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RfC: Should we continue recommending the sign ⟨ɵ⟩?

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

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We are currently recommending that the sign ⟨ɵ⟩ be used for a reduced vowel diaphoneme that can correspond either to the phoneme /oʊ/ or the phoneme /ə/, for example in the word omission. Should we continue to do so?

In the IPA, the sign ⟨ɵ⟩ represents the close-mid central rounded vowel. Our use of ⟨ɵ⟩ is based on Bolinger, Dwight (1986), Intonation and Its Parts, Stanford University Press, pp. 347–360. Bolinger proposed not to analyze the reduced vowels as mere versions of the full vowels, but as a special set consisting of three vowels: The “fronted” Willie vowel /ɨ/, the “central” Willa vowel /ə/, and the “backed” willow vowel /ɵ/. Bolinger’s use is slightly different from ours (1) because Bolinger’s /ɵ/ is not a diaphoneme, but a phoneme; (2) because there are words such as willow or lasso or the second part of the MOUTH diphthong where Bolinger would use /ɵ/, but we would not; and (3) because Bolinger’s analysis allows for an alternation between /ɵ/ and /ə/ in words such as canopy, Indonesia, allophonic, or composition.

The English Wikipedia is the only major dictionary that has adopted Bolinger’s sign ⟨ɵ⟩ in a broad phonemic IPA transcription scheme (for an overview of other dictionaries’ broad phonemic IPA transcription schemes, see Help:IPA conventions for English#Reduced vowels).

If you are interested in the edit history of ⟨ɵ⟩ on Help:IPA for English, you may want to check out User:J. 'mach' wust/sandbox#Edit history of ⟨ɵ⟩ (with diff links etc.). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:27, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Survey

• Stop recommending ⟨ɵ⟩. The sign ⟨ɵ⟩ is not used in any other broad phonemic IPA transcription scheme outside of the English Wikipedia, and our usage has no relation to its proper IPA value close-mid central rounded vowel. A reader who knows the IPA will be confused by our use of ⟨ɵ⟩, and a reader who does not know the IPA will get a wrong impression about how the IPA is supposed to be used. There is a danger that our use of ⟨ɵ⟩ may spread on the internet due to Wikipedia’s high notability. Instead of ⟨ɵ⟩, we can use /oʊ/ and maybe add a note about possible vowel reduction to this help page. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:30, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Stop recommending ⟨ɵ⟩. Again, no objection. We should list the pronunciations with /oʊ/ and /ə/ separately. Another option is transcribing /oʊ/ as /əʊ/, whereas /oʊ~ə/ variation would be simply /ə(ʊ)/. I'm fine with either option. Peter238 (talk) 11:43, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Stop I agree that our usage is misleading (albeit well intentioned). I would just recommend /oʊ/. Vowel reduction is so common in English, and so natural to native speakers, that it doesn't normally need special marking. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:39, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Stop - Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables is an automatic feature of English, depending on diction. There is no need to specify it explicitly. −Woodstone (talk) 16:15, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
• Comment The English Wikipedia is not a dictionary, as we keep telling people who post short articles about new words. It is an encyclopaedia. Wiktionary is a dictionary. Readers who don't have a knowledge of the IPA usually haven't a clue what all the upside down letters and squiggles mean, so they won't be any more confused than they are already. There is so much regional variation in English pronunciation anyway that standardisation is not really possible. Take the words 'paths' and 'maths'. In northern England, those have the same vowel sound - short. In southern England, they don't. Maths is short, paths is long. But in 'pathology', southern England has a short vowel. I may be misreading the above, but I can't see any reason for using the same symbol for the end vowel in willow and lasso as for me, lasso ends with the same vowel as tattoo, and ə would only be an ending for willow (for me, oʊ) in a rather rural dialect. Peridon (talk) 12:07, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
• We should stop recommending the use of any symbols, including this one, that do not have any meaning that will be recognized by readers (and especially those which have a meaning that may well be recognized but is different from the one that we intend). It's really no problem to give the pronunciation(s) of words as sources give them (translating where necessary into IPA as it is standardly used) - there is no need for us to be inventive, and (as past discussions have shown) plenty of reasons not to be. W. P. Uzer (talk) 13:02, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
• Stop, pretty much per W. P. Uzer, P. Coxhead, J. 'mach' Wust, et al. I don't buy Peridon's view. Lots of people are familiar with IPA, so whether WP is a dictionary or not isn't really relevant; we shouldn't do something confusion for IPA users that doesn't do anything pro or con for non-IPA users anyway. There's simply no upside to it, even if there is arguably an upside to using a reduced IPA for WP's own pronunciation guides. I supporting continuing to also use the dictionary style respelling keys as well (the "dik-shun-air-ee pro-nun-see-ay-shuns"). We have templates for all this stuff, it's easy to implement, and people can read which ever one works better for them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
• Continue to transcribe this sound. Unlike /aː/, it is undoubtedly useful: I used it just the other day. The problem is that there is no standard notation for this variable sound, other than /ə(ʊ)/ which doesn’t work for us since we transcribe the GOAT vowel as /oʊ/. We've also rejected parentheses as a notation for optionality in the past, though that decision is probably flexible. In the absence of a suggestion for any alternative notation, I support the current one. DavidPKendal (talk) 03:44, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

  It would indeed be useful, but as you yourself say, it is not a standard notation, and therefore is not any kind of solution to the problem. If you have sources that say that, for example, Playmobil can be pronounced with either /oʊ/ or /ə/ (I'm not sure how that is implied by the sources cited in that article), and we want to tell readers that, then we can just tell them so explicitly. Using standard notation (even if it means giving more than one transcription) is absolutely not a problem. What is a problem, however, is using symbols that readers simply won't know, because that doesn't convey the information that we are aiming to convey. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:25, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Stop: In addition to what mach says, Geoff Lindsey uses ⟨ɵ⟩ for the FOOT vowel and one of the two options for the PURE vowel in his IPA system for Standard Southern British. Lindsey's usage and Wikipedia's are entirely different, and Lindsey has phonetic justification for his use of the symbol, while Wikipedia has hardly any. — Eru·tuon 08:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is a pretty strong argument. Peter238 (talk) 11:40, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

A standard notation

I just remembered that there is a ‘standard’ notation for this sound which might suit Wikipedia’s needs quite well. Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary, in the editions which used the quantitative scheme (before the quantitative–qualitative scheme was introduced by Gimson), used the symbol /o/ for this purpose. (the given example keyword is ‘molest’; Jones notated GOAT as /ou/, which would have likely become /oʊ/ if Gimson had not changed the analysis to reflect the centring of the diphthong’s starting point since Jones’s time.) Jones even notes (with a † sign) that this sound along with others including /x/, /ɔə/ (FORCE), and /ʔ/ ‘occur only as variants of other pronunciations’. So if we are to continue transcribing this sound with its own symbol as I hope, /o/ has some legitimacy (in accordance with the ‘transcription schemes are OR’ argument which I still don’t buy) as the notation to adopt. DavidPKendal (talk) 11:45, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

I would like to know more before introducing a new sign instead of the simple GOAT vowel sign (/oʊ/) or the commA vowel (/ə/) sign like in the dictionaries (see Help:IPA conventions for English#Reduced vowels). The sign /o/ is ambiguous since there is a notational tradition that uses /o/ for the the normal GOAT vowel, a tradition that is particularly strong in the U.S. Of course, that is only a mild case of ambiguity, but still. Also, from what you have cited it is not clear whether Jones inteded /o/ to be the actual pronunciation, which would mean that it is intended to be different from both /oʊ/ and /ə/ (unlike our ⟨ɵ⟩ which is/was intend to be identical to either /oʊ/ or /ə/ as a “diaphoneme”).

Generally speaking, I do not know whether the quantitative notation of Jones’s English Pronouncing Dictionary is just too far off from our Gimson-style qualitative-quantitative notation. I can get access to a 1930 edition and to a 1948 edition, so I hope I can check it out – so far, we do not yet have any quantitative notation in Help:IPA conventions for English. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I am also concerned that ⟨o⟩ would be perceived as the GOAT vowel. The nice thing about ⟨ɵ⟩ is that it doesn't normally have usage for English, particularly in phonemic transcriptions. Because it is strange enough, even people familiar with the IPA would get a signal that something different is going on here. If we don't use ⟨ɵ⟩, I still think some other symbol could be used for oʊ/ə alternations. Like David, I think having a symbol for this vowel has a good deal of utility. More than ⟨aː⟩ did. It might even be as useful as ⟨ᵻ⟩ is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:18, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

As Erutuon has pointed out, /ɵ/ is being used in Lindsey’s broad phonemic IPA transcription scheme as a sign for the FOOT vowel. Granted, it is an unusual transcription scheme, but there is an online pronunciation dictionary that has adopted it, the Current British English pronunciation dictionary. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 17:49, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Unusual indeed. Just because we can find an English transcription system somewhere that uses it for something else doesn't mean that it is off limits. I don't think usage by Lindsey or by CBE shows the symbol to have a common enough usage to reasonably expect any readers to see it and think we mean the FOOT vowel. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 07:06, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Also note that CUBE is edited by Lindsey himself. I'm not aware of anyone else using this system. DavidPKendal (talk) 13:20, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The latest (2014) edition of Gimson's Pronunciation of English adopted some of Lindsey's proposals, i.e. /æ/ → /a/ and /eə/ → /ɛː/, but kept the rest of the traditional symbols (including /ʊ/). Peter238 (talk) 13:23, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

These two changes were also previously made by Clive Upton in the Oxford current-English dictionaries. If I had to guess, I'd say Cruttenden was more likely following that lead than Lindsey's. DavidPKendal (talk) 16:40, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's probable. Peter238 (talk) 16:44, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

And at least, Lindsey’s use of ⟨ɵ⟩ for representing the FOOT vowel has been adopted in one dictionary – unlike Bolinger’s use of ⟨ɵ⟩ for representing the willOW vowel which has never been adopted anywhere except on the English Wikipedia (imperfectly, though, since we have not adopted Bolinger’s analysis). I fully agree that ⟨ɵ⟩ is a very strange and unusual sign in a phonemic transcriptions of English. That is precisely the reason why I think we should not use it. It is confusing to those who know the IPA beforehand, and to those who don’t it is misleading. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 13:50, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

One of the cases you and WP have made is that some of the unusual features of our system are so similar to typical IPA usage that those who are familiar with the IPA will not get a good enough signal that something different than what they are used to is going on. ⟨ɵ⟩ would be an example of something that is different enough from the IPA transcriptions typically found in dictionaries etc. that it acts as this signal. In other words, using ⟨ɵ⟩ helps to avoid reader confusion. Using ⟨ɵ⟩ does not even depend on familiarity with Bolinger, who I think is a bit of a red herring. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 06:53, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

The case I am making is not what you are alleging. The case I am making is that we should not introduce any unusual features (like ⟨ɵ⟩) in the first place, but stick to the typical IPA usage in broad phonemic transcriptions of English (like /oʊ/ or /ə/). When we do so, there is no need for signaling anything. Also, your idea that we should use unusual signs for signaling that something different is going does not help readers unfamiliar with the IPA. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 08:30, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and neither User:aeusoes1 nor I buy it. In fact, I'm reasonably sure that nobody who's worked on this convention is subscribed to this particular aspect of your rationale for the changes you are making. DavidPKendal (talk) 12:04, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not understand what it is that you are not buying. Are you saying that unusual signs will signal even to readers unfamiliar with the IPA that something different is going on? (But how can they possibly notice that the signs are unusual if they do not know them?) Or are you saying that those who worked on this convention would introduce unusual features (like ⟨ɵ⟩) instead of sticking to typical IPA usage? (Even if they did, they do not own this help page, and the current survey shows a rather different picture.) And I do not know what changes you are hinting at. It seems to me this discussion is moving away from its topic, so I invite you to continue on my talk page. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:43, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I understand the case that you are making, Mach. David and I are making a counterclaim (see the part above where I say "If we don't use ⟨ɵ⟩, I still think some other symbol could be used for oʊ/ə alternations."). Also, considering the many things we do to help readers unfamiliar with IPA to learn it, it's a red herring to bring up such readers, particularly because; in so doing, you have neglected to substantively respond to the the point(s) I was making. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:30, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

So you think some other symbol could be used for oʊ/ə alternations. What symbol? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 04:18, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Glancing at an IPA chart, nothing really jumps out, but I'm open to suggestions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 07:17, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

As said above, there's /ə(ʊ)/, but we'd need to switch to transcribing /oʊ/ as /əʊ/ first. Peter238 (talk) 13:10, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

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

Explanatory note on ⟨ᵻ ᵿ⟩

Originally, an explanatory note was added for ⟨ɨ⟩ and ⟨ʉ⟩ to indicate to readers that these IPA symbols were being used in unusual ways. While I disliked the wording "not used according to the IPA" in that instance, the desire to signal to readers that something different is going on made sense with those symbols because they are IPA symbols not normally used in the way they have been used here. Now that we are using non-IPA symbols, it does not make sense to keep this note. I've tried to remove it but was reverted. Thoughts? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:45, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The page is called “IPA for English”. In spite of that, these two signs are not IPA. I think this diserves a note. If we do not add any note, people might be mislead into believing that /ᵻ ᵿ/ are proper IPA. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:25, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough. But the wording doesn't match. "Not used according to the IPA" is not accurate when you're referring to non-IPA symbols. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:02, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I think you are right. The wording is too close to the previous wording. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Discontinue /hw/

English IPA on wikipedia purports to "accommodate General American (GenAm), Received Pronunciation (RP), Canadian English, South African, Australian, and New Zealand pronunciations." However, the wine-whine merger is almost complete in all these locations. To quote the article Pronunciation of English: "the merger is essentially complete in England, Wales, the West Indies, South Africa, Australia, and in the speech of young speakers in New Zealand" and "throughout the U.S. and Canada, about 83% of respondents in the survey had the merger completely, while about 17% preserved at least some trace of the distinction." The only places where the distinction remains is Scotland, Ireland (not including Northern Ireland) and older speakers in New Zealand. These (excepting NZ) are not even varieties of English that English Wiki IPA even claims to represent. My point is, /hw/ should no longer be used unless aging New Zealanders have conspired to keep the distinction alive on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DouglasTGordon (talk • contribs) 18:03, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Pardon my rudimentary math, but wouldn't 17% be somewhere around 50 million people? That's hardly worth ignoring. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:35, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

It's also found in some, admittedly elderly, speakers in southern England. It's common in Scotland and parts of northern England. I agree it should not be ignored. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

smartphones

Could someone please add info about how to install fonts that display IPA correctly on mobile browsers? --Espoo (talk) 05:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Rosa's

I think you should remove it. It's a name that can be pronounced in many ways even by an English speaker unlike John or Matt. For example Rosalina is often shortened to Rosa, and that end 'a' isn't reduced like 'a mission'. Yes, it is a Spanish name but most English speakers will pronounce that Rosa with a long a. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.90.160.251 (talk) 22:31, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (2008) and Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (2011) list only the variant with /ə/, so we need a citation for "most English speakers". Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:17, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I’d rather think it should be the other way round: If there is the slightest danger of confusion, let’s remove the sample unless there is a source that discusses the issue and explicitly reassures that there is no danger of confusion (not just dictionaries that a single pronunciation). The samples should be helpful.

And while we’re at it, I think we should also replace the a mission example. It is confusing because the bold font makes it look as if the article were stressed: /ˈeɪ ˌmɪʃən/. Instead of the two current examples, I think the words ago and comma are better. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:52, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

There's no danger of confusion with Rosa's because no one really pronounces Rosa with a long a. That's not a thing. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:38, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

I haven't ever heard anyone saying /ˈroʊsɑː/ or /ˈroʊzɑː/. That would strike me as really unnatural, and I would be likely to interpret them as saying row saw or rose awe if they had the cot–caught merger as I do. — Eru·tuon 22:56, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, it is your personal feeling that it would be unnatural. But can you really make sure that everybody feels this way? Another benefit of using the example word commA is that this is the word John Wells has used (see Lexical set#Unstressed vowels). So far, that makes two reasons for changing Rosa’s to comma (use in reputable source, confusion cannot be ruled out), but zero reasons for keeping it. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 12:45, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

The benefit of Rosa's is it forms a minimal pair with roses for many speakers. That's the whole point. I think you should trust the native speakers here. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:18, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

We are not trying to provide minimal pairs. If we were, our examples would look very different. To the contrary, we are normally using Wells’s lexical sets – except in this case, which seems like a strange inconsistency. I do not trust native speakers. I know that a native speaker’s intuition can often be wrong, especially when it comes to distinctions that do not occur in their own variety.

Since you want to keep Rosa’s, I suggest that as a compromise, we insert Wells’s commA example first (as in all the other cases). And replace the potentially misleading a mission by ago. The minimal pair rationale does not apply to that example any longer after we removed emission for //ᵻ// because it can be pronounced with /iː/. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 05:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, we are normally using Wells's lexical sets, along with example words. I like your proposal. Are you saying "compromise" because you also want to remove Rosa's and roses? I think using a minimal pair to highlight the vowel contrast between Rosa's and roses is important, since people aren't going to be as aware of the distinction (even when they make it) unless it's pointed out to them with a minimal pair. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:01, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 May 2016

The examples given for ɑː ɒ and ɔː do not seem consistent with a generalized American accent. If possible, it would be helpful if these examples could be paired with a specific accent to avoid confusion with pronunciation. Also, this is my first time contributing to Wikipedia so I have no idea if I'm doing this right. Ailaeshis (talk) 19:37, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. — Music1201 ^talk 00:50, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

This is rather not a question about reliable sources – the sources obviously back Ailaeshis’s request –, but about the consensus on this page. The consensus is that our transcriptions should be pan-dialectal. They do not represent the phonemic system of any one dialect, but they are a compromise between some more or less important dialects. While I have my reservations about that consensus – it is more rigid than what we do with regular orthography and in practice, it is often ignored –, the proper way to change it is not just a simple edit request, but a well-discussed WP:RFC. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 04:42, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion for "followed by R" example for ʊ

For the sake of clarity for ESL speakers, I think "courier" is not an ideal example. Though it is an older Norman loanword, the meaning and form is close enough to Modern French courrier (u vs. ʊ) to cause foreseeable confusion. It seems like "ʊr" is virtually nonexistant in non-rhotic (RP) accents too, but for GenAm I think "plural" and "rural" would be better examples where you can hear the distinction between "ʊr and "ər".

Goodpoints (talk) 16:25, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

They would be good examples for GA, but this artificial prescriptive transcription system is not about GA. Instead, it aims at being pan-dialectal. The words plural, rural are transcribed /ˈplʊərəl/, /ˈrʊərəl/. Words that would have /ʊr/ in our prescriptive transcription system are indeed virtually non-existent. There are only 7 matches in CUBE: ur.

I do not know the reason why we treat the sequences of checked vowel + /r/ as if they were units. I suspect it originally was for the sake of symmetry. While it is quite common that phonologies treat the sequences of free vowel + /r/ as units on their own right, I have never seen the same treatment extended to the sequences of checked vowels + /r/. However, our peculiar treatment of these sequences does not do any harm since we do not claim or imply anywhere that they constitute units on their own right. It is only under the hood that they are treated as units. And the transcription /ˈkʊriər/ is obviously equivalent and maybe even preferrable to the transcription /ˈkʊriər/ – the different result when you mouse over them is perfectly negligible. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 18:39, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Treating them as a single unit is helpful for the mouseover text. For example, I pronounce merry and marry the same. So the mouseover feature of /mær/ and /mɛr/ would not be as helpful as /mær/ and /mɛr/.

Also, a minor correction. This is not a prescriptive transcription system. It's descriptive. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:30, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

It may be helpful in the special case of marry and merry. But that is really no explanation for /ʊr/ (or /ɒr, ɪr/) – except if you count symmetry. And there are lots of other mergers where we do not have special mouseover texts. And as long as we prescribe that things like non-rhotic placenames have to be transcribed with /r/, our system is obviously prescriptive. Its being descriptive does not exclude its being prescriptive at the same time. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 06:57, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually, it's the same deal with /ʊr/ and others. Because of vowel mergers and rhotic-non-rhotic differences, those are motivated as well. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:58, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Please tell the original poster (and me) the vowel mergers and rhotic-non-rhotic differences that motivate /ʊr/ (or /ɒr, ɪr/). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 21:53, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Many speakers pronounce /ɪr/ and /ʊr/ with tense vowels so that a word like clear is pronounced [kli(ː)ɹ] and a word like tour as [tu(ː)ɹ]. This can alter the phonemic alignment of these vowels enough that it can be confusing if we tell these speakers that the vowel in question is actually lax, rather than tense. Speakers like myself have even merged the lax vowels with schwa before /r/ so that a word like syrup is pronounced [ˈsɜɹəp]. Seeing "vowel of sit" separate from the /r/ might lead to pronunciations with /ɜːr/.

This table illustrates a lot of the vowel mergers and splits with English low back vowels. For a speaker with the cot-caught such as myself, the LOT vowel merges with PALM except before /r/, where it merges for most words with GOAT. Having them separate might get a speaker to pronounce /ɒr/ as /ɑːr/

— Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:42, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Who is telling anybody that the vowels in the words clear /klɪər/ and tour /tʊər/ are actually lax, rather than tense? And what does this have to do with the sequences /ɪr/ and /ʊr/? If the aim our phoneme sequences really were disambiguating potential mergers, then we would need many more of them. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 00:39, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Oh wait, I was transcribing clear and tour incorrectly because I myself make those mergers. A number of dictionaries also don't mark the contrast between e.g. /ɪər/ and /ɪr/ but we do. Considering the ways that /r/ alters the pronunciation of preceding vowels, it makes sense to treat /ɪr/ and /ʊr/ as a single unit. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:03, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

The thing about words such as mirror and courier is that in these words, the pronunciation of the vowel is not altered by the following /r/, unlike most other vowels followed by /r/. The reason why these vowels are not affected by the following /r/ is that the /r/ is immediately followed by yet another vowel. I would be very surprised if there were any precedence for our grouping together of the sequences of checked vowel + /r/.

If our grouping together of these sequences had any phonological implications, then I think we should discontinue these sequences unless there were solid precedence from outside of Wikipedia. The only reason why I think the grouping together of these sequences is acceptable is because there are no phonological implications. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:42, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Phoneme and Diaphoneme

I read in one section above that "Bolinger’s use is slightly different from ours (1) because Bolinger’s /ɵ/ is not a diaphoneme, but a phoneme..." Could someone clarify the contrast between these two terms ("phoneme" and "DIAphoneme")? Thanks in advance. 185.86.162.39 (talk) 19:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Have you read diaphoneme? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:56, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I am afraid the article diaphoneme is not helpful because it does not properly distinguish between diaphonemes and allophones.

According to Bolinger’s analysis, the /ɵ/ is a phoneme, that is, an actual sound that occurs in English. It belongs to a triadic system of English unstressed vowel phonemes, which consists of /ə/, /ɨ/ and /ɵ/. They occur e.g. in Willa /wɪlə/, Willie /wɪlɨ/ and willow /wɪlɵ/, but also as unstressed parts of the diphthongs e.g. in price /praɨs/ or mouth /maɵθ/.

Diaphonemes are not actual sounds that occur in any variety of English. They are abstractions for a joint descriptions of dialects with different phonemes. Consider the three words trap, grass and palm. British English has the phoneme /æ/ in the word trap and the phoneme /ɑː/ in the words grass and palm. American English, however, has the phoneme /æ/ in the words trap and grass and the phoneme /ɑː/ in the word palm. For a joint description of British and American English, we might posit three diaphonemes |æ| (in trap), |aˑ| (in grass) and |ɑː| (in palm). These diaphonemes are defined by a dialect-specific assignment to phonemes:

• |æ| → /æ/ (in British English and in American English)
• |aˑ| → /æ/ (in American English)
• |aˑ| → /ɑː/ (in British English)
• |ɑː| → /ɑː/ (in British English and in American English)

In a similar vein, the diaphoneme |ɵ| as it was being used in Wikipedia was defined as follows:

• |ɵ| → /oʊ/ (in some varieties of English)
• |ɵ| → /ə/ (in other varieties of English)

So when we were transcribing the word omit as |ɵmɪt|, we meant that some pronounce the word as /oʊmɪt/ while others pronounce it as /əmɪt/. By contrast, when Bolinger transcribed it as /ɵmɪt/, he meant that the word was actually pronounced as /ɵmɪt/. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 11:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

To be fair, a phoneme is also an abstraction, though one with more cognitive reality than diaphonemes.

Are you implying that the diaphoneme article needs to distinguish between a diaphoneme and an allophone? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:33, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Why thank you! This makes it much clearer. Also yes, the article was not too helpful in that issue. 185.86.162.39 (talk) 19:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

@Ƶ§œš¹: Indeed, the examples in the lead of the article diaphoneme do not show the characteristics that distinguish diaphonemes from phonemes (and their allophones). They might as well be (allophones of) the same phoneme. And there is not even a link to Phonological history of English vowels, which is highly relevant for the concept of diaphonemes (in English). --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:48, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Ok Ayoyonetizen (talk) 20:54, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Inconsistent redirects

Hi there, I find it a bit silly that one lands in a different page depending on whether IPA is spelled all uppercase or not... Compare:

• IPA for English
• Ipa for English

I would say we should make it consistent (my preference is for always redirecting to article space). Thanks. 93.33.184.133 (talk) 06:28, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

"Situation"

I, & many other speakers of accents similar to IPA, pronounce situation as [ˌsɪtʃuˈeɪʃn̩] or [ˌsɪtjuˈeɪʃn̩]. The u would be considered to be //. I have never heard situation pronounced [ˌsɪtʊˈeɪʃən] by a native English speaker. Dr. British12 (talk) 18:42, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

+1 Peter coxhead (talk) 21:15, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

oral

Currently, "oral" is listed as an example of a /ɔər/ word. As someone with an Australian accent, while I would pronounce the vowel in the other examples listed ("force", "more", and "boar") identically, I would pronounce "oral" such that it rhymes with "moral" (which is listed as /ɒr/). As such, since this page is supposed to include Australian pronunciations, I would recommend removing the example altogether. There is already an example of "or" yielding that vowel sound, so I don't think a replacement would be necessary. If one is, I would suggest "aural" (which I would pronounce the same way as the other examples, and I'm led to believe it is a homophone for "oral" in other relevant accents). --SnorlaxMonster 06:37, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Retracting that last suggestion. According to Lexical set, "aural" is an example of the set /ɔːr/ ("north", "born", "war", "Laura"). Missed that, because I have the Horse–hoarse merger. --SnorlaxMonster 07:16, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

North–force distinction

Help:IPA for English § Dialect variation states that the Wikipedia diaphonemic system accommodates General American, Received Pronunciation, Canadian English, South African, Australian, and New Zealand. That is accurate, but that is not all that is being accommodated, because the diaphonemic system distinguishes between /ɔːr/ and /ɔːr/ (lexical sets north and force). According to the vowel table at International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects, none of the above-mentioned dialects make this distinction. Three in the table do: Irish, Scottish, and Welsh English (what you might call Celtic-influenced varieties). If I recall right, some varieties of New England English and Southern American English also make the distinction, but they are not in the table.

So, which of these varieties of English is the inclusion of the north–force distinction meant to accommodate?

Scottish English and some varieties of Irish English have the distinction, but they also make the distinction between fern, fir, and fur, so it cannot be for their sake that the distinction is included, or else the distinction between fern, fir, and fur would also be included. Whichever dialect is actually being accommodated by the north–force distinction should be listed, for the sake of completeness.

And why does the diaphonemic system accommodate this particular distinction and not the fern, fir, fur one? — Eru·tuon 00:24, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

This distinction is possible in General American (as [ɔɻ] vs [oɻ]), but is probably in rapid decline. Mr KEBAB (talk) 00:25, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I have never heard it, so I assume it is also geographically limited. I realized I should look at Rick Aschmann's site, and he lists Eastern New England, Birmingham (Alabama), and New Orleans. He doesn't mention whether it is in decline there or not. — Eru·tuon 01:20, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

According to Wells, in addition to Scottish and Irish English, dialects in the American Northeast also make said distinction. The important thing here is what is found in dictionaries. If we can't back up the distinction with consistent sourcing, then we can't encode it in our system. In this case, we have an artifact of an earlier distinction in RP that RP no longer has, can be found in older/traditional dictionaries, and is also still found in various dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:35, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

If sources are such a problem then, by all means, let's stop making that distinction. I don't think anyone would really care. Mr KEBAB (talk) 03:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Are sources a problem? I thought they weren't. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:42, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. I said 'if'. We need to check this. Mr KEBAB (talk) 14:45, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

This should clarify the matter. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:47, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. So, according to that article, only Dictionary.com and an unknown number of dictionaries using the Americanist phonetic notation make that distinction. Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (but not CEPD) also makes that distinction. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:58, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: I know that Tharthan speaks a New England dialect with a partial lack of the horse–hoarse merger and he might object to the distinction being removed. But the symbol for hoarse does not really describe the actual pronunciation in his dialect. Otherwise, you are probably correct. — Eru·tuon 19:11, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, thanks for pinging me, Erutuon. I have a lack of the horse-hoarse merger in words such as "hoarse", "mourn", "four", "coarse", etc. I would object to removing the distinction here, as such. Tharthan (talk) 20:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

@Erutuon and Tharthan: We have no reason to remove the distinction as there are enough sources to back up transcribing it. Plus, it's an optional part of General American (see e.g. the LPD). Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:44, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I (theoretically) speak a New England dialect (though notably NYC-influenced), and yet I certainly make no distinction between, for example, horse and hoarse, nor does anyone I've heard in the various Western New England towns where I've studied and lived. Regardless, however, I agree that the sources should be our basis for decisions on this matter. Wolfdog (talk) 20:35, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

@Ƶ§œš¹: So, there are no dictionaries for Scottish English that would distinguish between the vowels of fern, fur, and fir? — Eru·tuon 19:05, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

Revising {{IPAc-en}} prefixes

I've posted here a proposal to modify the labels that proceed English pronunciation notation integrated in {{IPAc-en}}. Since it requires edit-protected and bot requests, I would like to get a consensus on whether this is a good idea. Nardog (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Introduce ambiguous tooltips for /ɪər, ɑːr, ɔːr, ɜːr/ in order to transcribe words like “Nero, safari, aural, McMurray”

Please see Template talk:IPAc-en/Archive 2#Introduce ambiguous tooltips for /ɪər, ɑːr, ɔːr, ɜːr/ in order to transcribe words like “Nero, safari, aural, McMurray”. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 23:43, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Suggest replacing "thy" with "those" in examples for "ð"

For the phoneme "ð" we use the word "thy", which is barely used in English contemporaneously, as an example. I substituted the more common word "those", but it was reverted by User:Tharthan because it's still used in some English dialects. Well, perhaps so, but is there a problem with using a word that far more English speakers will recognize? Revert was unnecessary. Riverhugger (talk) 14:22, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

The preference for "thy" is related to the greater need of forming a minimal pair with "thigh." The voiced/voiceless distinction in English's dental fricatives isn't as productive as other pairs. People are generally familiar with "thy" even if they don't use it very often. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:11, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Marking transcriptions explicitly as diaphonemic

It's very misleading that this system uses slashes / /, when those are generally used for phonemic transcriptions. I have seen many people who have been misled into thinking that this transcription system is phonemic or phonological, when it is not. Most recently, Jérôme proposed that Wiktionary create a phonemic transcription system like that used on Wikipedia, when what he was really proposing was a diaphonemic system. Ardalazzagal stated on the talk page of Theresa May that John has the same phonemes in all dialects of English: /dʒɒn/. That's wrong: it has the phonemes /dʒ/, /ɔ/, /n/ in modern RP, AuE, and NZE, but the phonemes /dʒ/, /ɑ/, /n/ in GA and /dʒ/, /ɒ/, /n/ in Canadian. The consonant phonemes directly correspond; the vowel phoneme does not, because there are different numbers of vowels in each dialect, with different phonological features distinguishing them from each other. The vowel phonemes do generally correspond in the same words, but that doesn't make them the same thing.

I defended the Wikipedia diaphonemic system before, but I think it really needs to be distinguished visually from phonemic transcriptions. In a previous discussion, someone mentioned double slashes // //, pipes | |, or braces {} as possibilities. Pipes and braces would difficult or confusing to use inside of the {{IPA}} template, but they could be generated by {{IPAc-en}}. Whichever option is chosen, it would be better than the current untenable situation, in which people are being regularly misled that the Wikipedia system is somehow phonemic rather than diaphonemic and that it indicates that the various English dialects have the same vowel system (not true!). — Eru·tuon 17:11, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

The most important thing to determine here is whether people, in confusing the diaphonemic system for a phonemic one, mispronounce the transcriptions. In your two examples, you seem to be fixating on a terminological inaccuracy rather than a practical one. In the case of Jérôme, he explicitly described our system in a fairly accurate way and was simply mislabeling it. This is understandable, considering the distinction between phonemic and diaphonemic is made for and by specialists.

So let's not get ahead of ourselves without real evidence. I would hate for this to turn into a more academic dispute, again, with no real evidence that users are actually confused by our stylistic choices in a meaningful way. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:38, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, there was the case where an Australian (Peter Greenwell) said that Australian DRESS couldn't be pronounced /e/, because FACE is pronounced /eɪ/. He was being misled by the transcription /eɪ/ into thinking that the vowel in FACE was /eɪ/ in Australian, whereas it is actually /æe/. To be fair, I'm not sure if marking the transcriptions would prevent this type of confusion. But at least marking diaphonemic and phonemic transcriptions differently would encourage people to learn the distinction between diaphoneme and phoneme, rather than encouraging them to assume there is none. You can see how confusing it is here, because I used the same markings for the diaphoneme /eɪ/ as I did for Australian English phoneme /æe/! It almost sounds like a contradiction. It would make more sense if I used //eɪ// and /æe/. Then you can see that the two symbols are different categories of thing. — Eru·tuon 01:16, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Whether Australian FACE is transcribed /æɪ/ or /eɪ/ is a matter of a rather arbitrary choice. You may want to read [1], specifically this: "Don't ever ask us which of these systems is the IPA. They both use IPA symbols, but they are both local conventions used for phonemic transcriptions of Australian English. The Mitchell-Delbridge system is quite similar (but not identical) for a system used to do phonemic transcriptions of the British Received Pronunciation (RP) dialect, whilst the Harrington et al system more closely represents the actual pronunciation of an average modern speaker of Australian English." I'm afraid you're just being pedantic here, as phonemic symbols do not have to match the most common phonetic realization (although, of course, it is nice and useful when they do, but let's keep it real, as this isn't about our wishes.) By the way, [eɪ] (or [ɛɪ]) also occurs in Australia. I've been listening to AuE long enough to say that it's a fairly common pronunciation which isn't found only in the Cultivated variety (as one table on Australian English phonology states), but the General one as well. I wouldn't expect it to be common in the Broad variety, which has a very Cockney-like diphthongs. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:08, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Very well, /eɪ/ is a legitimate phonemic transcription of Australian, but it seems to have caused a misunderstanding in the case of the editor I mentioned. You're not responding to the fact that, if phonemic transcriptions actually differ from diaphonemic transcriptions, our system does not distinguish the two visually, which is likely to cause confusion and to discourage people from making a proper distinction between the two. — Eru·tuon 02:17, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Well, all I can do is agree. Mr KEBAB (talk) 02:25, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I vaguely recall this being brought up before, but I don't remember the rationale for going against changing the slashes. Perhaps someone can scour the archives more closely than I have. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 04:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: I remember bracketing being briefly suggested when the then-new (eventually rejected) symbols //ɒː// and //aː// were being discussed. I think it wasn't the main topic of conversation, so nothing happened either for or against it. — Eru·tuon 05:10, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

I fully agree that we should mark our diaphonemic transcriptions as what they are: diaphonemic. In not doing so, we are misleading linguistically inclined readers (anybody who has ever learned about the /…/ convention for marking phonemes) into assuming that we use phonemic transcriptions, and we are misleading linguistically trained editors into using phonemic transcriptions on our articles. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:19, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

So, Mr KEBAB and J. 'mach' wust have expressed support for the idea of visually distinguishing diaphonemic transcriptions from phonemic. I'm curious, do you two, or anyone else, have a preference for what markers should be used?

As I mentioned before, I think pipes, curly brackets, and double slashes are options: |ðɪs|, {ðɪs}, or //ðɪs//. I have no idea if these symbols are actually used to mark diaphonemic transcriptions in sources, but I vaguely remember them being mentioned in an earlier discussion (which I can't find for some reason...). Curly brackets and pipes would both be hard to type in wikitext (and might be mistakenly "corrected" by random editors), so I'm leaning towards double slashes.

Someone might think that {{IPA|{ðɪs}}} (though {{IPAc-en}} should be used instead) was an attempt to insert the syntax for a template parameter – {{{1}}} – or that the extra bracket indicated a syntax error. And vertical bars (pipes) have to be typed using {{!}} or |, both of which are more laborious than //. — Eru·tuon 23:39, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Let's use double slashes. Mr KEBAB (talk) 00:31, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Probably best not to go ahead with the change yet. I posted on the Linguistics and Languages WikiProjects to see if I can get more than four people to post in this thread. — Eru·tuon 02:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

You asked me for my preference, so I answered. Mr KEBAB (talk) 03:30, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

The article on diaphonemes mentions a few representations at the end. Some of them, such as pipes, have been used to represent something else, such as morphophonemic or morphemic representations. If we're going to do something different than slashes, double slashes seems the easiest solution. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 04:18, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion this discussion is of largely theoretical interest, without merit for the purpose of this template and the understanding of our readers. Yes, a diaphonemic transcription system is not the same as a phonemic one, but when any of these transcriptions is offered, together with a key of how to pronounce each (dia)phoneme that is sufficient information for the users to get a good impression of the real pronunciation in his favourite dialect. Therefore I see no need for an explicit marking and would prefer to avoid the additional clutter it would create. −Woodstone (talk) 08:40, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

@Woodstone: The additional clutter is minimal: only two extra characters in the displayed text – //ðɪs// versus /ðɪs/. As far as it being theoretical, so is the distinction between phone and phoneme, yet we attempt to consistently mark it throughout Wikipedia. I am proposing that we do the same with diaphonemes. Theory has practical meaning in this case: diaphonemes are farther removed from the actual default phonetic value than phonemes are, and so looking at the diaphonemic symbols and expecting that they indicate something about the default phonetic value of those symbols will lead people even farther astray. — Eru·tuon 17:49, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Erutuon: (Sorry for such a long text. I did not intend to write such a big piece, but that's how it came out.) I suggest we may go to the opposite direction. That is to ask people not to understand slashes for what they are not supposed to represent. Many think that the narrow transcription with square brackets must be really very narrow and represent an actual realisation at a given moment or a situation with minute details, thus they try to avoid it altogether and use the phonemic notation with slashes. But this generates more and more "phonemes" which, in fact, hardly exist. So when people write things like /æe/ for AuE or whatever, it does not mean there is an independent AuE phoneme in FACE entirely different from the FACE phoneme in other varieties of English, it actually implies that the general English phoneme (and calling it a diaphoneme is redundant here) /eɪ/ is realised in AuE as [æe], even if [æe] is not the only realisation (but at least very widespread), and even if further transcription details might be added. So when some people say, as you reported, Australian DRESS couldn't be pronounced /e/, because FACE is pronounced /eɪ/, it doesn't make sense. Neither /e/ nor /eɪ/ are the actual representations of pronunciation or that it have to be pronounced exactly that way as written, but abstract representations of the English phonemes (again it is not always necessary call them diaphonemes). We might use an entirely different notation and symbols for them, for example, the Shavian 𐑧 and 𐑱 (I hope you have a proper font to see them). Imagine the very same sentence with these symbols: Australian DRESS couldn't be pronounced 𐑧, because FACE is pronounced 𐑱. How does it sound? Indeed, it entirely does not make any sense.
The problem, as I see it, is not about the slashes, but that people do not like the fact that the widespread symbols for the English phonemes have been designed in accordance with RP, where these symbols are not only abstract representations, but more or less represent the actual pronunciation. This is why people in Australia, America or wherever try to invent their own "right" IPA notation for the very same English phonemes with the very same distribution. (The examples are the Australian and Canadian versions of Oxford dictionaries where their localised transcription hardly add any useful information, apart from that Aussies realise vowels differently than Brits, or Canadians round their vowel in LOT.) But if somewhere it might be justified on various grounds, here there must be no place for national pride. Even if people may not like that the transcription for all varieties of English is set up by those British posh academics according to how they or their circles pronounce English. Just a personal side-note. I always favoured the IPA for English and thought it is the only proper way to represent English pronunciation, but the more I study English accents and varieties, the more I understand Americans who do not like the IPA at all. Not only their dictionaries, but American linguists as well. Because even if that RP-centric IPA for English is good from a pedagogic point of view and may teach a "correct" pronunciation (though I don't think at all RP is the best for ESL learners), it is very, not even British-centric, but Oxbridge-posh-centric. For ESL learners it may be not an issue, but for native speakers of English it is a problem when they see /eɪ/, but know, especially if they know the entire IPA as well, that they do not pronounced that way.
Returning to our main question. I think the transcription used in Wikipedia already represents it right. It does not supposed to represent the actual pronunciation. So a good solution may be to leave the things as they are, but just to explain people that the symbols between single slashes is not the way they pronounce or ought to pronounce, these are just abstract symbols which merely give a hint about pronunciation. This is what phonemes actually mean. No need to invent diaphonemes and signify them in a special way.
And another personal opinion. This misunderstanding is why I now somewhat prefer respelling than the IPA outside of the field of phonetics. The IPA is good for scholarly and academic writings, but not for laymen with multitude of accents. The "IPA of dictionaries" is too skewed toward one variety. But this skew is inevitable if we want a well-understood by everybody uniformity. Thus here may be another solution: not to use the IPA, but the respelling which everybody may interpret as they want. But I understand this is not going to happen as the IPA is very well established in Wikipedia. So let's leave those single slashes as they are. They already signify what they are supposed to. But if youse agree upon double slashes, I'll not oppose it, but I think it will cause no less confusion. Many people will continue to use single slashes anyway just due to the habit.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:07, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

As long as we are using diaphonemic transcriptions, I think it is very important that we improve our article about diaphonemes. When a reader follows the link on our transcriptions, it will ultimately lead them to that article. At the moment, the reader could get the mistaken impression that the purpose of diaphonemes is having a single symbol for a range of allophones. However, that is rather what the purpose of phonemes is, not of diaphonemes. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 16:53, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

It might be best to have a discussion on improving that article at Talk:Diaphoneme, rather than here. I agree that a good diaphoneme article goes hand-in-hand with using a diaphonemic transcription. But I'm not sure I see how that confusion can take place. Could you be more explicit? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:32, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

See Talk:Diaphoneme#Lead rewrite. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 07:18, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

Oh yes, I remember that thread. You said you were going to replace an example in the lede. If that's the only thing wrong with the diaphoneme article, why are you bringing it up again rather than just fixing the problem you had with it? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:40, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

I didn't answer back then in October/November just to give myself a little time to think about the issue and nearly forgot about the discussion, but it's better late than never.
I must beg your pardon if I'm not too skilled in theoretical lingusitics as many might be here, as my interest in languages has been always leant toward more trivial and practical fields than to highly abstract theoretical ones. Probably in my magnum opus from the above I wrote some naive things or misconceptions. Frankly, I have not met the term "diaphonemes" often, but even after having read the article I still have no clear understanding what is this exactly and why this exists at all. From the "Dialectology" section I understand that from the point of view of the practical applications diaphonemes are phonemes with a broader umbrella meaning, so I do not understand why /njuː ˈjɔrk/ cannot be seen as a simply phonemic transcription with two phonetic regional "broad" realizations, [nuː ˈjɔrk] and [njuː ˈjɔːk]. Actually, postulating that English of all varieties may have the common phonemic system with—even of not always apparent but underlying—phonemes and, further, with different "broad" realizations in each variety and multitude of "narrow" idiosyncratic realizations is no less legit than postulating that there are diophonemes, several phonemic systems in each variety and multitude of phonemic realizations. Overall, diaphonemes complicate things and limit the understanding the term "phonemes" too narrowly. But I'm not going to continue as I'm not so skilled on that very abstract theoretical subject. But what is clear for me that, if I could not have got an idea, there is a guaranteed chance that our layman readers will not understand it, either. And for most this "phonemic vs. diaphonemic" scientific dispute will certainly remain simply out of their understanding. But all this obscurity results more on the fact that there seems to be no explicit theory of diaphonemes, at least that can be applicable directly to English, neither there seems to exist an established diaphonemic transcription which we could follow as an example. So what we're discussing here, and I dare to say this, is more or less an original research. Even if we change single slashes to double slashes it won't cease to be an OR, our own Wikipedia's original interpretation of diaphemes in English. Returning to our article "Diaphonemes", a diphonemic transcription of late, wait, eight must be //let//, //weit//, //ext//, but it is not at all what we are doing here, but we write (I won't use any delimiters deliberately): leɪt, weɪt, eɪt, that seems for me nothing more than a phonemic transcription. What we actually did we took the RP transcription used in dictionaries and tweaked it to cover some other accents, particularly General American, which we simply cannot ignore (but we ignore other accents easily). If I'm not wrong our system is an American-British mix of that of Cambridge's English Pronouncing Dictionary. But it does not seem for me diaphonemic. Probably we might use a truly diaphonemic transcription, but we then could not have done with just changing the number of slashes, we must rewrite our system completely.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I think the article diasystem might help you understand some of the issues. A diaphonemic representation does not have to be panlectal. That is, it need not encompass all English dialects. Ours is what one might call polylectal, as it focuses only on a handful of standard varieties. Indeed, the characterization you make of the system we use as starting off with British English and incorporating features of American English is pretty much how it was characterized until the term diaphoneme was uncovered as an easy way of describing this.

More importantly, our system as we use it doesn't depend on people having an intimate understanding of theory behind diaphonemes or the distinction between phonemes and diaphonemes. The diaphonemic identification of different phonemic systems at the heart of it is what people do when listening to speech of other dialects. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:07, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Lüboslóv Yęzýkin: Your reservations against the term diaphoneme are felicitous. Similar reasons lead linguists to drop the term decades ago. The question whether or not inventing our own transcription system constitutes original research is a contentious issue: Some editors (myself included) think that inventing our own transcription system is original research, while other editors think it is not. I think you have a point that our system is basically RP with a few tweaks. Take the OED2 transcription, add rhotic /r/, replace /əʊ/ by /oʊ/, introduce OED3 /ᵻ/ and /ᵿ/ and voilà, that is pretty much the system we are prescribing. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Our system mostly focuses on standard varieties, but it also encodes the distinction between NORTH and FORCE, which is not made in any standard variety nowadays. — Eru·tuon 18:51, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, I suppose. It's my understanding that our system is based on a kind of synthesis of various dictionaries. I can grant that dictionaries might encode some nonstandard pronunciations, but that doesn't really upset the point I was making. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:40, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: I though that that distinction was still possible in General American. It is possible in Irish English, and probably predominant in Scotland. But I agree that we probably shouldn't encode it, as most dictionaries don't. I wonder how many sourced pronunciations there are in which the vowel is actually /ɔər/, but we write it /ɔːr/ because that's what the source does. It's an interesting question. Mr KEBAB (talk) 00:29, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: I guess I doubt it's a General American pronunciation. I don't hear it in most news broadcasts. But I don't really know what sources would say. — Eru·tuon 01:58, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

@Любослов Езыкин: I don't agree that phonemic symbols should be so divorced from the actual pronunciation as you describe. It is necessary to have different symbols for Australian English because the substance of the vowel distinctions, the space in which each vowel is articulated, is so different. The onset of the Australian FACE diphthong is more similar to the TRAP vowel (/æ/) than the DRESS vowel. That is one thing that the transcription /fæes/ is meant to convey. In modern RP, it is different: the onset is more similar to the DRESS vowel (/ɛ/), so something like /ɛi/ is more accurate. (The transcription /eɪ/ is a phonetic transcription of an earlier RP pronunciation in which the diphthong was very narrow, from mid to close-mid. It is no longer accurate.) I believe that phonemic transcriptions of English ought to convey things like the similarities between the diphthongs and short vowels: which onsets are similar to which short vowels. Since these similarities differ between dialects, the transcriptions ought also to differ. — Eru·tuon 19:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: The actual symbols as used now are nothing but a convention. Maybe in the 1900s, when the IPA for English was being invented, it indeed represented the actual pronunciation of some sort of an idealized accent which Jones at al. chose as a reference point, but right now it doesn't. We may have changed it, but the change would rather cause a havoc than correct things. Even two reforms, by Gimson and Upton, have caused not one confusion and controversy. Better to say straight right from the start that the current "dictionary IPA" is just an abstract set of symbols, a convention, a tradition, which has not necessary to represent the actual sounds. Actually they say the very thing in the preface to Cambridge's English Pronouncing Dictionary and other dictionaries. /eɪ/ is hardly worse or better in representing the actual English phoneme than /ɛi/, <ā>, or Shavian <𐑱>, or whatever. Personally for the non-academic non-linguistic environment (which Wikipedia, in most parts, certainly is) I now opt for the good old respelling <ā> or <ay> which has worked very well for layman readers for the past 250 years.
If we write /fæes/, /fɛis/, /feɪs/, /feːs/, etc., we would pretend they are all different phonemes in those varieties, and all the varieties have different sets of phonemes, while it is not true, in this case the phoneme is one, and the majority of the phonemes are also the same, except for a limited amount of dialectal mergers and splits. If we write //feɪs//, we may indeed say that there is only one "super-phoneme", or diaphoneme, as you want to call it, but still with that we again implicit that symbols between single brackets are of some lower order or status, like "sub-phonemes", while again there is no such thing. The phoneme is one, /eɪ/ or however you choose to write it, while to write æe, ɛi, eɪ, etc. between single slashes is not right: it violates the IPA conventions. We must write [fæes], [fɛis], [feɪs], [feːs], etc., simply as that, no need in inventing double slashes. Unless we think there is no such thing as English and all the varieties are different languages with different sets of phonemes. Again what you are suggesting is not to write diaphonemes, not to rethink the current system and to create a new one, but simply and mechanically to write the current phonemic transcription within double brackets, as if it will change something. Like, you think //teɪks// is better than /teɪks/, just because between single brackets we only have to write detailed, dialect-wise transcriptions like /tæeks/ or /tɛiks/, while between square brackets we are allowed to write only extremely detailed transcription like [tʰɛi̯k˭s̥]. My opinion we can write /teɪks/ (abstract), [tæeks] or [tɛiks] (detailed, dialect-wise) and [tʰɛi̯k˭s̥] (very detailed and idiosyncratic, if we want that level of detailedness). While between double brackets we'd better write things like //teɪkz// implying that there is a diaphoneme, but it's actually //z//, that is the 3 p. sg. present tense suffix.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:27, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

@Любослов Езыкин: What "violates the IPA conventions" about writing /æe/, /ɛi/? What IPA conventions are you talking about?

As to the third-person singular present and plural suffix, it has allomorphs, which are therefore constructed of different phonemes or diaphonemes. It might be okay to write //z// after a voiceless consonant in some abstract meta-sense, but no dialect pronounces takes as takez, so it serves no purpose in a diaphonemic transcription. — Eru·tuon 20:25, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: The convention that phonemes are between / /, realizations are between [ ], see The Handbook of the IPA, chapter 1. If you want to write both /æe/ and /ɛi/ simultaneously, that would imply they are two different phonemes, or rather there is no such thing as one English with its phonemic inventory, with the mutual correspondences across the dialects, but rather two different languages/"super-dialects" with two inventories (namely EnEn and AuEn). I may have agree with you on some few particular cases, where the inventory indeed differentiates, namely the father-bother and cot-caught mergers and a few others, but not in such uniform and unanimous cases like the FACE vowel. No real need to write /æe/ and /ɛi/, you just write /eɪ/ and write [æe] and [ɛi] if you want to show the actual realizations.
Actually a year or so ago we have hotly debated the similar issue with Arabic, with its multitudes of dialects and phonetic realizations, much of which, unlike English, very scarcely known. For example, the letter ج may have various realization, but most and foremost it remains to be one phoneme across the dialects, so it is most logically to write it uniformly and traditionally /dʒ/. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 13:55, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

@Любослов Езыкин: I'm aware of that convention, as it's one of the most basic facts about the IPA. But I don't see how it relates to your point regarding /æe/ and /ɛi/. How does there being a difference between phonemic and phonetic transcription mean that the phonemic transcription in this case has to be different from the (average or most frequent) actual pronunciation?

Yes, of course dialects differ in their phonemic inventories. Phonological systems belong to a single dialect, not to multiple dialects. There are commonalities between English dialects' phonological systems, especially in the consonants, but they are still not the same system. There are often differences in the phonological features that distinguish the vowel phonemes. That makes it a different phonological system.

Even phonemes that correspond in a diaphonemic way, like Australian /æe/ and modern RP /ɛi/ (and what I would transcribe as /e/ in my own idiolect), should be transcribed distinctly because of their similarities with other phonemes in the same phonological system. The fact that they are transcribed differently does not mean that English speakers cannot understand the phoneme in one dialect as corresponding to the phoneme in the other, and that they cannot be regarded as the same diaphoneme. — Eru·tuon 17:48, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Ridiculous sentence in the cite note for /x/

In most dialects, /x/ is replaced by /k/ in most words, including loch. Where the sound begins a word, such as Chanukah, it is sometimes replaced with /h/. In ugh, it is often replaced by /ɡ/ (a spelling pronunciation). Huh?

/ɯx/, /ɯχ/, /ʌx/, /ʌχ/, /ʊx/, /ʊχ/ and /əː/ are seven plausible pronunciations of the word. /ʌg/ is not one of them. Ugh! Rovingrobert (talk) 08:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. The only people who would pronounce ugh /ʌg/ are people who have never heard the word pronounced. Tharthan (talk) 20:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

That's what a spelling pronunciation is. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:03, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Except that it's not a used spelling pronunciation. It's misleading to include it in the article. Not to mention that ugh itself is a transcription of a spoken expression. Rovingrobert (talk) 03:11, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Fair enough, I suppose. Though neither of us have any way of verifying that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:18, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

"ugh". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary. Retrieved 2017-05-23. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 15:56, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@J. 'mach' wust: Interesting find, though that source claims to describe how the word is (often) read, not pronounced in speech. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Please refer to our article on spelling pronunciation before you begin splitting hairs. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:14, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Great article! Now, back to splitting hairs. Rovingrobert (talk) 10:57, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation of /t/ as /d/

The New Oxford American Dictionary represents some words spelt with a t using a /d/ sound. For example, atom—a word listed in the IPA for English article as being pronounced with a t—is written in said dictionary as |'adəm|. I think this pronunciation would be common elsewhere, too; at the very least, it is standard in Australia, where I reside. Could this be integrated into the IPA for English article?

I suppose it depends upon how widespread this occurrence is. If it is standard, then there would be no need to stick to an overly formal transcription. Keep in mind that a theoretical enunciation of equation (a word mentioned in the article) would use /ʃ/ rather than /ʒ/. Rovingrobert (talk) 09:15, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm sure those sounds transcribed with /d/ are actually [ɾ], or at the very least a free variation between [d] and [ɾ], a phenomenon called flapping or tapping. I guess that NOAD notation is based on the idea that, rather than taking [ɾ] as an allophone of both /t/ and /d/, /t/ pronounced as [ɾ] has merged with /d/, and [ɾ] is an allophone of /d/, since [ɾ] is phonetically and perceptually closer to [d] than [t]. I feel like I've seen /D/ instead of /d/ for those sounds on Oxford's online version of US English dictionary, which I assume is a less divisive way of notating it (see Phoneme#Neutralization and archiphonemes).

But I can't see this way of notation picking up steam any time soon, since [ɾ] only occurs in certain conditions (unstressed and between vowels) and [t] and [d] still happen occasionally in those environments even in accents with flapping. Nevertheless, the IPA notation for English words on Wikipedia is meant to cover a whole spectrum of accents, so I don't think there's a room for that at the moment, except for perhaps adding a footnote or something. Nardog (talk) 04:23, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: Thank you for that; I was wondering about the intermediate sound 'between' /t/ and /d/. I think you would be well-disposed to adding a footnote. Rovingrobert (talk) 23:45, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Nardog instated the information in an appropriate matter, so I won't remove it. I'm not sure whether or not it really is an issue to bring to the page. For one, Webster and the AHD both do not make a distinction between flapped and unflapped. For another, whether or not "latter" and "ladder" are homophones may depend on the speaker. Some speakers only flap /t/, and not /d/. The other way around is rare. As a result, the flap is perceived only as an allophone of /t/.

As a final note, Oxford Dictionary is known to be rather inaccurate on American English. For this error, I can see how it arose. As an American myself, I hear the flap as a very faint "d" sound, but it is still kept distinct from a "d". Given that the sound does not occur in British English, the closest sound being a "d", Oxford would perceive the sound as a "d".LakeKayak (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

L-vocalisation

@Mr KEBAB: I wouldn't say it's just in the syllable coda that /l/ can be vocalised; I pronounce malpractice as /mawˈpraktᵻs/. Rovingrobert (talk) 03:18, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

What you're describing is a syllable coda: it's the final consonant sound of the first syllable.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 04:01, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

@WilliamThweatt: Apologies, brain fade. Since some syllables are only one letter long, I presumed it was the end of a word that was being referred to. Rovingrobert (talk) 08:03, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Still trying to get my head around syllable structure. How is it applied to short words like all? Is "/l/" part of the syllable coda in words like called, world, individuals, wealth, or old? Rovingrobert (talk) 09:14, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: If I understand our article Syllable correctly...

- In all /ɔːl/, /ɔː/ is the nucleus whereas /l/ is the coda. There's no onset ('null onset').

- In called /kɔːld/, /k/ is the onset, /ɔː/ is the nucleus whereas the consonant cluster /ld/ is the coda.

- In world /wɜːld ~ wɜːrld/, /w/ is the onset, /ɜː/ is the nucleus whereas /ld ~ rld/ is the coda.

- In individuals /ˌɪnd.ᵻˈvɪd.(j)u.əlz/ we have many syllables, so I won't analyze the whole word. What's important is that /lz/ is the coda of the last syllable, just as /l/ is the coda of the last syllable of the singular form.

- In wealth /wɛlθ/, /w/ is the onset, /ɛ/ is the nucleus whereas /lθ/ is the coda.

- In old /əʊld/, /əʊ/ is the nucleus whereas /ld/ is the coda. As in the first case, there's no onset. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Thank you so much for working through those examples. I merely wanted to crash-test the syllable coda hypothesis, which really is a brilliant encapsulation of how L-vocalisation works.

I would note that the gal example of /l/ in the main article would use /w/ if the L is vocalised. Rovingrobert (talk) 10:17, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: No, both gal and malpractice are phonemically /ɡæl, mælˈpræktᵻs/. L-vocalization is variable in most (or all?) native accents and is therefore non-phonemic. Even in Cockney and New Zealand English. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:56, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Inconsistent vowel changes for ju:  ??

The extent to which north americans pronounce the sound "ju:" seems to vary inconsistently between words. Or is there some other factor involved.

For example, most americans pronounce the word new, like "noo", where most other english-speakers it would sound more like "nyoo". And they pronounce dew like "doo" rather than "dyoo", and they say tune like "toon" rather than "tyoon".

On the other hand, I don't recall americans pronouncing the word cute as "coot", or mule like "mool", and most of them seem to distinguish between beauty and booty. "Where's Amy ? She's gone to the booty parlor." I think I would have noticed that.Lathamibird (talk) 07:40, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Lathamibird I believe you are describing yod dropping. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:21, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

This is definitely yod dropping. However, Lathambird, as an American myself, I can say the information you have stated is one hundred percent accurate.LakeKayak (talk) 20:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

American English has yod-dropping after coronals (dental and alveolar consonants) and nowhere else. "Booty parlour" is something you could hear in Norfolk. In fact, it's one of the strongest markers of that accent. Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:41, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

@Lathamibird: I thought "dyoo" and "tyoon" had almost entirely been replaced by "joo" and "choon." Rovingrobert (talk) 10:02, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: That's an entirely different phenomenon, called yod coalescence. Mr KEBAB (talk) 11:51, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: True, and thank you for the terminology, but the converse pronunciations are practically extinct. Rovingrobert (talk) 12:39, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: The source talks only about RP. There are hundreds of other accents. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: True, but how can one summarise them all? At some point I guess we just have to generalise. Rovingrobert (talk) 12:52, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: Generalise? Sure, but not by using a source that talks about one accent. Mr KEBAB (talk) 12:55, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Fair enough, but RP is viewed as the standard of British English. Most other accents or regional variants are not accounted for in British English dictionaries. Rovingrobert (talk) 12:59, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: That's not the point. You said that "the converse pronunciations are practically extinct" and tried to back that up with a source that discusses one accent. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:05, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: That makes sense, but I fail to see why OP gave examples outside both RP and GenAm. I mean, it is literally stated in said user's post that most non-American English speakers pronounce dew as "dyoo", and tune as "tyoon". Rovingrobert (talk) 13:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: Because there's vastly more to English accents than RP and GA. I don't see where he said that, he only said that most non-American English speakers say nyoo. After that, he said And they pronounce dew like "doo" rather than "dyoo", and they say tune like "toon" rather than "tyoon", which may or may not imply what you said. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:30, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Possibly it's ambiguous, but usually in such a construction the sentiment would be said to continue across sentences. It limits the need for repetition incumbent upon the writer. Rovingrobert (talk) 13:33, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Rovingrobert: Maybe you're right. Maybe he just didn't feel like distinguishing [tj, dj] from [tʃ, dʒ] was needed. I don't know. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:38, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

/ᵻ, ᵿ/

@Mr KEBAB: Could you explain this edit? International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects only lists [ə] for /ə/ and [ɪ~ə] for /ᵻ/ for GenAm, and General American lists [ə] for /ə/ and [ɪ̈~ɪ~ə] for /ᵻ/. By "the close allophone of /ə/", do you mean [ɪ̈]? Nardog (talk) 11:47, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: Precisely. I'll try to find a source for that, but I'm not sure where to look. Give me a few days. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:48, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Thank you. Regardless of the truth of the statement, though, I'm not sure why the note is necessary in the first place. ⟨ᵻ⟩ is not the same as ⟨ɪ̈⟩, so there's no source of confusion as far as I understand. Nardog (talk) 17:13, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: [ᵻ] means almost exactly the same as [ɪ̈]. It's just that it's non-IPA. See near-close central unrounded vowel. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:17, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Ah, you're right! I had read that paragraph of the article recently but only looked at the part about the OED and didn't realize it was also used in the Americanist notation. Thank you so much. Nardog (talk) 17:44, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Np. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

While I'm at it, I've never quite understood why we have /ᵻ, ᵿ/ in the first place. Isn't any instance of unstressed /ɪ, ʊ/ subject to reduction? So doesn't just notating /ɪ, ʊ/ without stress automatically indicate that they are pronounced as some sort of reduced vowel in dialects with the weak vowel merger? It's not like every diaphoneme that represents different phonemes in different dialects is given a dedicated symbol, in fact it's quite the contrary. Or, are there words in which /ᵻ, ᵿ/ contrasts with unstressed /ɪ, ʊ/ or /ə/? Nardog (talk) 17:44, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: As our main goal is to transcribe the phonemes of contemporary GA and RP, I'm for reducing our set of /ɪ, iː ʊ, uː, ə, i, u, ᵻ, ᵿ/ to just /ɪ, i, ʊ, u, ə/ (notice the lack of the length marks, the phonemicity of vowel length in English varies from dialect to dialect so it's better to use a simpler notation). OED uses /ᵻ, ᵿ/ to represent the /ɪ-ə, ʊ-ə/ variations in RP, not just reduced [ᵻ, ᵿ] that can't be replaced by the schwa (e.g. in wanted - /-əd/ is a non-RP variant). [ᵿ] is an extremely common realization of the FOOT vowel anyway.

For /i, u/, see [2]. I really don't think we need to distinguish them from /iː, uː/, so we don't have to transcribe 'length' (the phonemicity of which varies from dialect to dialect) at all. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:27, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that there's any dictionary that uses ⟨ᵻ⟩ only for the reduced /ɪ/, which is a shame if you're learning RP. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:39, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Also, of course, /ᵻ, ᵿ/ are not phonemes. They either represent the neutralization between /ɪ-ə, ʊ-ə/ or (as [ᵻ, ᵿ]) allophones of /ɪ, ʊ/ in unstressed syllables. I'm not sure whether they're used in all unstressed syllables, but they never "contrast with /ɪ, ʊ/". They are /ɪ, ʊ/, as long as you don't merge them with /ə/. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:13, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

The length marks adds redundancy, and that is a good thing because it reduces ambiguity. A simple ⟨i⟩ is ambiguous because it may stand for any of /iː/, /ɪ/ or /i/, depending on transcription and analysis.

Your explanations are somewhat confusing insofar as you are referring to “[ᵻ, ᵿ]”. Since there is no phonetic definition of these two signs, this does not make any sense. I guess what you really mean is [ɨ, ʉ]. --mach 🙈🙉🙊 20:58, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

@J. 'mach' wust: Are there any analyses which consider "/i/" to be a phoneme?

[ᵻ, ᵿ] denote lax [ɨ, ʉ] and are a non-official extension to the IPA. Your confusion surprises me. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:15, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

The rest of the discussion about /i, u/ can be found below. - Mr KEBAB

As for /ᵻ, ᵿ/, do you think we should have an official RfC like we did when discontinuing /ɵ/? Nardog (talk) 02:28, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

@Nardog: Sure. I'd bet $100 that we're not using them consistently anyway. Mr KEBAB (talk) 21:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)