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The key lists the respelling symbols and example words that have the sound in question, but it does not demonstrate how to respell those example words in full. This can sometimes lead to confusion about how the symbols are properly used. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 07:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
What is the point of describing "kh->loch->/x/ but then adding "Pronounced like k by many speakers"? We may as well say that "s" is pronounced "th" by many speakers, which is equally true. It's all very well saying this is descriptive and not prescriptive, but having a "guide" or a "key" implies some sort of prescriptivism! "Ch" is a Scottish sound and it is properly pronounced as /x/. -- John ( talk) 18:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I previously raised (almost three years ago) the basis for including this separate respelling system alongside IPA. It was not apparent to me then, and nor is it now, that there was ever a proper discussion prior to setting this up. As it is redundant to the international standard system, and is solely based on the original research of Wikipedia editors, I am suggesting that we get rid of it, unless there is a demonstrable project-wide consensus to include it. I realise a lot of well-intentioned and hard work has been done by editors to produce it, but I really think it merely adds noise and clutter and dumbs down our articles. Articles that have both IPA and this made-up system in the lead sentence look terrible to me. Would I be better off going to MfD, an RfC or what? I thought I would raise it here in the first instance. -- John ( talk) 17:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Is there a text to speech program that can handle this PR key? Illegitimate Barrister 11:59, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
The title uses the 'schwa' in the title key, for pronunciation. Is this incorrect? The sound is 'ɵ,' as in the 'u' in nun, isn't it?
86.154.34.159 ( talk) 18:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
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In "It does not use special symbols or diacritics apart from the schwa, "ə", which is used (for example) for the a in about.", "or" should be "nor", and "a" and "about" should be in quotations. 2601:E:100:BD7:C949:A686:7408:FBC9 ( talk) 21:54, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
How do I prevent automatic stress formatting? I'm trying to get awkh|ən|TAW|shən but it forces this to AWKH|ən|TAW|shən which is wrong. Akerbeltz ( talk) 12:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
The article for John Boehner includes a note that reads, in part, "The German pronunciation of the name Boehner/Böhner is [ˈbøːnɐ] BURH-na". This uses the respelling key here to respell a sound that is not actually in the key, presumably by analogy with a similar sound (in non-rhotic dialects). The key should probably make a note of what to do in cases of foreign sounds such as this one. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 06:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The way this key writes lax vowels, as simple a e i o u, seems liable to cause confusion when they fall in open syllables, since many of them have naive readings in this position which are tense. For instance, Up Helly Aa indicates /ˈʌphɛliə/ UP-he-lee-ə, where he suggests rather /hiː/. Even if you think this is accidental (the problem being that he collided with a word), there are several such landmines around.
Should we do anything about this? The sort of thing I'd think of as a good fix would be to double the following onset C to close the syllable ( UP-hel-lee-ə); but that doesn't play so nicely with the marked syllable divisions, and it's less uniform, which some might dislike. 4pq1injbok ( talk) 12:58, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
On the whole, I think pronunciation respellings (PR) should be discouraged; I strongly favor IPA instead. There are many reasons. One is that it hinders communication between speakers of different languages, if they don't even use the same system for representing the sounds of language. It's a bit like us Americans using feet and pounds when the rest of the world uses metric. Esperantists claim that tyranny thrives on a lack of communication and understanding, and I agree, even though I despise Esperanto for a variety of reasons and do not believe it should be adopted as the “universal language”.
Another reason is that it reduces people's awareness of other languages. This is particularly important because so many English speakers can only speak English, which I find shameful. Also, PR makes people seem uneducated, like they don't know or can't learn IPA.
Perhaps my biggest objection to PR is that alot of the PRs are blatantly illogical, even ugly. Some of this is inevitable, because English has more vowels and consonants than there are letters, so odd digraphs are needed. However, I agree that, in particular, the respellings <ay> for /ei/ (face), and <y> or <eye> for /ai/ (time), are illogical; in a logical respelling system the former would be written <ei> or <ey> and the latter, <ai> or <ay>, almost a complete reversal of symbols. What in particular bothers me is that /stein/ is spelled <stain> and /stain/ is spelled <stein> when it should be vice versa. Another thing that bothers me is having /au/ (house) be spelled <ou> or <ow> instead of <au> or <aw>, encouraged in turn by another illogical symbol, <aw> or <au> for /ɔ/ (lawn). This is a major motive for me being a strong supporter of phoneticizing English (fonetisaizing Inglish).
I admit, however, that sometimes PR's can be desirable. However, would it be realistic to change Wikipedia's PR symbol for /ei/ (face) from <ay> to <ey>? In any "phoneticized" form of English, I would hate (heyt) to see the spelling of /ei/ normalized to <ai> or <ay> rather than <ei> or <ey>, so my aforementioned suggested change (cheynje) in Wikipedia's PR for English may (mey) be in the public interest.-- Solomonfromfinland ( talk) 09:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The "/r/" in the consonants table should be "/ɹ/". Valkura ( talk) 22:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA for English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 20:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
I wanted to add a respelling pronunciation to Lompoc, California, which has an unusual pronunciation that may not be clear to non-IPA-readers. So I put LAHM-poke. According to the key, the systematic version would actually be LAHM-pohk, but I think that's less intuitive; it could easily be read as a "short o" (IPA /ɒ/), especially by users who are inclined that way anyway because of the spelling.
Maybe it would be a good idea to accommodate this technique explicitly in the key? -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:43, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
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The "Syllables and stress" section should indicate that consecutive unstressed syllables need to be separated in wikicode by hyphens, not by pipes. Currently it simply states that syllables are to be separated by pipes and the stressed syllable should be all-caps, but this is not entirely correct. The Template:Respell page details this, but since this Help page also describes the wikicode for syllables, then it should be corrected so other users are not misled like I was.
71.166.62.141 ( talk) 02:34, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
How is the /ə:/ represented in this system? Like 'bird'. -- Wester ( talk) 17:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
In Killing of Harambe#Harambe the pronunciation is hə-RAM-bee. Here is the original video where his name was first annouced [1]. Sounds like "Huh ROM bay". Need help if we have it right. -- Green C 20:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Making references to checked vowels in open syllables strikes me as not understanding what an open syllable is or the phonotactic restraints of English phonology. Outside of a few interjections, the vowels /ɛ æ ɒ ɪ ʊ ʌ/ do not appear without a following consonant. I had made this edit in the hopes that @ Espoo: might consider a different term (as I imagine there must be a more accurate one). @ Mr KEBAB: seems to think otherwise. His explanation that they may appear "immediately before a stressed syllable" sounds funny to me. I'm forced to wonder how exactly we are we using the postvocalic h here. Anyone care to explain? — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:32, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Am having a bit of a time deciding how best to handle the respelling of the Nintendo game system Wii U. The IPA is fine, and "Wii" gets respelled "WEE", which is fine too, but according to the respelling key "U", which sounds like the word "you", gets respelled "EW"... Intuitively I'd rather respell it "YOO" but of course the letter "y" has already been set aside for the diphthong "ai". On the the hand, "EW" by itself and without any preceding consonant could imply that this sound is like the interjection in "Ew! A worm!", corresponding to IPA /ʔɛuː/. The current respelling in the article matches up with what we have in our key here— but it doesn't match up (here) with the intuitive pronunciation that it is intended to evoke. Has this ever been discussed or dealt with before, does anyone know? Is "WEE EW" really how we have to respell "Wii U"? 'Cause it just don't look right. KDS4444 ( talk) 02:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
I've never understood why both primary and secondary stress are emphasized the same way. Although there is a variety between dictionaries, a secondary stress could come either before or after a primary stress, and therefore prə-NUN-see-AY-shən could be read as either /prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ or /prəˈnʌn.siˌeɪ.ʃən/. So one wouldn't be able to tell if HY-SKOOL is a secondary school or a school that's high up. It seems to me secondary stresses need not be emphasized at all. Nardog ( talk) 19:18, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
@ Woodstone: I believe illustrating orthographic variety in English words on this page is indeed important, because the fact some Wikipedians thought they needed this system is precisely because of the spelling inconsistencies in English (and people's lack of awareness about them), and those who need this page are exactly the kind of people who are unaware of how many phonemes they have, which spelling represents which sound, etc. This page isn't "just about pronunciation", but it is about both pronunciation and orthography and how they relate to each other, at least more so than Help:IPA for English is. I'm not suggesting to list all the possible variations, I just think it wouldn't hurt to have some, and it would be weird if Help:IPA for English had more examples (not all of which add phonetic diversity) than this one. I'd appreciate someone else chiming in on this, though. Nardog ( talk) 17:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Re: these edits: The maximal onsets principle isn't the only way of syllabifying English words, much less the "correct" one. Attributing a sequence of a checked vowel and a consonant to the same syllable (as opposed to universally applying the maximal onsets principle except where the consonant cluster is impossible) does make sense in this respelling system because the checked vowels never occur in open syllables save for a very few exceptions, and transcribing /mɪˈtɒnɪmi/ as mi-TO-ni-mee increases the chances of it being interpreted as /mɪˈtoʊnɪmi/. Granted, mi-TON-i-mee is also susceptible to being interpreted as /mɪˈtʌnɪmi/, but that is comparatively a small problem because there just happens to be the word ton in this specific case and does not apply to all respellings of syllables with checked vowels. There are probably a myriad of monosyllabic words that contradict this respelling system, and there cannot possibly be a respelling system that doesn't involve such disagreements because English orthography is just too inconsistent.
The potential problem with attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final isn't words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently from the respelling (because this isn't limited to syllabification but concerns the respelling system as a whole); the problem is syllabification (theoretically) modifying the result of articulation. For instance, t in English is generally aspirated in syllable-initial positions except when it is preceded by s. So, if t in historic is not aspirated, then one has to transcribe it as /hɪˈstɒɹɪk/ and not /hɪsˈtɒɹɪk/. Similarly, if the second r in frustration is voiced, that means the syllabification should be /fɹʌ.stɹeɪ.ʃən/ rather than /fɹʌs.tɹeɪ.ʃən/, because the latter would indicate that the second r is voiceless. These are the only kinds of instances in which one needs to attribute the consonant after a checked vowel to the following syllable, i.e. hi(h)-STORR-ik · fruh-STRAY-shən, not his-TORR-ik · frus-TRAY-shən. This is why eh, ih, and uh were added as options for /ɛ, ɪ, ʌ/ to avoid confusion with free vowels (vowels that can occur in open syllables) such as /eɪ, iː, aɪ, uː/ (see #Open syllable above). But since ah and oh are already taken, no such solution is provided for /æ, ɒ/ (/æ/ isn't much of a problem but o at the end of a syllable is more likely to be misinterpreted as /oʊ/), which is all the more reason breaking the maximal onsets principle is encouraged wherever possible (that is, where it doesn't affect aspiration or devoicing).
Whatever the case, attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final is already practiced in many articles, so please get a consensus before making a change if you wish to. Nardog ( talk) 10:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Words like root and roof are pronounced with the respelling vowel oo as in goose by some English speakers and uu as in put by others.
Could we add a single respelled vowel sound to indicate this? Perhaps uoo?
uoo : roof, root
So for example roof would be respelled as ruoof which would be pronounced with an oo by some and uu by others.
DavRosen ( talk) 17:22, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Hello. A discussion recently arose among Wikipedians on how to represent pronunciation of a name of a chemical element. One thing that came as a complete surprise for me was that /oʊ/, which sounds like two separate vowel sounds, was represented with "oh." Because of that, I was not able to correctly read names of some elements at first, which quite defeats the whole point of the respell. I suggest we represent /oʊ/ with "ou"; that is not taken.-- R8R ( talk) 11:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
/oʊ/ is usually not what I have on my mind when reading "oh."That's because you're a non-native speaker. No offense, but that's the truth. Mr KEBAB ( talk) 17:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
What is this really good for? In the articles it is used in, it only seems to provide respelling for what would sound like chewing-gum English of Americans with little education and no linguistic skills. There is no explanatory or educational value gained, whatsoever. Is there any comprehensive justification for using this extreme attempt to dumb down articles? It seems utterly non-encyclopedic. ♆ CUSH ♆ 19:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
The IPA has significant advantages over the respelling system described here, as it can be used to accurately represent pronunciations from any language in the world, and (being an international standard) is often more familiar to non-native speakers of English. On the other hand, the IPA (being designed to represent sounds from any language in the world) is not as intuitive for those chiefly familiar with English orthography, for whom this respelling system is likely to be easier for English words and names.
Since
/juː/ and /jʊər/ have been separated in the IPA table, should we also replace "ew(r)" with "yoo(r)" completely, or should we keep it for the coronal consonants?
--
maczkopeti (
talk)
16:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi. Two questions:
Mr KEBAB ( talk) 16:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Nitpick: The entire article, particularly the key, assumes standard American English pronunciations even though this is never stated in the article. At the very least that assumption needs to be stated, and ideally there should be examples for both the American and BBC pronunciations. (I'm not suggesting that every accent in the world should be listed but most accents in the world are similar to one of the two).
-- MC 141.131.2.3 ( talk) 20:29, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑːr/ |
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑː/ |
Rspl. | Example(s) |
IPA- Gen Am |
IPA- RP |
---|---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑːr/ | /ɑː/ |
It seems like it would be easy to make a bot that would, upon request, generate respelling automatically from IPA. If an editor sees IPA and wishes there were a respelled version, they could get one automatically generated. Ccrrccrr ( talk) 00:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Wait, "hurry" and "furry" have a different respell value for the "-urry" part? How so?? If true, I think this requires some kind of explanation; if false, then this looks like it needs to be fixed somehow. A loose noose ( talk) 16:52, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
What are the guidelines to follow regarding syllabification? For example, WIK-ih-PEE-dee-ə -- Backinstadiums ( talk) 16:09, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi. In modern English it’s increasingly rare for people to pronounce an “h” sound at the front of why, where, what. I think therefore that it’s unhelpful to transcribe a “hw” sound such as (Tee-HWAH-nah, Tijuana) into English as “wh” (tee-WHAH-nah), as the average contemporary English speaker would read that as “tee-WAH-nah”. “He” is unambiguous. Keizers ( talk) 12:43, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
In any case, are we sure those with the merger will use a different realization for foreign borrowings? Because if not, we wouldn’t even need to do that.
イヴァンスクルージ九十八
(会話)
18:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
(As there appears to be no actual policy behind this help page, I'm discussing this here. If there is a policy, it should be linked.)
Avoiding using a respelling due to possible ambiguity with real words seems suboptimal, and does not reflect what I seem to remember saying before. It instead suggested that double letters or other possibilities be used.
Of the three examples in the text, at least the pronunciations of "cobalt" and "metonymy" could be easily indicated in unambiguous ways, e.g. KOH-bahlt and meh-TAH-no-mee, or possibly meh-TONN-oh-mee
I would suggest that the advice be to attempt to find a respelling that does not use ambiguous real words, rather than being told not to use respelling at all. The fact that a using double letters was allowed in the past suggests this was already the practice.
— trlkly 06:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
If references are not needed in "in-house articles", how come WP:IPAE has them? —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ( Talk – Contribs) 16:59, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Based on syllabication (which I know is itself a continually debated topic), how would we use this key to transcribe "mattress"? After reading Note 1 on the page, about checked vowels, I would assume it's MA-triss. Is that correct? Kbb2 offers something like MATR-iss (or MATR-əss in certain accents), but that looks very odd to me! Wolfdog ( talk) 18:27, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
If someone really is confused about how to pronounce a respelling, couldn't they go to an English dictionary website that has audio, or get a dictionary app, and look up the word and listen to it? I think in most cases they would be able to relate what they hear to how the word has been respelled. (Unless the dictionary butchers or otherwise does a poor job of rendering the pronunciation but I guess that's a separate issue.) Senjoro Nie ( talk) 14:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
kh | loch, Chanukah | /x/ |
Incredibly helpful. 2001:9E8:26:3D00:2EFD:A1FF:FE73:84E6 ( talk) 11:18, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
This seems to be used for words with 'er' such as 'herd', and that doesn't work for Scottish English where it's a separate sound. Additionally, I don't believe the two examples in the table have the same vowel sound as each other in some Scottish dialects. 115.70.7.33 ( talk) 09:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Presently we have a huge, complicated footnote that virtually no one will understand without a linguistics background:
/æ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʌ, ʊ/ (a, e(h), i(h), o, u(h), uu) are
checked vowels, meaning never occurring at the end of a word or before a vowel. When a checked vowel is followed by a consonant and a stressed vowel, which is rare nonetheless, it is acceptable in some cases to attribute the following consonant to the same syllable as the checked vowel, as in bal-AY, even though in IPA it is customary to attribute it to the following syllable, as in
/bæˈleɪ/. However, when the following consonant is a voiceless plosive (/p, t, k/) pronounced with
aspiration (a slight delay in the following vowel), it must be attributed to the same syllable as the following vowel, as in ta-TOO, because tat-OO may result in a different pronunciation than intended (compare "whatever" whot-EV-ər, whut-, wherein /t/ is not aspirated and may be
glottalized or
flapped). Similarly, when a vowel is followed by /s/, one or more consonants, and a stressed vowel, the syllabification must be retained, as in fruh-STRAY-shən, because frus-TRAY-shən may result in a different pronunciation than intended.
Frankly, this is stupid and self-defeating. It's bending over backwards double-hard, to deal with problems caused by bending over backwards in the first place; it makes much more sense to just stand up straight again.
Ergo, I propose that this entire mess be replaced with something quite simple, like: /æ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʌ, ʊ/ (a, e(h), i(h), o, u(h), uu) are
checked vowels, meaning never occurring at the end of a word or before a vowel. Consonants (and same-syllable clusters thereof) that come after a checked vowel and are followed by another vowel must be attributed to the following syllable. E.g., for ballet, use ba-lAY not bal-AY.
And just leave it at that.
Even this might be trimmable; I'm not certain the checked vowel stuff matters if we can get away with just saying Consonants (and same-syllable clusters thereof) that come after a vowel and are followed by another vowel must be attributed to the following syllable. E.g., for ballet, use ba-lAY not bal-AY.
That is, I can't see any reason to transcribe nosy as NOZ-ee when
NO-zee will do just fine. These are pronunciation guides not etymologies, so they do not need to correspond to morpheme boundaries. Regardless, none of these proposal variants would have any effect on Shatner as SHAT-nur, since -tn- in this is visually a cluster but is two distinct consonants that force a syllable break.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
15:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
The key lists the respelling symbols and example words that have the sound in question, but it does not demonstrate how to respell those example words in full. This can sometimes lead to confusion about how the symbols are properly used. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 07:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
What is the point of describing "kh->loch->/x/ but then adding "Pronounced like k by many speakers"? We may as well say that "s" is pronounced "th" by many speakers, which is equally true. It's all very well saying this is descriptive and not prescriptive, but having a "guide" or a "key" implies some sort of prescriptivism! "Ch" is a Scottish sound and it is properly pronounced as /x/. -- John ( talk) 18:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
I previously raised (almost three years ago) the basis for including this separate respelling system alongside IPA. It was not apparent to me then, and nor is it now, that there was ever a proper discussion prior to setting this up. As it is redundant to the international standard system, and is solely based on the original research of Wikipedia editors, I am suggesting that we get rid of it, unless there is a demonstrable project-wide consensus to include it. I realise a lot of well-intentioned and hard work has been done by editors to produce it, but I really think it merely adds noise and clutter and dumbs down our articles. Articles that have both IPA and this made-up system in the lead sentence look terrible to me. Would I be better off going to MfD, an RfC or what? I thought I would raise it here in the first instance. -- John ( talk) 17:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)
Is there a text to speech program that can handle this PR key? Illegitimate Barrister 11:59, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
The title uses the 'schwa' in the title key, for pronunciation. Is this incorrect? The sound is 'ɵ,' as in the 'u' in nun, isn't it?
86.154.34.159 ( talk) 18:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
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In "It does not use special symbols or diacritics apart from the schwa, "ə", which is used (for example) for the a in about.", "or" should be "nor", and "a" and "about" should be in quotations. 2601:E:100:BD7:C949:A686:7408:FBC9 ( talk) 21:54, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
How do I prevent automatic stress formatting? I'm trying to get awkh|ən|TAW|shən but it forces this to AWKH|ən|TAW|shən which is wrong. Akerbeltz ( talk) 12:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
The article for John Boehner includes a note that reads, in part, "The German pronunciation of the name Boehner/Böhner is [ˈbøːnɐ] BURH-na". This uses the respelling key here to respell a sound that is not actually in the key, presumably by analogy with a similar sound (in non-rhotic dialects). The key should probably make a note of what to do in cases of foreign sounds such as this one. — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 06:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
The way this key writes lax vowels, as simple a e i o u, seems liable to cause confusion when they fall in open syllables, since many of them have naive readings in this position which are tense. For instance, Up Helly Aa indicates /ˈʌphɛliə/ UP-he-lee-ə, where he suggests rather /hiː/. Even if you think this is accidental (the problem being that he collided with a word), there are several such landmines around.
Should we do anything about this? The sort of thing I'd think of as a good fix would be to double the following onset C to close the syllable ( UP-hel-lee-ə); but that doesn't play so nicely with the marked syllable divisions, and it's less uniform, which some might dislike. 4pq1injbok ( talk) 12:58, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
On the whole, I think pronunciation respellings (PR) should be discouraged; I strongly favor IPA instead. There are many reasons. One is that it hinders communication between speakers of different languages, if they don't even use the same system for representing the sounds of language. It's a bit like us Americans using feet and pounds when the rest of the world uses metric. Esperantists claim that tyranny thrives on a lack of communication and understanding, and I agree, even though I despise Esperanto for a variety of reasons and do not believe it should be adopted as the “universal language”.
Another reason is that it reduces people's awareness of other languages. This is particularly important because so many English speakers can only speak English, which I find shameful. Also, PR makes people seem uneducated, like they don't know or can't learn IPA.
Perhaps my biggest objection to PR is that alot of the PRs are blatantly illogical, even ugly. Some of this is inevitable, because English has more vowels and consonants than there are letters, so odd digraphs are needed. However, I agree that, in particular, the respellings <ay> for /ei/ (face), and <y> or <eye> for /ai/ (time), are illogical; in a logical respelling system the former would be written <ei> or <ey> and the latter, <ai> or <ay>, almost a complete reversal of symbols. What in particular bothers me is that /stein/ is spelled <stain> and /stain/ is spelled <stein> when it should be vice versa. Another thing that bothers me is having /au/ (house) be spelled <ou> or <ow> instead of <au> or <aw>, encouraged in turn by another illogical symbol, <aw> or <au> for /ɔ/ (lawn). This is a major motive for me being a strong supporter of phoneticizing English (fonetisaizing Inglish).
I admit, however, that sometimes PR's can be desirable. However, would it be realistic to change Wikipedia's PR symbol for /ei/ (face) from <ay> to <ey>? In any "phoneticized" form of English, I would hate (heyt) to see the spelling of /ei/ normalized to <ai> or <ay> rather than <ei> or <ey>, so my aforementioned suggested change (cheynje) in Wikipedia's PR for English may (mey) be in the public interest.-- Solomonfromfinland ( talk) 09:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
The "/r/" in the consonants table should be "/ɹ/". Valkura ( talk) 22:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA for English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. — RMCD bot 20:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
I wanted to add a respelling pronunciation to Lompoc, California, which has an unusual pronunciation that may not be clear to non-IPA-readers. So I put LAHM-poke. According to the key, the systematic version would actually be LAHM-pohk, but I think that's less intuitive; it could easily be read as a "short o" (IPA /ɒ/), especially by users who are inclined that way anyway because of the spelling.
Maybe it would be a good idea to accommodate this technique explicitly in the key? -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:43, 28 June 2016 (UTC)
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The "Syllables and stress" section should indicate that consecutive unstressed syllables need to be separated in wikicode by hyphens, not by pipes. Currently it simply states that syllables are to be separated by pipes and the stressed syllable should be all-caps, but this is not entirely correct. The Template:Respell page details this, but since this Help page also describes the wikicode for syllables, then it should be corrected so other users are not misled like I was.
71.166.62.141 ( talk) 02:34, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
How is the /ə:/ represented in this system? Like 'bird'. -- Wester ( talk) 17:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
In Killing of Harambe#Harambe the pronunciation is hə-RAM-bee. Here is the original video where his name was first annouced [1]. Sounds like "Huh ROM bay". Need help if we have it right. -- Green C 20:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Making references to checked vowels in open syllables strikes me as not understanding what an open syllable is or the phonotactic restraints of English phonology. Outside of a few interjections, the vowels /ɛ æ ɒ ɪ ʊ ʌ/ do not appear without a following consonant. I had made this edit in the hopes that @ Espoo: might consider a different term (as I imagine there must be a more accurate one). @ Mr KEBAB: seems to think otherwise. His explanation that they may appear "immediately before a stressed syllable" sounds funny to me. I'm forced to wonder how exactly we are we using the postvocalic h here. Anyone care to explain? — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:32, 25 October 2016 (UTC)
Am having a bit of a time deciding how best to handle the respelling of the Nintendo game system Wii U. The IPA is fine, and "Wii" gets respelled "WEE", which is fine too, but according to the respelling key "U", which sounds like the word "you", gets respelled "EW"... Intuitively I'd rather respell it "YOO" but of course the letter "y" has already been set aside for the diphthong "ai". On the the hand, "EW" by itself and without any preceding consonant could imply that this sound is like the interjection in "Ew! A worm!", corresponding to IPA /ʔɛuː/. The current respelling in the article matches up with what we have in our key here— but it doesn't match up (here) with the intuitive pronunciation that it is intended to evoke. Has this ever been discussed or dealt with before, does anyone know? Is "WEE EW" really how we have to respell "Wii U"? 'Cause it just don't look right. KDS4444 ( talk) 02:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
I've never understood why both primary and secondary stress are emphasized the same way. Although there is a variety between dictionaries, a secondary stress could come either before or after a primary stress, and therefore prə-NUN-see-AY-shən could be read as either /prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ or /prəˈnʌn.siˌeɪ.ʃən/. So one wouldn't be able to tell if HY-SKOOL is a secondary school or a school that's high up. It seems to me secondary stresses need not be emphasized at all. Nardog ( talk) 19:18, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
@ Woodstone: I believe illustrating orthographic variety in English words on this page is indeed important, because the fact some Wikipedians thought they needed this system is precisely because of the spelling inconsistencies in English (and people's lack of awareness about them), and those who need this page are exactly the kind of people who are unaware of how many phonemes they have, which spelling represents which sound, etc. This page isn't "just about pronunciation", but it is about both pronunciation and orthography and how they relate to each other, at least more so than Help:IPA for English is. I'm not suggesting to list all the possible variations, I just think it wouldn't hurt to have some, and it would be weird if Help:IPA for English had more examples (not all of which add phonetic diversity) than this one. I'd appreciate someone else chiming in on this, though. Nardog ( talk) 17:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Re: these edits: The maximal onsets principle isn't the only way of syllabifying English words, much less the "correct" one. Attributing a sequence of a checked vowel and a consonant to the same syllable (as opposed to universally applying the maximal onsets principle except where the consonant cluster is impossible) does make sense in this respelling system because the checked vowels never occur in open syllables save for a very few exceptions, and transcribing /mɪˈtɒnɪmi/ as mi-TO-ni-mee increases the chances of it being interpreted as /mɪˈtoʊnɪmi/. Granted, mi-TON-i-mee is also susceptible to being interpreted as /mɪˈtʌnɪmi/, but that is comparatively a small problem because there just happens to be the word ton in this specific case and does not apply to all respellings of syllables with checked vowels. There are probably a myriad of monosyllabic words that contradict this respelling system, and there cannot possibly be a respelling system that doesn't involve such disagreements because English orthography is just too inconsistent.
The potential problem with attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final isn't words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently from the respelling (because this isn't limited to syllabification but concerns the respelling system as a whole); the problem is syllabification (theoretically) modifying the result of articulation. For instance, t in English is generally aspirated in syllable-initial positions except when it is preceded by s. So, if t in historic is not aspirated, then one has to transcribe it as /hɪˈstɒɹɪk/ and not /hɪsˈtɒɹɪk/. Similarly, if the second r in frustration is voiced, that means the syllabification should be /fɹʌ.stɹeɪ.ʃən/ rather than /fɹʌs.tɹeɪ.ʃən/, because the latter would indicate that the second r is voiceless. These are the only kinds of instances in which one needs to attribute the consonant after a checked vowel to the following syllable, i.e. hi(h)-STORR-ik · fruh-STRAY-shən, not his-TORR-ik · frus-TRAY-shən. This is why eh, ih, and uh were added as options for /ɛ, ɪ, ʌ/ to avoid confusion with free vowels (vowels that can occur in open syllables) such as /eɪ, iː, aɪ, uː/ (see #Open syllable above). But since ah and oh are already taken, no such solution is provided for /æ, ɒ/ (/æ/ isn't much of a problem but o at the end of a syllable is more likely to be misinterpreted as /oʊ/), which is all the more reason breaking the maximal onsets principle is encouraged wherever possible (that is, where it doesn't affect aspiration or devoicing).
Whatever the case, attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final is already practiced in many articles, so please get a consensus before making a change if you wish to. Nardog ( talk) 10:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Words like root and roof are pronounced with the respelling vowel oo as in goose by some English speakers and uu as in put by others.
Could we add a single respelled vowel sound to indicate this? Perhaps uoo?
uoo : roof, root
So for example roof would be respelled as ruoof which would be pronounced with an oo by some and uu by others.
DavRosen ( talk) 17:22, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Hello. A discussion recently arose among Wikipedians on how to represent pronunciation of a name of a chemical element. One thing that came as a complete surprise for me was that /oʊ/, which sounds like two separate vowel sounds, was represented with "oh." Because of that, I was not able to correctly read names of some elements at first, which quite defeats the whole point of the respell. I suggest we represent /oʊ/ with "ou"; that is not taken.-- R8R ( talk) 11:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
/oʊ/ is usually not what I have on my mind when reading "oh."That's because you're a non-native speaker. No offense, but that's the truth. Mr KEBAB ( talk) 17:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)
What is this really good for? In the articles it is used in, it only seems to provide respelling for what would sound like chewing-gum English of Americans with little education and no linguistic skills. There is no explanatory or educational value gained, whatsoever. Is there any comprehensive justification for using this extreme attempt to dumb down articles? It seems utterly non-encyclopedic. ♆ CUSH ♆ 19:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
The IPA has significant advantages over the respelling system described here, as it can be used to accurately represent pronunciations from any language in the world, and (being an international standard) is often more familiar to non-native speakers of English. On the other hand, the IPA (being designed to represent sounds from any language in the world) is not as intuitive for those chiefly familiar with English orthography, for whom this respelling system is likely to be easier for English words and names.
Since
/juː/ and /jʊər/ have been separated in the IPA table, should we also replace "ew(r)" with "yoo(r)" completely, or should we keep it for the coronal consonants?
--
maczkopeti (
talk)
16:00, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
Hi. Two questions:
Mr KEBAB ( talk) 16:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
Nitpick: The entire article, particularly the key, assumes standard American English pronunciations even though this is never stated in the article. At the very least that assumption needs to be stated, and ideally there should be examples for both the American and BBC pronunciations. (I'm not suggesting that every accent in the world should be listed but most accents in the world are similar to one of the two).
-- MC 141.131.2.3 ( talk) 20:29, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑːr/ |
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑː/ |
Rspl. | Example(s) |
IPA- Gen Am |
IPA- RP |
---|---|---|---|
ar | start | /ɑːr/ | /ɑː/ |
It seems like it would be easy to make a bot that would, upon request, generate respelling automatically from IPA. If an editor sees IPA and wishes there were a respelled version, they could get one automatically generated. Ccrrccrr ( talk) 00:45, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Wait, "hurry" and "furry" have a different respell value for the "-urry" part? How so?? If true, I think this requires some kind of explanation; if false, then this looks like it needs to be fixed somehow. A loose noose ( talk) 16:52, 2 December 2018 (UTC)
What are the guidelines to follow regarding syllabification? For example, WIK-ih-PEE-dee-ə -- Backinstadiums ( talk) 16:09, 17 March 2019 (UTC)
Hi. In modern English it’s increasingly rare for people to pronounce an “h” sound at the front of why, where, what. I think therefore that it’s unhelpful to transcribe a “hw” sound such as (Tee-HWAH-nah, Tijuana) into English as “wh” (tee-WHAH-nah), as the average contemporary English speaker would read that as “tee-WAH-nah”. “He” is unambiguous. Keizers ( talk) 12:43, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
In any case, are we sure those with the merger will use a different realization for foreign borrowings? Because if not, we wouldn’t even need to do that.
イヴァンスクルージ九十八
(会話)
18:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
(As there appears to be no actual policy behind this help page, I'm discussing this here. If there is a policy, it should be linked.)
Avoiding using a respelling due to possible ambiguity with real words seems suboptimal, and does not reflect what I seem to remember saying before. It instead suggested that double letters or other possibilities be used.
Of the three examples in the text, at least the pronunciations of "cobalt" and "metonymy" could be easily indicated in unambiguous ways, e.g. KOH-bahlt and meh-TAH-no-mee, or possibly meh-TONN-oh-mee
I would suggest that the advice be to attempt to find a respelling that does not use ambiguous real words, rather than being told not to use respelling at all. The fact that a using double letters was allowed in the past suggests this was already the practice.
— trlkly 06:47, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
If references are not needed in "in-house articles", how come WP:IPAE has them? —Biscuit-in-Chief :-) ( Talk – Contribs) 16:59, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
Based on syllabication (which I know is itself a continually debated topic), how would we use this key to transcribe "mattress"? After reading Note 1 on the page, about checked vowels, I would assume it's MA-triss. Is that correct? Kbb2 offers something like MATR-iss (or MATR-əss in certain accents), but that looks very odd to me! Wolfdog ( talk) 18:27, 7 December 2019 (UTC)
If someone really is confused about how to pronounce a respelling, couldn't they go to an English dictionary website that has audio, or get a dictionary app, and look up the word and listen to it? I think in most cases they would be able to relate what they hear to how the word has been respelled. (Unless the dictionary butchers or otherwise does a poor job of rendering the pronunciation but I guess that's a separate issue.) Senjoro Nie ( talk) 14:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)
Rspl. | Example(s) | IPA |
---|---|---|
kh | loch, Chanukah | /x/ |
Incredibly helpful. 2001:9E8:26:3D00:2EFD:A1FF:FE73:84E6 ( talk) 11:18, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
This seems to be used for words with 'er' such as 'herd', and that doesn't work for Scottish English where it's a separate sound. Additionally, I don't believe the two examples in the table have the same vowel sound as each other in some Scottish dialects. 115.70.7.33 ( talk) 09:16, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
Presently we have a huge, complicated footnote that virtually no one will understand without a linguistics background:
/æ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʌ, ʊ/ (a, e(h), i(h), o, u(h), uu) are
checked vowels, meaning never occurring at the end of a word or before a vowel. When a checked vowel is followed by a consonant and a stressed vowel, which is rare nonetheless, it is acceptable in some cases to attribute the following consonant to the same syllable as the checked vowel, as in bal-AY, even though in IPA it is customary to attribute it to the following syllable, as in
/bæˈleɪ/. However, when the following consonant is a voiceless plosive (/p, t, k/) pronounced with
aspiration (a slight delay in the following vowel), it must be attributed to the same syllable as the following vowel, as in ta-TOO, because tat-OO may result in a different pronunciation than intended (compare "whatever" whot-EV-ər, whut-, wherein /t/ is not aspirated and may be
glottalized or
flapped). Similarly, when a vowel is followed by /s/, one or more consonants, and a stressed vowel, the syllabification must be retained, as in fruh-STRAY-shən, because frus-TRAY-shən may result in a different pronunciation than intended.
Frankly, this is stupid and self-defeating. It's bending over backwards double-hard, to deal with problems caused by bending over backwards in the first place; it makes much more sense to just stand up straight again.
Ergo, I propose that this entire mess be replaced with something quite simple, like: /æ, ɛ, ɪ, ɒ, ʌ, ʊ/ (a, e(h), i(h), o, u(h), uu) are
checked vowels, meaning never occurring at the end of a word or before a vowel. Consonants (and same-syllable clusters thereof) that come after a checked vowel and are followed by another vowel must be attributed to the following syllable. E.g., for ballet, use ba-lAY not bal-AY.
And just leave it at that.
Even this might be trimmable; I'm not certain the checked vowel stuff matters if we can get away with just saying Consonants (and same-syllable clusters thereof) that come after a vowel and are followed by another vowel must be attributed to the following syllable. E.g., for ballet, use ba-lAY not bal-AY.
That is, I can't see any reason to transcribe nosy as NOZ-ee when
NO-zee will do just fine. These are pronunciation guides not etymologies, so they do not need to correspond to morpheme boundaries. Regardless, none of these proposal variants would have any effect on Shatner as SHAT-nur, since -tn- in this is visually a cluster but is two distinct consonants that force a syllable break.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼
15:54, 8 April 2021 (UTC)