This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use
the talk page or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
In the course of creating and editing articles, there have been times when a simple Wikipedia guide to indicating pronunciation was sorely needed. I'm not alone in noticing this.
Opponents of this view point to IPA and SAMPA as alternatives, but they are much more difficult to use for both writers and readers. They have their place in language studies, but for ordinary use Wikipedia should use a simple guide, in my view, as do many reference works. Details of my proposal are at:
The page you are reading is where we vote and debate policy. Those who wish to discuss the technical details or assist with development of the Simple Guide itself should go to this talk page.
Originated by NathanHawking 04:52, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer IPA; it's scientific, unambiguous and it's an international standard. However, I am aware that some readers are not able to read IPA characters due to technical constraints. For this and other reasons simple pronuncation markup schemes are and will be used. That means that we do need a standardized "Simple Guide". And that readers should be able to learn it (it's supposed to be intuitive, but no scheme will be obvious for all, especially not for non-native English speakers). -- Kpalion 17:08, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
IPA poses multiple problems. Not only is it unfamiliar to dozens of casual readers (who of course could look it up), and does not display properly on all software or on machines without appropriate fonts installed, but for me the worst part of using IPA is that it is nigh impossible to edit without having a table of characters open or by your side, and as such is intimidating to contributors. It is also too precise: it encourages people to reproduce non-rhotic and other variant pronunciations, and as such it can actually mislead readers. SAMPA has most of the flaws of IPA, and sacrifices readability at the expense of typing.
On the other hand, I tried to create a phonetic spelling system ( Wikipedia:English phonetic spelling) that strove for a neutral representation of English sounds, based generally on the international values of the letters of the Latin alphabet, or using relatively familiar digraphs, that would not necessarily require ampersand codes or other non-intuitive factors. I tried using it on a number of articles (see the history of metathesis for an example) but it did not go over well, so I have done no further work on the project. I continue to think that a dialect-neutral representation of "ur-English" (i.e. ignoring rule-bound dialect features such as non-rhoticity, broad A, or cot-caught merger) might be a good idea. I am no longer optimistic that any such plan could be devised, or gain acceptance. Smerdis of Tlön 02:38, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please use
the talk page or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
In the course of creating and editing articles, there have been times when a simple Wikipedia guide to indicating pronunciation was sorely needed. I'm not alone in noticing this.
Opponents of this view point to IPA and SAMPA as alternatives, but they are much more difficult to use for both writers and readers. They have their place in language studies, but for ordinary use Wikipedia should use a simple guide, in my view, as do many reference works. Details of my proposal are at:
The page you are reading is where we vote and debate policy. Those who wish to discuss the technical details or assist with development of the Simple Guide itself should go to this talk page.
Originated by NathanHawking 04:52, 2004 Nov 3 (UTC)
Personally, I prefer IPA; it's scientific, unambiguous and it's an international standard. However, I am aware that some readers are not able to read IPA characters due to technical constraints. For this and other reasons simple pronuncation markup schemes are and will be used. That means that we do need a standardized "Simple Guide". And that readers should be able to learn it (it's supposed to be intuitive, but no scheme will be obvious for all, especially not for non-native English speakers). -- Kpalion 17:08, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)
IPA poses multiple problems. Not only is it unfamiliar to dozens of casual readers (who of course could look it up), and does not display properly on all software or on machines without appropriate fonts installed, but for me the worst part of using IPA is that it is nigh impossible to edit without having a table of characters open or by your side, and as such is intimidating to contributors. It is also too precise: it encourages people to reproduce non-rhotic and other variant pronunciations, and as such it can actually mislead readers. SAMPA has most of the flaws of IPA, and sacrifices readability at the expense of typing.
On the other hand, I tried to create a phonetic spelling system ( Wikipedia:English phonetic spelling) that strove for a neutral representation of English sounds, based generally on the international values of the letters of the Latin alphabet, or using relatively familiar digraphs, that would not necessarily require ampersand codes or other non-intuitive factors. I tried using it on a number of articles (see the history of metathesis for an example) but it did not go over well, so I have done no further work on the project. I continue to think that a dialect-neutral representation of "ur-English" (i.e. ignoring rule-bound dialect features such as non-rhoticity, broad A, or cot-caught merger) might be a good idea. I am no longer optimistic that any such plan could be devised, or gain acceptance. Smerdis of Tlön 02:38, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)