of its font settings). So I wonder how many readers suffer from the tie-bar not displaying correctly, and to what extent.

You might also want to know that there are Romanian words spelled with -dj- (usually loans from Russian or French) that are pronounced with an affricate (for example azerbaidjană), whereas others are pronounced with a plosive-fricative sequence (for example tadjică). This means that even for someone who does speak Romanian (including natives), the pronunciation is not always obvious from orthography. Surely, for readers who know too little about the Romanian orthography rules it's even worse, because they may be tempted to think that Romanian words like adjectiv and adjudeca are pronounced with an affricate (like their English equivalents are), which is wrong.

I'm still waiting for a good argument to omit the tie-bar. The precedent of other similar pronunciation keys is a non-argument. The incorrect display problem is just a question of appearance, unless the tie-bar utterly disrupts the display of the whole paragraph or page, and should be dismissed as being a weak argument in comparison with the really important aspect, the pronunciation. Finally, the effort of adding the tie-bar was quoted as an argument, but I have already added the tie-bar to a few dozen articles (all I could find), and it wasn't much of an effort.

I could agree to a compromise. We could give both versions in the key and warn readers that one is correct (but may not display correctly), whereas the other is accepted, but potentially misleading. — AdiJapan 05:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I do realize that they're different pronunciations, though as an English speaker I can't say that I'd be able to hear the difference. Similarly, I can't usually tell the difference between [tʃ] and [tɕ]. In my experience, when tie-bars don't display correctly they either aren't aligned correctly or they appear as a box. It is mostly a question of appearance.

Perhaps a better way to refer to other keys is to say that, since a number are no different than Romanian in making phonemic contrasts between affricates and stop+fricative sequences, arguments for and against tie-bars apply to those equally to Romanian. As far as I can tell, our policy on Romanian would also apply to Polish, Russian, etc. Your reference to loanwords is a potential difference, though I'm not sure how common such loanwords are nor how productive these affricate-stop+fricative cluster contrasts are. As it stands now, the article reflects the compromise you propose though it could be worded more clearly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Foreign accents of English

I saw you reverted three changes in that article. Two of them seem to be actually good contributions. Did you accidentally undo too many? What does the abbreviation "OR" mean in your edit summary? Robert Will (talk) 15:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

OR is a reference to WP:OR, which details our policy on original research. That particular page has a long history of people contributing with original research and it's been decided that there won't be any more. Check out the talk page. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

John Titor article

--76.119.61.141 (talk) 19:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)http://wiki.riteme.site/skins-1.5/common/images/button_sig.png Okk are you willi9ng to work together with me on the John titor article [1]. We should make a game play nad attack from that position. 76.119.61.141 (talk) 19:27, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Game play? Attack? Let's keep the discussion to Talk:John Titor so that others can contribute as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Gorbachev

This should probably be listed in Gorbachev (disambiguation) instead, to reduce hatnote clutter, wouldn't you agree?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 19:26, June 29, 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:15, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

IPA: a query

Hello, I notice you've changed the pronunciation of arguido from my original ɐɾˈɡu̯idu to ɐɾˈɡwidu. No problem, I was going to put the w myself at first, but I did some research... So what persuaded me to put the u̯ instead? It seems likely the IPA-for-Portuguese page has since changed, but what exactly is the difference? Rothorpe (talk) 00:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Mostly what governed the change was simplicity; English speakers aren't aware of the difference, Portuguese doesn't make a contrast between the two, and it's typographically easier.

There can be some phonetic differences between the two ([w] can be more constricted than [u̯] and it can be longer in duration) but there is a tendency to use [w] because it's simpler (much as I have done). If I remember right, Spanish [w] is technically [u̯].

Another thing, the changes you mention at WP:IPA for Portuguese are pretty recent and seem to indicate that we're planning on transcribing Portuguese as if it has no diphthongs and instead has vowels+approximant sequences. If you disagree with this, you might mention it at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Portuguese. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

No, I absolutely agree, it is a w to an anglophone, as is the u of bueno. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I'll be looking in detail at the IPA for Portuguese tomorrow. Rothorpe (talk) 01:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Palatal n in Japanese phonology

I have a question on some changes you made on 14 July to Japanese phonology. Please take a look at the article's talk page. -- Meyer (talk) 06:07, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

IPA for Estonian/Finnish

Hi, I do appreciate that a specialist in such matters has joined us :)

However, it seems you also introduced some errors: k and p are never ever palatalized in standard Estonian, and there are no voiced plosives in Estonian pronunciation (cf. Icelandic, Danish), hence they should not be listed there. Regards, --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 10:28, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

You might also want to take a look at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Estonian and Finnish, where a number of issues have been left open. --Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 10:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

merging citations

Hi,

Sorry about messing up Jamaican now. I've tried being careful of longer / better developed articles, but didn't notice this one, and maybe I should just turn off this feature of AWB altogether. (I don't think I can turn of just citation merging, but would have to turn off all general fixes, which would be a pity.) kwami (talk) 07:52, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Ligatures

As an aside, I disagree with the merits of your stance on the IPA ligatures. -- Evertype·✆ 08:10, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you disagree with the merits of my stance or do you disagree with my stance? If it's the former, then this seems like unproductive baiting. If it's the latter, you've offered an oddly tantalizing opener for discussion. Perhaps you could clarify. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:20, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see merit in your changing the legible [ʦ] [ʧ] to much less illegible forms with the tie-bar. -- Evertype·✆ 07:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Legibility isn't really much of an issue, you know. At its worst, the tie bar appears as a box. You realize that the IPA ligatures are no longer standard IPA, right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 14:27, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Not much of an issue? Nonsense! (I'm genuinely shocked.) The encyclopaedia is for readers—therefore legibility is a concern. Yes, I realize that the current IPA does not use the ligatures any more, but that does not mean that it's right to go round changing the ligatures written by some editors to the triplet with tie bar. It's not a spelling error, but the choice of an editor, I should think. -- Evertype·✆ 18:02, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

In this case legibility isn't an issue because it's not a problem for anyone. Actually, that standard IPA doesn't include these ligatures anymore does mean that it's right to remove them. With your logic, editors could use ɕ or ʆ to represent the alveolopalatal fricative, they could indicate a palatalized /t/ as either tʲ or ƫ, etc. The article Obsolete and nonstandard symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet lists the many characters that are present in Unicode but not used at Wikipedia. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:58, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia restricts editors from choosing the phonetic characters they prefer, does it? Americanist č will be expunged, will it? -- Evertype·✆ 23:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes. You sound incredulous. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:53, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Where does Wikipedia specify this restriction? -- Evertype·✆ 00:22, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, WP:IPA says that ligatures are no longer official and WP:PRON makes it clear that pronunciation should be given in the IPA. If there's something more explicit I don't know where it is. I imagine you can start a discussion at one of those places and WP:PRON can be edited to be more explicit about this policy. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:46, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, and it has to go so far as to add a note: "These symbols are officially written with a tie linking them (e.g. t͡ʃ), and are also sometimes written as single characters (e.g. ʧ) though the latter convention is no longer official. They are written without ligatures here to ensure correct display in all browsers." Since the encyclopaedia is for readers, the tie bar is almost always a bad idea, since few if any of the shipping system fonts that most people use in their browsers supports proper display. Whether or not the ligatures are "no longer official" seems to me irrelevant; at least they display correctly. Write what you want; but I think that your activity in "cleaning up" ʧ by changing it to t͡ʃ is not a good thing to be doing. "No longer official" does not mean "must be expunged", does it? -- Evertype·✆ 07:58, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

What I've done is changed ʧ to tʃ. They are equally legible and the former is deprecated. That we are not required to remove ligatures doesn't mean that we shouldn't. As I've said before, you can bring it up in one of the policy pages to get other editors to weigh in on the issue. Even if you don't change policy, you may get arguments against ligatures from other editors articulated in a way that's more satisfactory for you than I've been able to do. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

ref renaming

Hey,

I copied your complaint about AWB ref. merging to Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser#Refrence_renaming, as the people there said the feature cannot be turned off independently, and can't think of a reason anyone would want to turn it off. You might want to follow the conversation. BTW, if you follow the archive link, you'll find code to prevent AWB from modifying a page. kwami (talk) 20:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Files

Hi. I was wondering if you could tell me how to open the files on the various IPA articles? I use Vista.---Flaquito (talk) 02:21, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the audio files? I have the .ogg file player embedded into Internet Explorer. I couldn't tell you how I did it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. But I figured it out. Thanks for your help.---Flaquito (talk) 03:13, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

IPA fix

Regarding this edit: I originally put the j in because it's almost certainly there in speech—hiatus like that would usually be resolved by inserting a glide. But, on the other hand, I suppose I did put the transcription in //, and the j is not phonemic, it's just the result of a rule application, so whether or not it's "there" depends on how broad or narrow the transcription is. For the purposes of a broad, phonemic transcription, your version is probably better. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:30, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I was just conforming it to our conventions laid out at WP:IPA for English, which is usually pretty broad. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Latin spelling and pronunciation

Hello there. I note with interest and surprise your sudden appearance in a major way in this article, which I too am trying to clean up. It seems clear I will have to go through your changes in detail. I can tell right now many of them are good. I'm surprised to see you question some things that are standard, for which adequate references were given. However, if you don't understand them, you don't understand them. In order to respond to those I need to know why, and your tags do call for discussion. I also see a few things I am pretty sure are wrong and those need discussion too. I got no plans to revert your work. I do plan to check and correct it if I can, changes on the changes, so to speak. I know you are pressed for time and so am I. But, we should be able to get through doing a small amount at a time. I made a start on the discussion page. If you ignore me I will have to presume you are correctable as is. I would wonder why a person such as you should choose to leap in on THIS article, but it really is no concern of mine. You did and that is that. Now let's try to get the best article we can. I do in fact have some experience of Latin. Ciao.Dave (talk) 23:01, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I've actually got a presence in the article's edit history, but most of my changes are ones of wording and format, not substance. You are right to presume that I'm not an expert in Latin. I do have an interest in phonology, though, which is why I occasionally give some attention to the various phonology articles. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Well thanks for your interest then and your prompt response. It appears as though we may be working things out. One-editor articles are often one-sided. Well I got some issues up and now I think I got to take a break. I will be pushing this along on a regular basis though so I will not be keeping you hanging, just going slow. I was originally trying to see if I could fit the Latin spelling and pronounciation in here but I don't see a way yet. We seem to have these topics repeated in three or four articles, but, maybe not. I did notice a lot of errors and I think you may have asked for refs of material I was going to cut as in error. So there might be some duplication. This is very condensed stuff, I got to go slow. Talk to you later.Dave (talk) 00:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Catalan

You undid my additions to Catalan pronounciation. I have reverted it. You called my additions mere allophones. No! You are wrong. Unstressed "o" is according to all standard catalan "grammars" and in fact/usage is pronounced "u" - have you been to the Diagonal in Barcelona? if you have you have been to the "Diag00nal" - the schwa sound for unstressed a and e is also not an allophone, it's a distinct vowel sound. An example true allophone is the slight variation of the p sound in English (aspirate or not, I'm afraid I feel you are just wrong in your assertion. A Catalan would laugh his head off or not understand you if you always pronounced a as a, or o as o. Look up what an allophone really is. Sorry - but I am (half)-Catalan, write textbooks in the language and those are distinctive vowel/consonant sounds not allophones. Sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.84.145 (talk) 00:13, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. But all the literature I've read on Catalan shows those to be allophones in unstressed position. Do you have any evidence or are you going to just rest on your laurels? My evidence is at Catalan phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:35, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Vowels in unstressed positions are still distintive vowel sounds reopresented by the letters - not allophones. My sources are:

General: Vox Catalan-English dictionary (with of course full ipa) Diccionari de la llengua Catalana - Alberti (Catalan) Catalan: A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge) Wheeler, Yate, Dols

and just about every Catalan textbook - not just reference to another Wikipedia page.

The word for street in Catalan is carrer - which according to your scheme of things would be prounounced carrer (with every letter sounded, with full "a" and "r" - yet it is pronounced k(er)[shwa]rr-ay (notusing IPA) - allophones? I think not - I'm reverting your edit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.84.145 (talk) 22:27, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Further by your approach every alternative pronounciation of letters (which were there before I started fiddling) should be deleted also (such as x - or are these allophones also by your approach? I can see what you mean

An allophone is: A predictable phonetic variant of a phoneme. For example, the aspirated t of top, the unaspirated t of stop, and the tt (pronounced as a flap) of batter are allophones of the English phoneme /t/. BUT distinctive different vowel sounds (predictable or not) are not allophones. Is it right to include pronounciation guide at all if you are give the impression that o is always pronounced o, and t is always sounded? Someone reading your edit would not know the full ddetail of what the letters represent in Catalan - which I think is the idea behind giving pronounciation guides. Allophones are quite rightly not included (see Engl;ish t above) but these are not allophones - certainly the silent t in pensament - how can that be an allophone? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.84.145 (talk) 22:38, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

LAst word: I'm not entirely sure you can have allophones of vowels if the vowel is distinctive in sound then its independent and not an allophone. Schwa is represented in Catalan by a and e - there is no other way of representing it. So why NOT include it. I'm not including subtle allophones - you are right to note that these should not be included but the representation of distinctive sounds should be included —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.146.84.145 (talk) 22:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

You have a good definition of an allophone (though saying that predictable sounds aren't allophones if they're distinctive is a contradiction because distinctive sounds aren't predictable), but you don't seem to see how the unstressed vowels are predictable: they appear only when occurring in unstressed syllables. This is most evident when suffixation changes the stress.

For example, the word banc is pronounced [baŋ]. However, when the dimunitive suffix èt is added, it is pronounced [bəŋˈkɛt] (I'm not sure of the spelling. Is it banquèt?). Notice the change in the vowel and the appearance of the velar plosive. This evidence shows that the phonemic representation of banc is /bank/. The nasal assimilates to the velar place but, because there's a rule in Catalan that clusters of homorganic consonants are deleted word-finally, the /k/ doesn't surface unless there are suffixes added.

There are other rules in play as well. With your example of carrer I would put the phonemic representation as /karˈrer/ while the surface realization is [kəˈre].

If you have a beef with this understanding of the phonological rules of Catalan, then take it up at talk:Catalan phonology. Not only is this information present at Catalan phonology but it's sourced by reputable linguists. Until then, your edits at Catalan orthography contradict Catalan phonology.

Also, keep in mind that this allophony is only present in Eastern dialects. In Western Catalan (including Valencian), all vowels are allowed in unstressed position. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

The previous (anonymous) "poster" may put in badly at times but he is correct - and you rightly note banc - which is probably (though not certainly)a true allophone. As certainly is the "different" l of animaL (a darker sound). But to call "distinctive" vowel sounds/consant sounds allophones cannot be right. The chart on the orthography page has prounciations of the letters, that what it claims to do - either we have no such chart or we have a complete one. We must not have pronounciation details at all if one is selective. The IPA system can represent the different sounds so we might as well include them - allophones or not. Either accept the undo or remove the section in its entirety along with similar charts for other languages including English. THin, THe? Let's get rid of the distinction there (oh sorry, zere). As I say, allophones or not, the chart gives the impression that it is telling us what sounds the letters make (there is a column for that) - so not to include the sounds seems very odd to me. Sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by JosepAlberti (talk • contribs) 00:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

So far, neither of you has brought forth evidence as to how these are phonemes. You don't offer minimal pairs, you don't cite sources, (Wheeler backs me up and "just about every Catalan textbook" is simply false), and you haven't addressed my evidence. If you feel that the allophones are important enough that they're worth mentioning, I recommend you do so in the prose. Not in the table and not between slashes to indicate that they're phonemes. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 00:33, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, you undid my additions to the sound ʃ, where I added caixa. I just don't know why. As from what I know, it is; and not only that, that looking it in the catalan page ([2]) it appears to be exactly the same example. So I un-undid it... Just willing to know why you didn't agree. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MDYarma (talk • contribs) 17:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

There is a tendency to represent a variety of postalveolar fricatives with <ʃ> and <ʒ>. I've seen it done with the retroflex consonants of Russian and Polish and the alveolo-palatal consonants of Korean and Japanese. The literature I've seen on Catalan varies in the characters it uses and I suspect that this is because the distinction between alveolo-palatal and palato-alveolar is pretty subtle (I really can't hear the difference). Interestingly, Wheeler (2005) uses <ʃ> and <ʒ> while referring to them as alveolo-palatal, suggesting that there may be typographic constraints. Thus, rather than base the use of <ɕ> and <ʑ> on what the IEC, the AVL, or anybody else uses, I found an article by a phonetician (Daniel Recasens) who describes the coronal and palatal consonants in a manner that's more detailed than the symbols indicate, telling me that he's studied it himself using acoustic data. It's possible that there is geographic variation but we'd really want sourcing that describes such variation. This is all sourced at [[Catalan phonology]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the unstressed vowels o, a and e etc. I really think you are "deceiving" the non-linguistic specialist reader by claiming they are just allophones. I think yo uare wrong to suggest that such fundamental changes in vowel sounds are just quirks and confined to dialects. I write this in non-specialist language as all academic work should be understandable to the "educated" reader. So I put it in simple terms: unstressed o is pronounced u in standard Catalan. So the letter o represents (in certain positions) the sound u. One cannot get simpler than that. What part of this do you disagree with? Never mind the allophone business, what part of this simple factual assertion do you not understand? I see from the Romanian page that someone has accused you of being power crazed. I wouldn't be as rude/flippant as that but I have to say that I might be persuaded by the argument that you are attempting to "run" Wikipedia phonology by reverting pretty sensible revisions. I think it would be right to do so when there is doubt or clear error but in this example one does not need to be a lingustics specialists to query your approach - o is pronounced u, a/e - schwa: it's the second thing one learns when teaching/learning Catalan. Not to include this seems crazy. As for the silent t in words such as "pensament" that is equally true. I cannot fathom what problem you have in not including these truths. I really do not know what your problem is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.105.125 (talk) 22:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a problem informing readers of these fundamental aspects of Catalan pronunciation; as such I long ago included them with references at Catalan phonology. What I object to is the use of /slashes/ to represent what are, according to all sources I've seen on Catalan, contextual variants of the vowels. This doesn't mean they are "quirks" and you can even see that I've included these allophones in Wikipedia's Catalan pronunciation guide.

As I've said above, the much more sensible thing to do at Catalan orthography is to describe the pronunciation, rather than try to pidgeonhole the pronunciation features in the table.

Since you don't have an account, I'll assume you're new to Wikipedia. We have a policy that asks editors to assume good faith, this means that unless there is blatant evidence saying otherwise, you should proceed with the belief that other editors have the project's best goals in mind. Since collaboration is a fundamental part of Wikipedia, accusing others of owning a page (as you have done to me) is an assumption of bad faith. Reverting edits that I disagree with isn't me trying to run articles, rather I'm trying to ensure that quality is maintained. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:15, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

IPA wikitable

How does it even work? I didn't even know IPA class names are allowed to have spaces in them. How do I use the class name in my style sheet? This doesn't work:

.IPA, .IPA wikitable td { etc. }

- Gilgamesh (talk) 07:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Please answer ASAP. - Gilgamesh (talk) 07:08, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I see.

.IPA, .IPA td { etc. }

- Gilgamesh (talk) 07:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian IPA problem

Hi - there's some sort of problem with the {IPA-hu} template - it generates a confusing error message in subscript. See e.g. Ferenc Puskas, Hungarian language. Any idea how to fix this? Lfh (talk) 18:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the recent fix, and notified that editor. Likely just a typo. kwami (talk) 19:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Vowel harmony: Sumerian

Hi, I notice the removal of the Sumerian secion in Vowel harmony. It seems the paragraph was taken from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition which has been copied several times [3] and [4] (although missing from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclopædia_Britannica). The 1911 edition is in the public domain so there is no copyright violation. --moyogo (talk) 09:24, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I'm not a fan of a direct C&P either way, so I might go and rephrase it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Scratch that. 98 years is too old. Sumerian language has more sourced information on Sumerian vowel harmony. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:03, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

No problem. If it's not up to date, it's better to change it. --Mᴏʏᴏɢᴏ/ ⁽ᵗᵃˡᵏ⁾ 14:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Greetings!

Hello, I am the originator of the request for IPA spelling of Rory Gallagher's name. I don't write it, (heck, I don't even read it, unless I have to) and wanted to stop in and thank you for your generous and timely help. I figured Tvoz might know another editor who could at least make a stab at it, since she's been far more sociable visable than I have over the last couple of years, anyway, and knows far more editors. If I can be of some help to you in the future, please don't hesitate to ask. I appreciate your assistance! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 22:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Albanian Q and GJ / Romanian

I know that throughout Wikipedia the pronounciation seems to be portrayed as [c] and [ɟ], but hear me out. This sound pronounces all Albanian letters in order. You can listen to it and hear that Q is in no way [c], but a [tɕ]. I did make the edits to [Albanian alphabet], but let me prove my point. I've been trying to understand the difference between Q and Ç for a while, and while I'm not really able to fully tell between the two, I can tell they are different. Articles do tell about this difficulty foreigners have in differentiating - but I have yet to find something notable. Also, I could give you sources for the Romanian pronounciations on the ro:wiki, but I don't think you would understand. » byeee 03:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems like you're using your OR perceptions as a guide to editing articles. This is not a good idea, especially when it comes to foreign sounds that you are having difficulty with. Because I have difficulty telling the difference, the best idea is to find sources.

You're right that I would not understand Romanian sources, but if you mean to tell me that the Romanian Wikipedia is your source, then that is another no-no. Wikipedia shouldn't be a source for itself. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 03:29, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The Romanian Wikipedia points to sources which I do not unfortunately own, in order to tell you specifically where they come from. Moreover, I am not in Romania so I could go check for the books at the library. I will, if I have the chance. You're saying Wikipedia should not be a source for itself, yet you revert changes to questionable Albanian pronounciations as per Albanian language. If that is the case, I would rather suggest removing those than giving misleading information. And, if you indeed consider that Albanian Q stands for [c] rather than [ʨ] please also give me a source, otherwise we will have to remove that information completely. » byeee 05:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

ro:Fonologia limbii române says that it is [c] but that particular statement is uncited. There's not much point debating the issue without sources. If you really want to remove Albanian, that's fine, but what I contest is that you're basing your editing on your own OR perception of foreign sounds. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:52, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Have you listened to the "sample" given for the Albanian alphabet? That's definitely not a [c]. I can't find any source for Albanian, I'm afraid, but I still think it's more than slightly misleading. I will try to find some of the works of Emil Petrovici and Andrei Avram, if I can. However, I doubt it will say it is a voiceless palatal plosive, because the term most likely did not exist at that time. » byeee 06:05, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I did listen, but me making editing judgements on that sound file is the same sort of OR that I oppose. Chitoran refers to Petrovici in the passage I referred to you.

A distinction between a palatalized velar plosive and a palatal plosive has existed in the IPA at least since 1932. You do realize, though, that there are newer sources for Romanian phonology, right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I know how things work in my country, and I know rules/regulations were not/are not respected, for the most part.

Take [this] which was cited on the Romanian wikipedia. Just like other sources, it lists C as being either [k], [k'], or [t∫], but unlike them it clearly states that [k'] is a voiceles palatal plosive. Can I go on with adding the examples now? Thank you. » byeee 01:22, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of that source as it's difficult to tell how authoritative it is. Especially on phonetic matters, which seem to be glossed over just to get to the meatier grammar issues. And if this text on Russian is any indicator, the apostrophe seems to be used to indicate a palatalized consonant, with the terminology being imprecise enough that Russian ч and й are given the same place of articulation.

Are you not able to do searches in university libraries? I have access to JSTOR and a few other databases, as well as a whole library of books. If you'd like, next week I can do some more intense searches to figure out the matter more definitively. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 02:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The searches I did turned up with nothing, unfortunately. My university's library is not that vast, and it definitely has nothing on Romanian. I'm not a big fan of Ioana Chitoran either, seeing as she classifies /s/ and /z/ as dental and /t∫/ as palatal. I don't even understand how she sees the labio-palatalized consonants. I'll see what "authoritative" thing I can find. » byeee 17:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't take her consonant chart to heart. In the context, it's pretty clear that she's glossing over the phonetics a bit to talk about the phonemics. Note also that she's reporting what others have said about Romanian. It's very common for people to gloss over the dental/alveolar distinction in phonemic charts.

Also, I don't know if you noticed this, but on page 179 of The Phonology of Romanian, she makes a pretty detailed discussion of palatalization in Romanian, talking in detail about palatalized velars. It's clear enough that she's talking about secondary articulation and this is a much stronger suggestion than the one on page 10. Keep searching, but if nothing else comes up, we'll have to accept the source we have with the expert you don't like. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 18:29, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

pronunciation méh in Hungarian

At least you should check the supposed source before restoring incorrect information. It is quite obvious that you know little to nothing about Hungarian pronunciation or 'dialects' if you restored that. This is why Wikipedia will always be full of huge blunders, so don't even ask me to create a new account. I'm thoroughly disillusioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.44.161 (talk) 19:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

If you check the history of voiceless palatal fricative, you'd find that the contributor who added the source was Aeusoes1. Here's what the source says: "/h/ is voiced [ɦ] in intervocalic position, [ç] in syllable-final position after front vowels, and [x] word-finally after back rounded vowels..." It goes on to say that /h/ may be deleted when word-final. So if there is perhaps an example of a syllable final /h/ that isn't word-final, then this "huge blunder" will be fixed.

I'm sorry to hear that you're disillusioned. If you do decide to remain at Wikipedia, I recommend that you put things in perspective. An incorrect or misleading example to illustrate a minor phonetic note about a language is hardly cause for concern. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

So you don't speak Hungarian (obviously), the article doesn't even say that the h is pronounced ç in the specific word méh, yet you still reverted this to the incorrect version (it's still like that today), and claim that it's no big deal. Not a blunder---because some languages are less important than English? Bravo for your confidence! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.34 (talk) 00:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey, you came back! Do you speak Hungarian? Maybe you could help fix it. Do you know of any words with h that comes between e or i and another vowel? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind. I found an example. Now it's all better, right? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not really right. méhész is [meːɦeːs]. I pronounce [meːçeːs] to myself aloud, and I have to say that nobody I know pronounces it like that. I checked the history of the article and the original example was actually j in the word kapj which sounds about right. j always behaves like a consonant in Hungarian, so it cannot sound like an i, and the p "wants to" de-voice the following consonant. So the result is [ç]. I'll change it back to that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.105 (talk) 12:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm, the problem with that example is that it's not the context that the source says.

I'm also not sure why you don't hear a voiceless palatal fricative when you say that example. There's one of two possibilities: 1) you do pronounce it that way but because you're not primed to hear the difference as a native speaker, you don't hear it 2) you and your friends speak a variety that doesn't feature this pronunciation (which means the source is overbroad).

Either way, we should make edits based on sources. Your status as a native speaker is helpful for a number of things, but it does not give you authority over sources on the phonetic particularities of Hungarian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't hear a [ç] in méhész because there is no [ç] in méhész. It is a [ɦ]. I speak two languages that have phonemic [ç], so I do have something to compare against... anyway, there might be another word where h is pronounced [ç], but méhész is not it, and I can't think of a word that's like that. E.g. the word the éhes is [eːɦɛʃ] too. Sources are not always 100% correct, but of course it's not easy to find another source that explicitly contradicts them (rather than says something slightly different). I could easily find (Hungarian) sources that explain that the h in the specific word méh is silent, but not one that will explicitly say that h is not pronounced as [ç] in Hungarian. About the inconsistencies: there are plenty of sources out there that transcribe a as [ɔ], even though the Hungarian a is markedly different from the the sound of English RP that's also transcribed as [ɔ] (well, [ɔː] actually). I can certainly attest though that many non-natives (especially speakers of certain languages of neighbouring countries) have a lot of difficulty reproducing a proper a as [ɒ] and will use [ɔ] instead. But that's a flawed pronunciation: natives perceive that sound as o, not a (and yes, we do make fun that that flawed pronunciation). Now, suppose that somebody went to the Hungarian phonology article, and changed all the [ɒ] transcriptions to [ɔ] transcriptions, and backed it up with some sources (possible difficult to obtain ones...). What would you do then? Leave it like that or trust a native speaker that advises you to trust another book instead? (Sources that use [ɔ] include The phonology of Hungarian from Oxford linguistics, and most transcriptions in the UCLA phonetics archive, which is btw shamefully flawed: some of the Hungarian transcriptions there look like they were taken from a dictionary, and definitely do not match the sometimes idiosyncratic pronunciations heard on the corresponding recordings.) I won't make any more edits but I recommend that you keep kapj in this article, and not replace it with a flawed example for the sake of agreeing with one dubious description of one article. Or, if you wish, you can reference the book I mentioned above (The phonology of Hungarian, pages 205-206) and use one of its examples lopj, rakj, döfj (or keep the current example). (But I do not like that book for the reason I stated above: it has inaccuracies too.) Again: I doubt that [ç] can be an allophone of h in Hungarian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.80 (talk) 13:41, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I read again your quote from your source and I noticed that it mentions h in a syllable-final position, which is not true for a h wedged between two vowels: it'll always go with the second syllable: mé-hész, é-hes. But I have to admit that if I could think of an actual word that has (front vowel)-h-(voiceless consonant)-(vowel), that h might very well be pronounced [ç]. But I can't think of a non-nonsensical example like that right now... even silly examples like méhtelen, "bee-less" would be pronounced mételen, with no h, by many people, so that's no good. Even the actually used, but not contemporary-standard éhtelen drops the h in pronunciation (the "standard" version, étlen, doesn't even have it in the spelling) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.80 (talk) 13:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, this is the last comment. After thinking about examples, it appears to me that the native "sense of language" would delete the h in syllable-final positions. Possible exceptions might only be certain loanwords, in particular: 1. Certain Greek words with χ (which came to be pronounced as [x] or possibly [ç] among educated speakers, most likely due to German influence). These (technical) words are usually spelt with ch. 2. German loanwords, which are also spelt with ch. I can't think of such Greek words where the ch is followed by a front vowel, and would thus be [ç] and not [x]. I can think of a colloquial German loanword though, peches ("followed by bad luck"), where the ch is indeed a long [ç]: [pɛçːɛʃ]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.80 (talk) 14:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In regards to your question about [ɒ] vs. [ɔ], the question is really what is more common. Hungarian short a is about halfway between the cardinal vowel point between [ɒ] vs. [ɔ]. There was a similar issue a few years ago about one of Bulgarian's vowels. Vowels are tricky because laying down their characteristics is so impressionistic sometimes. Because of this, I wouldn't throw out Phonology of Hungarian, which is a lot more in depth than the source I've provided. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 17:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Although there is some variation between all the IPA recordings I've seen around the net, a is no closer to [ɔ] than this: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/pronunciation/mp4/vowel_short_4.mp4 Actually it's a little more open than what she uses. But it is true that the video is about a sound used in RP, not the exact [ɒ]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.177.32.42 (talk) 23:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think the best thing to do at this point is simply change the source to the one you've provided. Not only does it come from a more explicit source (a full book vs a 3 page article) but it matches with your own impressionistic sense as a native speaker and as a multilingual speaker. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Minor wording in Swedish Phonology

Just a note on a couple changes that you reverted in the article? You reverted to "the more prestigious Central Swedish varieties". That's a value judgment ... there's a little problem of interpretation, because some countries such as England have a strong class/language association, while others, such as the United States, have quite weak class/language associations. I'm not in a position to say which extreme applies better to Sweden, but the statement itself is questionable, on scrutiny. How is "prestige" determined? A vote? A survey? Who would be included in this hypothetical vote/survey? Only Swedish? Only Swedish of this generation?

This revert has a different issue? "...complex issue that (is) debated amongst phoneticians" There's some point to mentioning which field is most interested in the debate. However, and in the spirit of Wikipedia, one doesn't have to be an expert to express an opinion. What bothers me a little about such statements as "debated in the medical community" is the implication that therefore some people have no right to express an opinion. This, of course, is something insiders might like to promote, however the fact is that anyone whether they see themselves as being a "phonetician" (or a doctor) has a perfect right to examine issues and express opinions. But moreover from the encyclopedic standpoint, there's no real proof that the only significant contributors *are* phoneticians. For all the reader knows ... Britney Spears to take an extreme example ... could be a brilliant closet phonetician. Best Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 01:12, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

While prestige does not carry forth from intrinsic properties of a language or register, the phenomenon itself carries real-world effects (presence in media, attitudes about pronunciation, prescriptions in grammar books, etc) and saying that the variety carries prestige by speakers is a pretty neutral way of describing attitudes without endorsing them. I am by no means an expert in the Swedish language, and I'm only trusting that previous editors were correct in asserting that there are varieties of Central Swedish that carry prestige. If this is something you question, a {{citation needed}} tag is in order. I do agree that "the high-prestige Central Swedish varieties" isn't the best way to word it, especially because there may be Central Swedish varieties that don't carry much prestige, which is why it wasn't so much of a revert as a (hopefully) more acceptable reword.

I'm not sure which "spirit of Wikipedia" is related to not having to be an expert to express an opinion. If something is "debated in the medical community," the implication is not that others don't have a right to debate it, only that debates by non-experts don't matter. In regards to /ɧ/ being debated, the only relevent discourse on the matter is between phoneticians since it's a phonetic matter. If Ms. Spears would like to contribute to the debate as a phonetician she can, just like all others, bring forth her evidence as others do.

What's even less debatable on the matter is whether non-phoneticians even debate about it. At AAVE, there has been discussion about whose opinion has weight in the article, since many non-experts like to weigh in on AAVE (a non-prestige varity, by the way); in some instances, the opinions of non-experts has significance either for political reasons or because they were made by particularly notable people. It's very unlikely that non-phoneticians would be making notable debates about /ɧ/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:55, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

"Prestige" is a WP:PEACOCK word that used by special interest groups to promote how important they are. Quite subjective and inappropriate in an encyclopedia. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 04:29, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. Read prestige (sociolinguistics) and tell me what better term you would use. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 04:26, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

The linguistic concept is WP:PEACOCK. The problem with identifying a superior social class is that those in control, those who are of the "upper classes" have vested interest in distorting their own importance. What makes a dialect prestigious? That it's used by the prestigious. Who defines what is prestigious? Those in effective control of the media. Who controls the media? The prestigious. I.e., in their view, they can define anything the way they like, without explanation or reason.

In the broader social context, of course, your answer is "so what"? That this is the status quo, and that's what's reported.

However, Wikipedia is NOT the broader social context. It regularly happens that wealthy individuals and celebrities are infuriated that — in the Wiki context — they are unimportant. So it is here in this situation. As much as I, in my personal life, recognize the social implications of speaking to someone with an Oxford or Harvard accent, my personal responses are unsuited to Wikipedia, which is uninterested in my bias. A hip-hop clerk (in America) might see Oxford English as alien, and utterly without prestige. Hence, the sociolinguistic term, as applied without qualification to a dialect is subjective, and unjustified.

With Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 19:40, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

So because power is arbitrary we can't refer to it? You asked how we measure prestige objectively and I've given you a few examples. You may not like it and you may have whatever social theories you'd like, but your standards about reporting class and power attitudes differ from those of this encyclopedia.

"Prestige" is not a peacock term because it is as neutral a word that we can find for the phenomena we wish to address. It seems that, in your view, we shouldn't even address the phenomena of registers being valued. That, at its best, is called censorship. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia must report the facts as they can be verified. And that includes, as you point out, that some Group X has a particular conception about Fact Y. What's at issue is Wikipedia's recounting that Group X is justified and correct -- that they are following Wikipedia core values -- to assert Fact Y. There's a critical difference between saying, "Group X maintains that Fact Y is true", and Wikipedia saying, "Fact Y is true". The problem with the term "prestige" is that it "buys into" some nebulous concept that one group is more important. I could maintain the opposite. That some on the fringe, misusing the language, offending those with prestige, may be 100 years from now, pivotal in forming usage. Yours, Piano non troppo (talk) 20:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

But it doesn't "buy into" the value judgment; it's neutral to it. I can see how you might get that meaning. But as far as dictionaries go, your understanding of the term is incorrect. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Mihkaw napew

Hi Aeusoes. If you think this comment was a good point, perhaps you could explain it to me, because I can't make right or left of what the guy is trying to say. And, for what it's worth, his message there is not even a response to anything I said in that thread (my message above it was not even addressed to him), but apparently is his lashing out at me for warning him about an inappropriate edit he made to an article he does not understand. You know as well as I that this editor cannot express himself clearly and doesn't know the first thing about the topics he tries to dive into (you yourself chided him, albeit lightly, in the gemination discussion a few days ago), so I don't see any need to baby him, and certainly no need to let him make completely uninformed edits like the one I warned him about. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree with you about Mihkaw, I was just pointing out that further discussion with Mihkaw about his edits and his reference desk answers should go in his talk page so that the ref desk doesn't get sidetracked. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 20:35, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

IPA linking

Hi, please go here – Dan ☺ 21:50, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

LuCa canIPA

Are you familiar with Luciano Canepari's phonetic alphabet? I am a 13-year old boy interested in linguistics.

187.158.19.141 (talk) 06:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC) Fernando Martínez Lamadrid

Vaguely. Why do you ask? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:05, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Have another IPA question for you

Hi I'm so sorry to disturb you once again. You assisted in the Rory Gallagher article, and now, if you'd look at the Ronnie Drew article, the first sentence, I believe, someone botched a well-intentioned imitation of how the name should be pronounced in Ireland. Would you take a look? Anything is better than what's there! --Leahtwosaints (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, that's how his name is written in the Irish language. I've taken a guess at the pronunciation, but I'm not as good at Irish as User:Angr is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

IPA transcription of British English mute rhotic 'r'

Wikipedia talk:IPA for English You and Kwami may have read what I wrote, but then you did not read what others wrote in support of it. You obviously carefully pick and choose what you want to use out of context. The Wikipedia's treatment of the IPA is more than flawed, it is far too involved, tries to be an IPA handbook, and the editors try to argue points that are not part of their role, and get out of their depth. On the talk pages they also lose the plot and go totally off topic. My advice to them is that they read the Encyclopedia Britannica entry for the IPA, then compare that with everything I have said, whittle the whole thing down to a similar size, and stop using the talk pages for asserting their own pedantry and claiming ownership to the IPA , the Wiki article, and the pronunciation of British place names.--Kudpung (talk) 08:11, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I actually did read what others said, although I admit not very carefully. I've also followed and participated in other conversations regarding the transcription system that Wikipedia uses. I don't believe your belief (or disbelief) in the system is untoward and, given the more common use of the IPA for English pronunciation, it's not a surprise that some very knowledgeable people have a problem with it because it is 1) not representative of any single dialect and 2) original to Wikipedia.

It seems, then, that you'd rather have multiple systems instead. British topics would have British pronunciations, Australian topics Australian ones, etc. Is this correct? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 08:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I must have missed this (or perhaps in my frustration I chose to ignore it). I have said my last piece on this topic, but just for the record while I'm going round cleaning up, yes, that's what I meant. Usually, interference from the Yanks in British culture notwithstanding, British articles are written by Brits (in BE), American articles a e written by Americans (in AE), and Ozzy articles are written in Australian English. However, Australian English almost completely follows BE to a 't', the only differences being its only slightly unique pronunciation, and a few odd words like ute for pickup (BE), or station waggon (AE), or estate car (BE), or SUV (BE & AE). BTW: I have lived and worked in Australia too :) --Kudpung (talk) 12:25, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Non-native pronunciations

Hi, I'm pretty new to wikipedia so not sure if this is the place to do this, but I'm wondering if we can chat about the phrase "imperfectly learning English pronunciation." I changed it the other day (when I wasn't logged in) and I'm wondering if you can tell me something about the rationale. I'll go ahead and declare my biases as someone interested in / sympathetic to the notion of world Englishes, so I guess what I'm saying is it seems to me the 'wrong' pronunciation of one variety of English can in fact be *the* pronunciation in another variety. Maybe it's not that simple, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. thanks! --Joelh (talk) 02:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, basically any variation (especially diachronic) occurs from imperfect learning. So the pronunciation changes that occur across generations occur when children imperfectly learn the language of their parents. You're right that it doesn't mean that one variation is right or the other is wrong, only that the transmission of language learning is imperfect so that there are differences. As the article itself states, the "non-native" pronunciations themselves can trasmit to the monolingual children ESL speakers so that, for example, there is Chicano English, which has pronunciations influenced by second language transfer from Spanish.

A while ago, there was a section at non-native pronunciations of English that discussed Indian English, but it was decided that there were enough native speakers of English in the Indian subcontinent that one couldn't really describe it as "non-native" pronunciations anymore. So, we took it out.

Does this clarify things a little? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 18:37, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

That helps me understand where you're coming from, but I guess the word "imperfect" suggests certain things that are problematic for those with a more sociocultural view of language -- even to say "imperfectly learning" seems (to me, anyway), to suggest some judgements about non-native speakers that might even be distracting to the greater purpose of the article, which I think is in fact quite informative. In your opinion, is the integrity of the article at stake if the phrase "imperfectly learning the pronunciation of English" is removed? I think removing it would get the same point across and avoids a possible grey area. Let me know what you think. I appreciate being able to discuss this civilly! --Joelh (talk) 19:45, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Your recent edit prompted me to look up the wording in the source:

"Corder 1967 suggested that while a large number of errors in second language acquisition are due to interference from the native tongue, some result from strategies similar to those used in first-language acquisition."

Considering that the source says "errors", I think changing it to "imperfectly learning" is gracious enough. Remember, "imperfectly learning" is just saying it's not perfect, not that it's wrong or indicates low intelligence or anything. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 09:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, but we're talking about Corder 1967 -- there have been other ways of looking at SLA in the intervening half century. I'd be happy to provide sources describing the process of L2 acquisition in ways that are not error-based, but it looks like what we've got here is a fundamental difference in the way we understand the process of SLA -- a debate which is mirrored in the literature. What can we do to resolve it? Is there a third way between me wanting that phrase gone and you wanting to include it? What about something along the lines of "which differ from native speakers' pronunciation?"--Joelh (talk) 20:24, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Spanish

Regarding the Spanish Non-native pronunciations of English: your proposed wording "a voiceless dental fricative /θ/ phoneme exists only in certain Peninsular dialects" induces to error because it would imply that such sound is not common, and is limited to those dialects, while in fact the /θ/ sound is indeed very common and part of the standard Spanish pronunciation. It is only certain dialects that remove it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.163.168.188 (talk) 18:25, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

According to this image, the dental fricative is present only in parts of Spain. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:36, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Getting wild

Whoo! -- Hoary (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

PPPPS: see this brand new thread at AN/I. -- Hoary (talk) 03:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Ukrainian dialects map

I reverted your upload of the new Ukrainian dialects map and uploaded it under File:Map of Ukrainian dialects en.png instead. That way both the Ukrainian-language version and the English-language version are available. +Angr 09:59, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Ahh, good thinking. Though should we rename the Ukrainian one to "Карта говорів Української мови" or would that be unwarrented? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:06, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

We could, but I don't want to be the one to replace 29 instances of the image on 10 different Wikipedias. I think renaming it would be more trouble than it's worth. +Angr 22:38, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Gaelic IPA

Hi, I'm assuming GF and I have no problem with your re-wording of the text but can you please leave the IPA as it is? It IS correct even if it may be slightly at odds with the source taken literally. The problem is that most Celticists use unclean IPA and the table (as was before you changed it) had the correct close IPA values. Perhaps I should add sources other than Gillies but in the meantime, can you please leave the IPA be? Akerbeltz (talk) 21:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for assuming GF. After your reversion, I went to the article talk to leave a message and noticed the conversation about IPA representation. The reason I even took attention to the IPA was because I noticed that transcription of Gaelic in Wikipedia articles is wildly different from what's listed at WP:IPA for Scottish Gaelic. Since Scottish Gaelic phonology didn't cite any sources, I searched for them on my own. I'll leave the IPA as is until we have a consensus to change it, but is it all right if I modify the lenition table? I changed it to remove representing preaspiration/prepalatalization and moved the orthography columns together. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:23, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

They didn't differ that vastly to begin with. When in doubt, go by Wikipedia:IPA for Scottish Gaelic, it's the more accurate. It's not that we were lacking consensus, I just can't be everywhere at once and every now and then we get someone with "bright ideas" who ... "improves the info" and I think someone got to Gaelic phonology before me or you. Gaelic simply does not have palatalised labials, that's Irish. And it does have three sets of l n r and dntls are dental. Akerbeltz (talk) 21:40, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, a click trip through what links to WP:IPA for Scottish Gaelic showed some wildly different transcriptions. I was just explaining what motivated me to give it some attention. But I've started a new section in the talk page, so we can continue there. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:50, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

IPA

Please refrain from deleting comments posted on talk pages, marking them as 'trolling' just because you don't agree with the sentiment. This smacks dangerously of censorship. It is also somewhat surprising that you, as a seasoned editor, so quickly and freely use the label 'troll'(You may find the page WP:CIVL illuminating reading). I have contributed previously to this discussion, and do not appreciated having my comments labelled as trolling. I'm also not sure why you consider a polysyllabic word(s) as 'flowery', but there we go. In summary, you may find the following article helpful: WP:OWN, as has been implied by other editors comments above. Fortnum (talk) 18:01, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I presume that, given the latest developments over at wikipedia talk:IPA for English, you would agree that you were somewhat hasty in your castigation of me as (flowery, I know) of 'trolling' (whatever that silly term might mean), and even more hasty in your presumptive deletion of the thread. Fortnum (talk) 21:49, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

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Kudpung (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

IPA-fr

Hi Aeusoes1, since you're the creator of the French IPA Template, I was wondering if I could get your input concerning the use of [Square Brackets] vs. /Slashes/. The problem likely extends to a number of other of those IPA templates, but for now could you please refer to my concern on the IPA-fr talk page? Thanks. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 23:02, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Answer cut in half?

Did you really intend to answer like [5]? The second answer seems to be cut in half or missing the end Nil Einne (talk) 13:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not. It was a thought process that ended when I couldn't remember the second item. I just forgot to delete it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Jamaican Patois

Hi, I noticed you changed /uman/ back to /ooman/ after I had changed it this morning. Am I totally misunderstanding something? First, /o/ is not a phoneme with a long counterpart in JP. Only /a/, /i/, and /u/ have long counterparts. I was under the impression that whoever originally wrote this transcription meant to use a "sounds like" spelling with a conventional English digraph ("oo") to represent /u/, but mistakenly used the phonemic slashes. Or that the IPA and "sounds like" spellings got somehow confused. As far as I know, JP does not have a word /o:man/ or /ooman/ or however we want to write this. "Woman" should be /uman/, should it not? Thanks, Galger (talk) 03:42, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

If I recall correctly (and I can look it up again), /ooman/ is closer to [uoman] phonetically and the analysis of /oo/ comes from Harry (2006). This may be incorrect (or, as you've brought up in the talk page, undesirable), but I don't believe /uman/ is, either. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:04, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) This is not a pronunciation I have ever heard of. Both /ooman/ and /uoman/ make very little sense to me; /uman/ is the only JP pronunciation I know of. (2) In the research I did on Harry (2006), there is no /oo/ or /o:/ analysis; the diphthongs and long vowels in this analysis are as currently listed on the Wikipedia page. Please do look this up again, and go ahead and cite it if you find it. Otherwise, I'd appreciate you changing it back to /uman/. Thanks, Galger (talk) 05:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ebonics and Smith

Aeusoes1, you write at WP:AN/I:

I'm having difficulty understanding why you created the "Ernie Smith on Ebonics" section in the context of the conversation about content. I'm skeptical that you would have done this whether or not Smith had ever touched the talk page; other than to point out that Smith's views are controversial, I'm not sure what point you had in bringing it up at all, much less how it affects the article.

First, I decided that it really was time I paid attention to the Youtube link that for some time had sat at the foot of the article. (I'm reluctant to follow such Youtube links. Very often their borderline even as members of a list of ELs, and discussing them soon brings up arguments and wastes time.)

I was surprised that Hoover (a name that was new to me) claimed to have been present at the conference at which Williams came up with the term. That's the first time I'd seen any name specified, beyond Williams and Smith. What she said about the origin of the term was worth knowing. Transcribing it to the best of my ability was exhausting and I lacked the energy to listen to any more of what promised to be a long recording.

Also surprised that such a long old recording was at Youtube, I wondered about Smith. I wondered about him not because somebody credibly claiming to be Smith was an opinionated and prolific contributor to the talk page, but because, after Williams, he's about the most widely cited proponent of the term. And Smith's conventionally (dead trees) published materials tend to be short or hard to get hold of -- a video might be a useful supplement.

Smith has a DVD on the matter. But there's also a set of Youtube videos. I found them using this (Kubuntu) machine, which couldn't display them. I noted their existence.

Later I returned with another (Ubuntu) machine. That could display the first video (the only one I've seen so far) of the set.

What I saw amazed me. Smith, presented as a professor at a major university, is in an odd but distinctly formal setting -- I'd guess the studio of a television company running a very selfconsciously "play of ideas" type of program. He's definitely not speaking off the cuff or off the record. He's also extraordinarily articulate -- I mean, by the standard of people teaching at university or giving their opinions on the teevee. I have no reason to doubt that he meant what he said. (He may or may not wish to rephrase or even retract some of it now.) My "original synthesis" -- permissible, I think, as I'm now writing on a talk page -- is that he saw all such matters primarily in racial terms. Even putting aside talk of US imperialism and Zionism, Smith seems to have thought that Whites/Europeans held blackness or the distinctively Black in contempt. Ergo, "Black English", as the term was used by Whites, must be a pejorative term, as a language so named would have been seen as vulgar, lazy, licentious etc. He seems to have ascribed such ideas not only to crackers and the booboisie, but to people such as Wolfram, which stunned me.

A bit more OS, plus guesswork, based on this and some of the comments we've been getting, tells me that this dark view of the covert motivation of Wolfram, Labov, Baratz and so forth may have been in part triggered by, or at least made more plausible by, the lingering respect still paid in the early 1970s by some academics to Stanley Elkins' thesis in his book Slavery. Certainly insofar as people believed that (a) AAVE was the language of an infantilized people (!), then the notion that (b) AAVE itself (by whatever name) was infantile would be plausible. Luckily ideas have changed, so that nobody -- other perhaps than in the rabid extreme right of US politics (admiring readers of The Turner Diaries etc) would say this directly. I don't say that nobody else would think it -- I have my doubts about the Teabaggers and the uncritical consumers of "Fox News" -- but I can't believe that any US academic would, unless perhaps he were prematurely senile and about to be shown the door. Yet thanks in part to the baleful effect of Elkins' book, people could have reasonably suspected such motivation in the works of mainstream sociologists back in those days.

I brought to that talk page fragments of a jigsaw puzzle. Other editors may bring others. If they do so, the picture at the end may be very different from my own speculation. -- Hoary (talk) 05:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Okay, so you brought up the Hoover and Smith sections independently of the discussion going on at Talk:Ebonics. It's hard to see them as being sideline discussions when the talk page currently has one single discussion broken up (almost arbitrarily) by section breaks. It's still difficult for me to see what exactly this "jigsaw puzzle" is that you envision. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:17, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

And it is for me too. Not least because I don't have any particular point of view. AAVE interests me; "Ebonics" (so far as it means something beyond AAVE) interests me much less. The only thoughtful, dispassionate discussion of it I've ever seen is Baugh's, and I've already put some time into summarizing Baugh's treatment of it. -- Hoary (talk) 08:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Southern American English

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Affricates in English

Adze, ads and nods all contain a voiced alveolar affricate in them, at least phonetically if not phonemically. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.246.205.237 (talk) 13:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between an affricate and a stop+cluster cluster. English has the latter. Please bring a source to the table if you disagree. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:29, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

[i̯ɑ] = [jɑ] ?

Concerning this edit: are you sure [i̯ɑ] = [jɑ] in IPA? The same for other pairs. In Armenian the letter combination յա = ya is pronounced a little different depending on the letter preceding y. If it is a consonant, e.g. in kyank’ , ya is a diphthong so I transcribe it as [ki̯ɑnkʰ]. If ya is preceded by a vowel, as in maya, then y and a are not merged, ya is not a diphthong and I transcribe it as [mɑjɑ]. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 09:47, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

They're not perfectly equivalent, but they're close enough. Because [i̯] is typographically difficult and because it doesn't make any meaningful distinctions in Armenian, I don't see much reason to use it in transcriptions of Armenian words in Wikipedia articles. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:25, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Vahagn Petrosyan (talk) 19:49, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Talkback

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CrimsonBlue (talk) 05:32, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Draft RfC proposal

The bulk of this proposal has been extremely carefully crafted offline, while some of it has been left in my user space to demonstrate good faith. However, the RfC is being called by the opposition to the stance held by the major contributors to all Wikipedia IPA and IPA related articles - whoever they may be - , so the opposition is not invited to take part in this draft proposal. While it is true that some editors and admins have been exceptionally abusive, this debate is not to be about Kwami, though I will agree however, that it is an unfortunate coincidence that he is by far the major author/contributor to all articles concerning the IPA and the Manual of Style (pronunciation), and these articles may appear to some to be based very much on OR. However, on your suggestion I have removed the link to your talk page, and checked the others again for relevancy. I stress again therefore, that this IPA RfC is deliberately completely neutral, and does not address editors' or administrators' attitudes. There is nevertheless solid consensus that Kawamikagami has blatently abused several Wikipedia guidelines regarding editor etiquette, which is doubly grave due to his being an admin, and which might be the subject of an entirely different discussion which might take place through another channel. Much will depend on his behaviour in this RfC. The whole idea of this RfC is to let the community decide on the use of the IPA, and not to be bullied off and brow-beaten by another walled garden of IPA accomplices. In the best case scenario, IMHO, the IPA protagonists should keep off the RfC entirely, in the same way that I will, and that's why the links are there.--Kudpung (talk) 07:56, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm a little confused. Who is composing the RFC draft if it's not by opponents of the current policy? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:11, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

The RfC draft is not up for discussion. That's why it's an RfC - verstehe? FYI, of course it's being drafted by the opposition, but with great care to make the proposal as open and as neutral and as fair as possible. It's more about finding out what the people want rather than what a tiny dictatorial minority in a walled garden of IPA connivance want. It's explained in the olive branch posting below above - it just needs reading tha'ts all. Bullying won't be tolerated this time though!.--Kudpung (talk) 20:37, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

IPA

New comments continue to arrive across the encyclopedia from editors and visitors regarding the the use of the apparent final /r/. I am shortly going to launch an RfC in the hope that the community can decide for themselves rather than having to unravel technical comments from linguists. Sometimes during a discussion, a small group of contributors might collectively pretend to a majority consensus to negate a minority opinion and try to outmaneuvering the minority into WP:CIVIL, or simply force them to leave the discussion in dismay. Those of us who have been around for a while probably know just how much we can taunt each other without recrimination, but may be committed to an agenda with a personal, or group conviction that goes beyond rational discussion, and express themselves in a combative manner . Enthusiasm is fine if you are right, but caring more about your cause than objective editing is counter productive to Wikipedia. Unfortunately, many attempts to address such issues often end in an appeal to ANI or Arbcom, which is sometimes a waste of time because those with an agenda are likely to do whatever they can to prevent the plaintif from getting a fair hearing.

Therefore, apart from neutral comments to keep the RfC on track, and to state facts as necessary, I shall abstain from adding my opinion anywhere. In the light of that, but without admitting to any cases of lack of Wikiiquette, I am offering up this olive branch of peace. --Kudpung (talk) 07:58, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

I was confused by this because, before today, I haven't found any antagonism from you towards me. Your recent comment at Wikipedia talk:IPA for English is thus your first swipe at me. So I suppose I can see this olive branch as preemptive.

I don't mind you going against your plan to "abstain from adding [your] opinion anywhere" but if you are going to continue to do so, then I renew my offer to have a one-on-one discussion with you about this topic on my talk page. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 20:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not as mean, cunning, nasty, calculating, and abusive as some of the members of the IPA squadron, and I haven't taken a swipe at you, so the olive branch was not preemptive. If anything, I've tqken a broadshot at the wall of your, Kwamis, and Lfh's secret garden. In fact I'm not a mean, cunning, nasty, and abusive person at all, and if I were, I would find some other avenue than the Wikipedia to express the more sinister sides of my character. Problem is, that it's people like the IPA squadron that make other people give up from wanting to be regular contributors. Is that what you really want? Is your only enjoyment in being here that you can argue with people from the safety of the anonymity the Internet affords? It's fast getting to be no fun trying to help make the Wikipdia a respected, professional thing. My comment was addressed at a collective 'you all' - something else you didn't notice or understand. Or do you guys just go around spoiling for a fight then go crying to Aunty ANI when someone finally loses their patience and hits one of you on the nose? I just continue to be amazed at the way you folks can't understand or follow a discussion without sidetracking and throwing up smoke screens. I haven't broken any of my own rules either - I said quite CLEARLY that I will abstain from the RfC so that the community can decide without being double-crossed by jargon they don't unserstand. Why is it that you folks ALWAYS twist my words? Are you all so ensconced in your IPA that you have lost the ability to communicate properly?--Kudpung (talk) 20:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't have a history of many of the things you say. I apologize for misreading your intent about stating your opinion. I thought when you said "I shall abstain from adding my opinion anywhere" that you meant anywhere on Wikipedia, not anywhere in the RFC. I believe we can discuss this in a calm and civil manner on my talk page. We needn't talk about the others as we do so. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 21:04, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Again you have totally misunderstood what I said - misunderstanding seems to be a common problem among IPA contributors - I really can't see where I accused you personally of any of those things. I more specifically tried to avoid mentioning the name of any one specific culprit. However, although the IPA specialists might be true experts in some aspects of linguistics, they appear to be generally, expeptionally poor communicators, and I have absolutely no enthusiasm towards discussing these issues either with you on a one-to-one or with any of the other IPA article 'owners' as long as there is a risk of them chiming in with their abuse, insults, and personal attacks. That is how far you and your IPA companions have brought the required collaboration for building a truly worthwhile encyclopdia. Some of you appear to be hell bent on destroying the enthusiasm of other editors who want accurate, factual articles. I hope you at least understand this message - if you want it repeated in another language please choose from the list of my fluent languages on my user page. If my words are now tending to take a terse slant, I apologise, but you can be sure I won't resort to the base and gross character traits of your elected IPA sysop leader.--Kudpung (talk) 04:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't sure if you were lumping me in with others in your description of grievances; my intent was not to construe that you had made such an accusation but, rather, to point to my past behavior as indicating that an exchange between us isn't likely to exhibit the problems that you have had in the past with other editors.

It's unfortunate that you don't feel that other editors would respect such boundaries on my talk page if I requested it of them. Another (albeit, less transparent) option is to have a private email exchange (I'm not sure how to do this through Wikipedia, but I do occasionally get emails so it can't be that hard). Would that suit you? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 07:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

ok. There's a thing somewhere on my talk or user page about contacting me by email, but if I get any other univited messages on it from anyone concerned with this IPA issue, they will be likely to be reported for stalking me and spamming my private emil, and being a sysop won't help them much.--Kudpung (talk) 12:32, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I haven't heard from you, so I assume you've given your offer of an off-line discussion seconds thoughts. This is particularly unfortunate, because some editors appear to be adding IPA transcriptions to foreign names without knowing how they are pronounced. .This seems rather counter productive for building an encyclopedia, and as it is not dissimilar to the issue concerning the pronunciation of British place names, I would have welcomed your thought. --Kudpung (talk) 23:35, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I haven't given up on it. I've just been a bit busy. I should be dropping you an email this week. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:48, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Please don't leave it too long, as I am being pestered (in the friendliest possible way) by email from several editors to help get a couple of these linguistic issues resolved. As you know, I am as anxious as we all are to find amicable solutions and you are one person with whom I feel able to communicate in a civil manner, even though we may not only be on different sides of the fence, but also on different sides of the pond.--Kudpung (talk) 02:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

RP capitalisation: suggested move

Tomorrow (according to my timezone) will be seven days for Talk:Received Pronunciation#Requested move. Could you then please wrap this debate up as unanimous against the move? --Kudpung (talk) 04:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

southmin=lectgroup

incl.teochew+i/taibei>[lit]--pl.note:i'v[[RSI]]>typin=v.v.hard4me!>contactme thruMSNpl.if unclear[sven70=alias (talk) 09:34, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

[sʲlʲɪˈpoj]

Can you please point me to the source that reports this? I am no linguist, but I know Russian, and the first consonant is just not palatalized... -- Y not? 06:22, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

You are not the first Russian editor to bring this up. The source is Morris Halle's Sound Pattern of Russian (1959). It's an old source but it's also very detailed, especially in regards to palatalization. I've created a table at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Russian that outlines the interaction of various consonants according to Halle. There are three issues that complicate this.

1. This is an old source and it's certainly a possibility that the language has changed
2. There may be some dialectal or ideolectal variation going on here that we're not aware of
3. Since it's non-contrastive, native speakers aren't necessarily primed to hear the distinction (though this is speculation)

Either way, more recent sourcing can help with the issue. Until we find such sourcing, especially because of point 3, I don't think we should go against the source. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:48, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Not in '59 and not now. He made a mistake. Can we use another word, like прямой = straight, or is the assertion that in every initial CL cluster the C will be palatalized when the L is palatalized? Like I said, it's just wrong. -- Y not? 13:36, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

The assertion is that dental consonants preceding /lʲ/ are hard. This particular rule has some caveats such as that in "literary pronunciation" (which I figured would be better to avoid), dental consonants become palatalized before /lʲ/ across prefix/preposition boundaries. Going with Halle's rules, I would transcribe прямой as [prʲɪˈmoj] without assimilated palatalization and if you want to change that example I don't have a problem with it except that I don't think we should go about avoiding words with a dental consonant preceding soft л just because there's some disagreement about whether the с is soft or not. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:07, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

световой [sʲvʲɪtɐˈvoj] ('luminous') and звезда [zʲvʲɪˈzda] ('star') are also wrong... I consulted with my Russian peeps - all agree. -- Y not? 18:55, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I understand. But we can't disregard sourcing on phonetic particularities whenever nonspecialist native speakers disagree. I'm still open to new sourcing that speaks on this. Until then, I don't think we should change the transcription of these words.

Since you're interested though, at Wikipedia talk:IPA for Russian, I've created a table that details the distribution of soft and hard consonants in Russian consonant clusters. There are a few blank spots, though. Deductive reasoning would tell me to expect hard consonants in those spots that haven't been filled but there are a few cells that seem to show contrastiveness if orthography is to be trusted. My knowledge of Russian is limited, so if you could comment on the table, particularly on the questionable cells, it would be helpful. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:15, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit warring

Adding an apology in an edit summary does not escape the fact that you refuse, as always, to accept suggestions from anyone who holds a different opinion from your own. --Kudpung (talk) 05:27, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

If you're trying to pick a fight, I'm not interested. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 06:50, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

I have to second the sentiments of Kudpung. Aeusoes fails the first rule of scholarship: the ability to listen. Haldrik (talk) 01:56, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

agre---Please note, I have [[Repetitive Strain Injury]] and find typing very hard. I use a form of shorthand, which may be difficult to understand. I can be contacted through MSN (sven70) or Skype (sven0921) if my meaning is unclear. (talk) 01:41, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, would you be so kind as to give us support!

Hello, I hope you are doing fine and I sincerely apologize for this intrusion. I have just read your profile and you seem a very learned person and interested in (small) languages and cultures so maybe I am not bothering you and you will help us... I'm a member of an association "Amical de la Viquipèdia" which is trying to get some recognition as a Catalan Chapter but this has not been approved up to this moment because it does not belong to one state. We would appreciate your support, visible if you stick this on your first page: Wikimedia CAT. Thanks again, wishing you a great summertime, take care! Capsot (talk) 10:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Fails to assume good faith

Aeusoes1 describes himself with following user-boxes ...

This user assumes good faith.

This user tries to do the right thing. If they make a mistake, please let them know.

But the reality is, Aeusoes1 often fails to assume good faith, and simply lashes out with baseless senseless attacks. Without even attempts at discussion. Haldrik (talk) 03:17, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

You are now a Reviewer

Hello. Your account has been granted the "reviewer" userright, allowing you to review other users' edits on certain flagged pages. Pending changes, also known as flagged protection, is currently undergoing a two-month trial scheduled to end 15 August 2010.

Reviewers can review edits made by users who are not autoconfirmed to articles placed under pending changes. Pending changes is applied to only a small number of articles, similarly to how semi-protection is applied but in a more controlled way for the trial. The list of articles with pending changes awaiting review is located at Special:OldReviewedPages.

When reviewing, edits should be accepted if they are not obvious vandalism or BLP violations, and not clearly problematic in light of the reason given for protection (see Wikipedia:Reviewing process). More detailed documentation and guidelines can be found here.

If you do not want this userright, you may ask any administrator to remove it for you at any time. Courcelles (talk) 02:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks

for your help at debuccalization. It's great to find another person crazy about linguistics like I am. Do you speak any Chinese? I can give you some helpful links...It's a great language. And much easier in most respects than most languages people study (German, Russian, Japanese, Arabic, etc.) Pronunciation is straightforward and grammar is really simple--达伟 (talk) 00:22, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't speak Chinese. It's good to know that the grammar is straightforward, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:28, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Sans-serif upper I = lower L

Dear Aeusoes, regarding Spanish phonology, those archiphonemic sans-serif uppercase I's still look like lowercase L's, so the sample word ley in phonemes looks like a lowercase LEL. I appreciate that you want to stay "pure" in the use of IPA, but here we're talking about a Prague School concept, archiphoneme, which in itself is not IPA-pure. The IPA didn't anticipate that anyone would want to use uppercase characters (except its own occasional small-caps, with their own phonetic meanings). Please give me some reasoning why we should accept the ambiguity of LEL when my Greek solution is available, with its only flaw -- the tiny flyspeck at its upper left corner -- being nearly imperceptible. Kotabatubara (talk) 00:47, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

My concern is that the author being attributed used a capital I and not other symbols. As long as we have an explanatory note, I don't think people will be confused, especially since we're not using this archiphonemic symbol. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 00:52, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The explanatory-note option is also available with the Greek character, and it has the advantage that it doesn't give that cryptic "lel" appearance. I myself was confused by it: my head doesn't want to give the "same" character two different meanings in the same word. And most readers (I say this in all humility) are more naive than me in reading this kind of material. Kotabatubara (talk) 14:09, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Like I said, the author being attributed used the capital i and I don't want to givet the impression that the author used the greek character. The explanatory note is for people like yourself who might get confused and should be sufficient by itself. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:22, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

The character /Ὶ/ from Wiki's Greek repertoire -- _together with_ the appositive "that is, the uppercase vowel 'I' " -- satisfies both my need for unambiguous characters and your need for unambiguous fidelity to Alarcos Llorach's intentions. By supplementing the character with a _verbal definition_ in this way, we can remove any implication that Alarcos might have intended an aspirated iota (or whatever its role in Greek is), even for those whose eyesight is sharp enough to detect the diacritic. Look at the precedent, in this article, of the approximant allophones of /b d g/, "hereafter represented without the undertack", where a verbal explanation justifies an altered symbol. Kotabatubara (talk) 02:47, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it doesn't satisfy my concern. The way it's worded now makes it quite clear that Alarcos Llorach did use the Greek character when this is untrue. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Revert

Could you, please, explain your revert? A sound’s length is indicated by [ː], isn’t it? And Russian letter “е” is never pronounced as [e] when unstressed. — Glebchik (talk) 13:07, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Length can also be indicated by a doubling of letters. There are a few phonetic criteria for the distinction but at some point we changed the representation of щ to be with a doubled letter. I didn't notice the vowel change you'd made. It should actually be [ɪ]. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 16:17, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Input requested

There is a discussion at Talk:Barbadian English#Recent move regarding the recent move of the article from Bajan. The discussion is centering on whether Bajan/Barbadian Creole language is equivilent to Barbadian English. I have found few online sources from the article that address the issue. Do you have access to any reliable sources, printed or online, that might be of use in the discussion? Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 07:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll see what I can find. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 22:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

OK, thanks, whatever you can find is fine. - BilCat (talk) 23:12, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I've left the duscussion on that page. There's no consensus to follow cited reliable sources already present in the article. I see no point in continuing a fruitless discussion. Thanks. - BilCat (talk) 14:50, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Arabic Phonology page

I still think that the links I added to the Arabic Phonology page would have proven very useful, with minimal impact on readability (if any). That's your choice not to leave them there and I respect it (though I disagree).

Thanks for the feedback anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shomoa (talk • contribs) 15:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

The impact on readability wasn't my concern at all, actually. The more I research Arabic, the more it becomes apparent that the sounds given are an abstraction and there is no one single Standard Arabic pronunciation. This means that the consonant chart provided is a diasystem (something I've been researching lately) somewhat more abstract than a phonemic system. Some of the sounds (such as the nasals and the velars) are consistent throughout but some (like the dorsal fricatives and the emphatic dental fricative) vary from speaker to speaker.

Although it was part of my reversal, I don't think linking to the letters is a bad idea, though if you care to redo that part I wouldn't remove the language coding since that's important for proper rendering in some browsers. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 15:41, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic (which is what the article revolves around) is not an abstraction at all. So-called Arabic "dialects" (which are actually languages on their own) can certainly influence an Arab's native pronunciation of MSA, but not to the extent of making his/her speech unintelligible to other educated Arabs, however far may they be from.

In my opinion, the right-to-left template isn't really necessary here. We're dealing with single characters, treaten as simple Unicode codes sent to the page with no direction associated to them. So there should be no rendering issues (provided one views the page with an Unicode font). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shomoa (talk • contribs) 20:51, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Intelligibility has very little to do with this; we're simply talking about the phonetic particularities of (dia)phonemes. There are a number of diaphonemes in the MSA diasystem that are pronounced differently by different speakers depending on their native dialect. The pronunciation if jim is a notable one, but the velar/uvular fricatives are another important example (Are archetypally they velar, post-velar, or uvular?).

The template marking the language isn't just a right-to-left template. It marks that what is contained within is of a particular language, which is important for some browsers. Particularly those that don't view pages with a unicode font. IMHO, it's not a horrible thing to not have it (which is why I don't go out of my way to add it anywhere) but if there's no clear reason to remove it, it ought to stay. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:30, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Bantu naming

Do you have any opinion on whether Bantu languages should have the prefix or follow 'X language', or if it should be on a case-by-case basis? There's a move request at Ganda language. — kwami (talk) 14:04, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi, would you be so kind as to give us support!

Hello, I hope you're doing fine and I sincerely apologize for this intrusion. My name is Claudi Balaguer (User Capsot from the Catalan Wikipedia and the Occitan Wikiccionari), I've just read your profile and have seen that you show a keen interest in diverse cultures, linguistics and languages, so I think that you know very well what are a minorized language and culture and maybe I am not bothering you and you will help us... I'm a member of a Catalan association "Amical de la Viquipèdia" which is trying to get some recognition as a Catalan Chapter but this hasn't been approved up to that moment. We would appreciate your support, visible if you stick this template on your first page Wikimedia CAT or/and sign the list of Members and Supporters, following the link on the template. Thanks again for your attention and I sincerely apologize if my message was bothersome or not interesting for you, I wish you a nice, pleasant and warm summer, take care! Capsot (talk) 11:56, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Browser effect in Template_talk:IPA_consonant_chart

Hi, could you take a look at your post here, where there is a sandbox to test browser behavior. I'd like to read your comments. -DePiep (talk) 21:52, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Consonants

Template:Consonants has been nominated for merging with Template:IPA navigation. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Actually, a redirect is proposed. See also: {{IPA consonant chart}}. Discussion is here. DePiep (talk) 12:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Nomination for merging of Template:Vowels

Template:Vowels has been nominated for merging with Template:IPA navigation. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. Actually, a redirect is proposed. See also: {{IPA vowel chart}}. Discussion is here. DePiep (talk) 12:23, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Romanized Popular Alphabet

Discussing this edit:

• Firstly, this is not a linguistics manual. This is an encyclopedia article. Every aspect needs to be covered. People's opinions and views about aspects, whether they are linguistics researchers or other people, should be covered.
• Do linguistic manuals directly contradict what Fadiman says? If not, then her material needs to be restored.
• The material from Fadiman's book comes from an appendix about Hmong orthography and spelling, so it is a linguistic reference, even if it wasn't written by a linguist or intended for an advanced linguist audience. Fadiman herself had to have consulted with one; she just made her statements towards a general audience rather than an advanced linguist audience.
• Fadiman herself is well known in Hmong studies, as her book documented the Lia Lee case

I must also add that the "tones" section was totally unsourced before I edited the page.

If you want I can move the discussion to the article talk page. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:21, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea, so that we can get others' opinions as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 04:23, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Romanized_Popular_Alphabet#Anne Fadiman's linguistic appendix, and information from it - Here you go :) WhisperToMe (talk) 05:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Macedonian phonology

• Neither Lunt (1952) nor Friedman (2001) recognize the existence of a [...] palatal (/ʎ/) lateral in standard Macedonian.
• both of these scholars also assert that there is a phonemic contrast between the velarised lateral /ɫ/ and the nonvelarised /l/.

--124.148.192.108 (talk) 22:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

More ipa queries

Hi, I see you reverted my changes to the Wikipedia:IPA for Arabic page. You obviously know far more about the subject than I do, however, I am confused about the 'Dal', 'Dad' (sorry for the improper characters) pronunciation. The nearest English equivalent given uses deed and dawn respectively. To my ear the 'd' sound in both is exactly the same (in my Enlish at least), so how would a casual reader of the page be able to tell the difference? (I appreciate that the vowel at the end of the 'dw' sound of 'Dad' can vary according to the way the character is written (called 'nunation' I believe)).

The fat, fought and fan, fawn English examples in the vowel box are also confusing. They vowel sounds in both pairs seem identical to me aswell, and seem to contradict the way the pronunciations given for the IPA i, i: and u, u: characters work.

If the answer to these questions is too complex to answer quickly I would greatly appreciate a link to somewhere enlightening. Cheers and thanks - 1812ahill (talk) 18:35, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Those are some good questions. In regard to [dˤ] there is no real English equivalent so it's almost impossible to provide clear examples. However, English features what's called "articulatory overlap" (very similar to assimilation where sounds near each other adopt characteristics as part of the move from one sound to another. A real catchy example is a note you can leave at your table at a buffet restaurant I've frequented: "I'll be ripe back." Saying "right back" sounds like "ripe back" because the /t/ of right is a glottal stop in the syllable coda and articulatory overlap leads people to press their lips together (in anticipation of producing the /b/ of back) before releasing their glottis.

This occurs with vowel-consonant interactions as well and the /d/ of dark, because it precedes /ɑː/, shares some of the pharyngeal constriction inherent in that vowel. Because the distinction isn't meaningful in English and because it's subtle, you and I aren't primed to hear it (we're actually primed to ignore it) but that very pharyngeal constriction is what differs Arabic Dāl from Ḍād. /dw/, while exhibiting the dorsal (velar/pharyngeal) constriction also carries lip rounding that isn't present (AFAIK) in Arabic, which can confuse readers.

The second issue may relate to your particular dialect. It seems that someone who speaks my dialect (where the vowel of caught is the same as the vowel of cot--both [ɑː]) came up with examples. I'll see if I can't come up with better ones. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 19:11, 26 September 2010 (UTC)