Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation/Archive 2

Native names

In some articles about foreign countries (e.g. Cuba and Venezuela), I've been traslating some IPAs, from English pronunciation to native pronunciation. I think that Wikipedia prefers native pronunciation, but I'm not sure. Can't we put a guideline on it? José San Martin 23:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I think Brazil article is a important case. It originally had the Brazilian pronunciation of the name of the country but somewhen an anon changed it to European pronunciation. Now, the pronunciation in the lead is the Brazilian one. Yet, there's a note that shows the European one. Thus, it would be also interesting say that the preferred pronunciation is not only the native one, but, in case of places or people, it will be transcribed in local formal pronunciation. (i.e. [benesu'ela], not [beneθu'ela], as it would be in Spain) José San Martin 23:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

In the case of names (such as Venezuela) that have an accepted pronunciation in English, I think we should show both the normal English pronuncation and the local one. I have never heard anyone pronounce "Venezuela" in English with an initial [b], so to give only the local pronunciation would seem bizarre. But of course it's desirable to show also the local pronunciation where different. I'm slightly puzzled however as to what should be done about for instance places in the south of Spain that don't locally use a Castilian pronunciation - should we use [θ] or [s]?

"Icck?" On the contrary, "Oooooooh!"

"Forms such as pro-NUN-see-AY-shun are of no help to people whose first language isn't English."

Yea? And IPA is of no help to people whose first language is not gobbledygook, and who have no clue what an aspirated allophone is, or time to spend learning either. The English language wikipedia is written in English, and fluent English speakers can figure out ASS-pur-Ay-tud AL-oh-Fone and so on without any problem. The same cannot be said for ˈkɛɹəktə(ɹ)z whatever the hell word that's supposed to represent. It looks like greek to me, is it referring to one of Socrates' students??

Sorry, but there is actually no way to consistently represent English pronunciation (let alone that of other languages) without some form of coding that needs a key to understand it. All dictionaries that I know of have a key to their pronunciation guide, the problem is that many of them use their own schemes which are different to those in other dictionaries. In Wikipedia we need a single pronunciation scheme, and the only realistic choice for this is IPA, which also has the advantage that it is applicable (in principle) to any other language. Here in the UK, just about every disctionary you can buy now uses IPA anyway, and in fact it's not at all difficult to learn the small subset of symbols that apply to English. See IPA chart for English. --rossb 13:29, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I've got to agree, unless you're an academic who has specialized in linguistics, the IPA is just gibberish. It's not taught in schools, none that I've ever seen in the US teach it, except specialized classes in linguistics at the college level. It doesn't help people pronounce anything really. Within specific, professional environments the IPA may be useful, but in a general public reference work, it's academic pretensiousness. --Wingsandsword 04:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

IPA is not limited to linguists at all. It is commonly used from the very beginning of foreign language teaching in schools for, say, age 12 children. −Woodstone 13:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

• Keep the IPA. It is the most advanced form of unified pronunciation transcription, and approved by Unicode wherever modern character sets are found. --James S. 05:04, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Seriously, though, IPA is the standard, and all the symbols you need to understand IPA for English can be made to fit on a single screen: IPA chart for English. I agree it's not intuitively obvious, but it isn't rocket science either. Furthermore, no one who has ever complained about the IPA being too hard to understand has ever made a workable proposal for a replacement. Please see Wikipedia:Pronunciation (simple guide to markup, American) for an example of such a proposal and Wikipedia talk:Pronunciation (simple guide to markup, American)#Nohat's take for my explanation on why the proposal and any other potential proposal like it fails to be useful. Nohat 05:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Basic IPA for English is no more difficult to use than the English dictionary system that I used (but never really "learned") in grade school dictionaries. Please have a look at the example at Pleiades (star_cluster)#Names and technical information. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 02:06 Z

Yes, I had a look at it. A few of the pronunciations are fairly self-evident, but some of them (Taygeta in particular) are pure gobbledygook. I say nix to IPA; it's overkill for this application. As someone above pointed out, it isn't taught in the U.S. at all, for the most part. And while you might be able to make a convincing case that we (Merkins) are the stupid stepchildren of the world, do you really want to, basically, spit in the face of that many millions of potential users of this encyclopedia by telling them "look, bub, if you want to know how [x] is pronounced, you're going to have to study up on IPA"? ===06:58, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

"look, bub, if you want to know how [x] is pronounced, you're going to have to study up on IPA" To be honest, I don't see a problem with that. OK, there probably should be some approximate 'English-spelling' guide alongside the IPA, but I still think that, whether or not the IPA's taught in schools, it's something people should either learn or stop complaining about. As Nohat points out, it's really not rocket science. The IPA isn't (as far as I know) taught in schools in the UK either, but all the quality dictionaries use it and we seem to manage. I think the most important thing is that for many pronunciations given in Wikipedia, the word isn't English and contains sounds not present in English - in these cases especially, the IPA is indispensible. Even where the word is English, however, there is much accuracy to be lost if a non-IPA pronunciation is given to the exclusion of an IPA one. garik 15:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I highly agree. Pro-NUN-see-AY-shun is much easier to understand for most readers than /pr@nVnsieIS@n/ or the IPA version of that. I see nothing wrong with using forms like Pro-NUN-see-AY-shun. Voortle 16:06, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, not all the UK quality dictionaries use IPA. Chambers (preferred to the COD by many Scots) uses a more traditional system. It's also worth noting that several dictionaries in the Oxford family use a rather odd broad transcription, with [a] for [æ] and [o:] for [əʊ] and other eccentricities. I heartily approve of this - it seems like an attempt to interpret IPA in a more user-friendly way - but it refutes the naive notion that IPA is single standard, practically speaking.

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in this debate look up Kwami's comments here and in the archives, which are very well informed and well-reasoned. One of his points is that a good non-IPA transcription (like the Pronunciation respelling key) has some technical advantages over IPA, apart from being more user-friendly. IPA transcriptions tend to be dialect-based; this not only increases the number of possible transcriptions for many phonemes (especially vowels), it gives rise to charges of "dialect imperialism". This is a more complicated than the question of UK/US/Commonwealth orthographies, since there's marked dialectal variation within most of the Anglophone countries. Received Pronunciation, for example, is non-rhotic, but many British speakers are rhotic. The reverse holds true for Standard American. A well devised respelling key like Kwami's does a decent job of smoothing over this problem.

So I'm holding out for a dual solution: IPA preferred; pro-nun or, better, the Pronunciation respelling key permitted alongside IPA wherever it is helpful.--Chris 18:29, 29 June 2006 (UTC).

Garik, re-reading this, I realize that I sound like I'm arguing with you, when in fact our views are pretty close.

Yes. I strongly agree with your dual solution. And you're quite right about Chambers. I was aware that older editions used a 'traditional' system, but for some reason was under the impression that they'd changed to IPA: my mistake (I believe their 21st Century Dictionary uses it, however). Of course I'm also aware of the many differences between different uses of the IPA - a practically infinite continuum of broadness... I agree moreover about the dialect-specificity of the IPA, although I don't see that as an insurmountable problem, provided transcription is suitably broad. In some cases, alternative pronunciations can be given too (which occasionally becomes necessary even with pro-nun). But yes, I can see that there are definite advantages to a pro-nun transcription (though preferably alongside an IPA one). I'd add though that the advantage really exists only when discussing English words phonologically. In discussions of foreign words or where a broader phonetic pronunciation is to be preferred to a phonemic one (which is likely to be the case in articles about non-standard or specifically dialectal usages and so on), then I think the IPA is clearly preferable. Partly for reasons of comparison, I also don't think it should be ommitted where pro-nun is used (and some readers will find IPA easier in any case). To be honest, I'm biased not only because I'm a linguist, but also because the words whose pronunciations I most often need to look up here and elsewhere are not English ones. I'm so annoyed when I pick up a Teach-Yourself guide to a foreign language and the pronunciation key is all 'sounds a bit like English...'! I'm also rather unimpressed by the 'Awww... I can't be bothered to learn something new'-attitude that seems to exist in one or two (though not all) of those who oppose the IPA on these pages. garik 20:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

In my view the Pronunciation respelling key should rejected outright because it is original research, not based on any recognised standard. And that is also in general the reason not to use PRONUN style indicators. −Woodstone 20:31, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Although, as the defenders of that page love to point out, Wikipedia:No original research applies only to articles, not to help pages, I wholeheartedly agree with you. There should be a single system for pronunciation on Wikipedia, and it shouldn't be that ad-hoc one. Want to put it up for deletion again? —Keenan Pepper 20:58, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

If you feel it violate basic WP principles, then of course you should try to have it deleted. Personally, I don't think it does, and in any case I'm more interested in pragmatic arguments. In fact, I think it's time to end this segment of the discussion and focus on writing up a new policy that modifies the current IPA-only position in reasonable way.--Chris 11:24, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Discouraging English pronunciations

I dispute this "Forms such as pro-NUN-see-AY-shun are of no help to people whose first language isn't English." Anyone who is reading Wikipedia in English can almost certainly make sense of such a pronunciation. It's almost certainly a lot more helpful than IPA for most people. There may be other reasons to discourage such pronunciations, but that reason doesn't make a lot of sense. 217.128.193.40 10:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The deeper reason is: an encyclopedia must be precise. We cannot prefer "pro-NUN" instead of IPA, since the former is not accurate enough for an encyclopedia. Although, we cannot deny that is much less accessible. (although, some one with more free time could go and read the IPA page) I could argue that the physics articles are not accessible for everyone. It is a pretty complicated argument, since the IPA can be in many pages that aren't about linguistics.

Then I ask: when does we need IPA in an article? Although English ortography is totally a mess, everyone who reads English can get a more or less clear pronunciation without looking at the IPA. (What is the utility of the transcription in Wikipedia article?) We put transcription only in articles that the title is either a foreign word or a proper noun. If you want to get the real native pronunciation, you must know IPA. Costa Rica KOS-tah REE-kah would give you just the native pronunciation in a English throat. Well, if you want to get the English pronunciation, why don't you read the words "Costa Rica" and pronouce it loudly. The effect is exactly the same and in this special situation "KOS-tah" is totally worthless.

What I mean is not "let's abolish pro-NUN from Wikipedia". Albeit a little messy, they are much more useful in an article like List of common phrases in various languages, where both transcription coexists.

Finally, in many other cases, when neccessary giving an indication other than IPA, try the much more useful "rhymes with" before trying to write a "pro-NUN". José San Martin 12:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree; Wikipedia is for general consumption, it's not a specialist resource for linguists and those who believe that the IPA is taught to children from the age of two months. I learned French for five years at school (admittedly to no great degree), and I had not once heard of the IPA until I read Wikipedia; as far as British schools are concerned, it's not anything approaching a common element of language lessons. IPA descriptions of words should most definately be included in all pronunciation descriptions for purposes of accuracy, and English pro-NUN-see-AY-shun guides should most definately be included in all pronunciation descriptions (On en., of course) for purposes of usefulness.

Pti 14:20, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I think I don't agree with you absolutely. IPA must be everywhere. When it is a English word with weird pronunciation, better use "rhyme with", that is more clear than pro-NON. When none of these has worked well, we should use pro-NUN.

An exception are the list of phrases in other languages, that are traditionally written in pro-NUN. In this very case, I think we should use both IPA and pro-NUN. José San Martin 12:57, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Special pronunciation key just for astronomical bodies

Some people have taken it upon themselves to ignore this part of the Manual of Style and make their own little non-standard system just for astronomical bodies: Spelling-pronunciation key for astronomical bodies. Just thought I'd point that out here. Good luck trying to do anything about it. —Keenan Pepper 01:10, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

How to add sound clips with pronunciation

Trying to describe pronunciation with words or exotic letters is all fine and well for paper media, but we can do better with multimedia capabilities. For how to pronounce København, most people would be far better helped with a sound clip of the correct Danish pronunciation than any attempt using words. I'm just not sure there is a good way to do it at this moment. I've been working on many an article where I think adding a discrete but clearly visible link to a sound clip in the first line of the article would add much to the article (consider Betelgeuze, Abu Ghraib, Qaqortoq). I've experimented with using the audio tag, which produces this: Danish pronunciation of København^ⓘ, but I'm not all that satisfied with it. I'd prefer having only the little icon and no descriptions, let alone 'info' and 'help', but I have no idea how to do so. Any suggestions for a better and more discrete way? Any suggestions for a standard? Jens Nielsen 16:51, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Added Template:IPARef

This stereotypes IPA citations, such as,

• apsala {{IPARef|ˈɐpsələ}}, yielding,
• apsala (IPA: [ˈɐpsələ])

I don't have strong feeling on what the convention should be, but it should be consistent, and creating this template is a start. IPA citations are all over the map.

StrangerInParadise 21:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, it even forces the IPA font selection. When I tried nesting templates earlier on, it did not appear to work, but it seems to be ok now. Would it not be better named IPAref (small r) so IPA stands out better? Now it reads like the slight obscure "IPAR ef" −Woodstone 22:30, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't see the point. The square brackets [...] and slashes /.../ used to surround IPA have different meanings: they are part of the content and should be typed along with the IPA text, not hardwired into a template. Likewise, parentheses around the entire construction imply a certain way of using this in a sentence, and it will vary depending on the particular situation. Finally, the IPA link shouldn't be hardwired: what if you are providing the pronunciation for a half-dozen words? The IPA link doesn't have to be repeated.

I think you are over-specifying a lot of editorial decisions.

By the way, this does not "force the IPA font selection", it uses a meta-template {{IPA}}. Meta-templates should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, and that one should simply be used on its own. Template:IPA applies the bug-fix for MSIE/Windows's Unicode problems, without changing the format in any other browser.

This is how IPA should be entered:

   [[IPA]]: {{IPA |/ˈɐpsələ/}}, {{IPA |[gəd]}}

Which renders as: IPA: /ˈɐpsələ/, [gəd] —Michael Z. 2006-03-11 23:20 Z

Why not allow approximate 'pro-NUN' in addition to IPA?

Not everyone can 'read' IPA, and the majority of Web users' browsers don't display the UTF/IPA characters. Seems like cutting off our nose to spite our face to limit pronunciation information to a form that only a tiny fraction of users can use. 24.18.215.132 18:27, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm all with you here. And how about soundclips instead (see above)? Jens Nielsen 21:36, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

"the majority of Web users' browsers don't display the UTF/IPA characters"—this is quite false. A vanilla Windows XP system displays all but very obscure IPA characters, when they are enclosed in template:IPA. —Michael Z. 2006-03-18 19:17 Z

Why don't you like the "rhyme with/stress at" system that is much more clear and accessible to everyone? José San Martin 20:29, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Because "pro-NUN-see-ayshun" guides using ordinary letters can be read very differently by different people, giving apparent pronunciations that are greatly divorced from reality. They are worse than useless and can be very misleading. - MPF 17:54, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

As an example, take the case of Sade Adu. When she first became known, her promotional material contained notes that her name was pronounced "shar DAY". This was OK for people with non-rhotic accents, but in areas where rhotic accents were dominant, it led to the erroneous insertion of an [ɹ]-sound, which (I think) still persists today. Indefatigable 18:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear! This is exactly why Pronunciation respelling key (formerly Spelling-pronunciation key for astronomical bodies) should be obliterated. —Keenan Pepper 18:34, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

For an even worse example, the peculiar habit some people have of sticking an aspirated 'h' sound at the end of nearly every syllable, giving pronunciations that read like the last expiring death throes of an asthmatic suffering from severe bronchitis (I see there's one such at the page Keenan cites, "prohteeus" /prɒhtiʌs/ for Proteus - what cr@p!) - MPF 19:20, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Americans generally recognize a post-vowel (h) to be an indication of increased vowel-length, not a mark of aspiration; a long vowel in other words, as in the common expressions "oh" or "ah", where the spelling reflects pronunciation. RP speakers can use an (r) for the same purpose, as vowel-lengtheners, and both may look equally ridiculous depending upon from which side of the Atlantic they are viewed. Why do you presume that only your interpretation is valid and any other is mere crap? --dshep/11sept2006/

There are good arguments here against attempts to represent pronunciation (especially of non-English words) by ad hoc respellings using English spelling conventions, but it's worth pointing out that Pronunciation respelling key is an attempt at creating a systematic way of doing things. A transcription using that key (or something similar) ought, in principle, to be translatable to an IPA transcription for a particular accent, as indeed described in the table for four different accents.

In general, my view is:

• I don't have a lot of sympathy with the "IPA is strange so we should use something else" kind of argument.
• Pronunciations of non-English words and names should always use IPA. Approximations to sounds which make sense in some English accents don't in others, e.g. the above use of ar for what I presume is [aː] or similar.
• Similarly, and for much the same reason, phonetic (in the linguistic sense) information about English pronunciation should always use IPA. For example, we shouldn't describe a New Zealand pronunciation of bet as "bit": it may sound like that to me, but it won't to a New Zealander.
• However, there are problems with using the IPA for certain other purposes, such as representing the pronunciation of unfamiliar English words and names (e.g. the asteroid articles). IPA transcriptions (both phonetic and phonemic, though the former more so) are based on particular accents (usually, for English, RP and/or General American). The IPA-based transcriptions in British dictionaries tend to have a fairly narrow view: most words (even ones like bath with very well-known variation within Britain) have only one pronunciation given, there's no concession in the system to variations from RP phonology (rhoticity, for example, which is the norm in Scotland and parts of western England), the symbols used are based on fairly old-fashioned RP pronunciations, etc. In a non-IPA symbol like the one at Pronunciation respelling key, oe can represent the vowel of goat regardless of whether it's [gəʊt] or [goːt] or [gɑʊt] or [goət] or whatever.

--JHJ 13:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

But I think that a broad IPA transcription can be as widely applicable for English words, although this may require a key to nail down the specifics. Couldn't we agree that /goːt/ represents "goat" in most English accents? I notice that dictionaries use slashes /.../ around their IPA, presumably to indicate that they are making certain assumptions about the way IPA is being applied (and not just British dictionaries, also my Canadian Oxford). It would be better to use just one set of symbols than two different ones. —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 17:46 Z

We could, and maybe it would work. However, I fear it's a can of worms. Some people seem to object to any use of slashes in this way, in spite of the British dictionary precedent. How would we deal with rhotic/non-rhotic variation? I'd go for something like north /nɔ(r)θ/, but there could be problems with accents whose vowel in north is phonemically different from their vowel in caught (the latter being the likely default meaning of /ɔ/). The system probably wouldn't actually be truely phonemic for anyone, which would pose questions about whether it was a proper use of the symbols. And how would we choose which symbols to use? To me /oː/ seems to be a reasonable choice for goat, but not everyone is going to like it. Ultimately it would probably be very similar to the Pronunciation respelling key you seem to dislike so much, but with IPA symbols instead of the current ones. I don't think there's a really satisfactory solution.--JHJ 18:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

All good points. It wouldn't be easy to settle on a system, and it would take more knowledge than I have. Something to think about. But it would certainly be better than "proh-NUN". And I don't hate the respelling system, I just don't see the point in using another system alongside IPA, when IPA should be suitable for the task. —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 19:36 Z

Oxford does have dictionaries covering a wide range of English dialects. It would be interesting to compare their IPA schemes for the different ones. —Michael Z. 2006-03-21 19:45 Z

Obviously I worded my original question/suggestion wrong. How about: Since a significant percentage of Wikipedia readers can't use IPA pronounciations for a variety of reasons, and since exact pronunciation is not critical in 'general use' articles, why not allow a more commonly understood approximation of words in articles that aren't linguistics-related, in addition to IPA? As a specific example, Açaí Palm has IPA: ɑː-saɪ-iː, which will be useless to many users. When I tried to add (not replace the IPA) ah-SIGH-ee, it was reverted. I don't see some potential, minor variations in the way different people might interpret that as critical in this context. Using only IPA also seems developed world centric and elitist, as IPA teaching, and the technology to display it, is highly geo-socio-politically limited. 24.18.215.132 02:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

There's a reason it's called the International Phonetic Alphabet. Someone for whom English is not a first language might think the G in "ah-SIGH-ee" represents a G sound. Could you explain how IPA is "developed world centric [sic]" and schemes based on English orthography aren't? —Keenan Pepper 03:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

But anyone who could read English would recognize the word "sigh" and know how it is pronounced, would they not? --dshep/12sept2006/

BTW, the accent in açaí is on the last syllable, so in your ugly system it would be "ah-sah-EE" or something. —Keenan Pepper 03:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I thought that ɑː-saɪ-iː would work on a vanilla windows system, but I see that the triangular colons don't show up. Perhaps we should consider substituting regular colons: ɑ:-saɪ-i:.

Anonymous, can you explain how IPA teaching and technology are "geo-socio-politically limited", any more than say, a non-Latin script Wikipedia, or a bound book which contains IPA text? I can't find anything about this issue in the article on IPA. It seems to me that all that's required is a free font download. —Michael Z. 2006-03-24 21:35 Z

The reason the "ah-SIGH-ee" stuff was removed is that, quite simply, it does not represent the pronunciation of the word. The first syllable does not end with an aspirated 'h' sound, so that is wrong. And in a pronunciation guide, 'sigh' reads something like 'sig-h', not the same as the word 'sigh' (think: you would not use the lettering 'sigh' to explain how the word 'sigh' is pronounced). - MPF 13:58, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

"Sigh" is a word that any literate person knows. No one is going to look at this and say, hmm, must mean sig-h(aspirate).--dshep/12sept2006/

The claim that IPA is linguist-specific and too technical is rather confusing to me. Aside from the fact that most dictionaries (in the UK at least) use it (or a slight variant) exclusively, and have been doing for decades without issue, wikipedia users can always visit IPA for a guide. That's the beauty of wikipedia - anything in the article you don't understand can be clicked on and explained. Furthermore, we shouldn't be trying to dumb things down and explain things that can be looked up elsewhere because it undermines existing articles. An article on black holes should not stop to explain how to calculate the circumference of a circle, nor should it simplify 2πr to "about three times the width". So long as we keep links to IPA handy, then readers can look up pronunciation. If we make up our own approximations, we'll be debating all across Wikipedia whether we should be using 3, 22/7, 3.1, 3-and-a-bit, and so forth.

On alternate prnounciations, it's easy enough to note the provenance of each IPA provided, so

Venezuela (IPA: BrE [ˌvɛnəˈzweːlə], Properly [beneˈswela], Castillian [beneˈθwela])...

To add ven-uh-ZWAY-luh, ben-eh-SWEH-lah, ben-eh-THWEH-lah (and/or alternate renderings) may be going too far, but I'm not sure. --Nema Fakei 14:22, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

As you say "in the UK at least". I thot Wikipedia was mandated to serve ALL English speakers, not just Brits. IPA is a non-event in the general US population. And you don't address the issue of technological limitations of IPA chars to the highly devleoped world. And what percentage of Wikipedia readers actually know IPA? 5%? 10%--I thot the project was to provide info for ALL, not just some educationally and technologically elite. Saying something is "international" doesn't mean it is actually used globally. 24.18.210.22 07:14, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Hear, hear! —Keenan Pepper 15:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

A 'simple font download' is not practical in remote/less developed areas, and that response doesn't seem to address CD-ROM, or especially print, versions of Wikipedia. Reading History of the International Phonetic Alphabet, it seems largely developed in Europe, and wasn't even close to its present form until 1989--how far has it actually dispersed in its short life? It doesn't seem to have made much impact in the US until more recently (and I don't know if it in common use here yet at all). Compare click 'show phonetics' (UK) to this (US)--the latter is more intelligible to someone familiar only with the English alphabet (or English and their native alphabets)--also note that neither chamois nor chamois leather address the punctuation at all, possibly because no one who has editted the article knows IPA. And expecting people in areas that don't even have schools to know the IPA 'language' (character set), in addition to their own, and/or English, seems 'developed world centric'.

That said, I've also begun to wonder if the precision being pursued is even practical or necessary (ie non-theoretical) in general interest articles--I bet if you got a group of 100 life-long residents of New Orleans, Louisiana you'd hear more than the three 'local pronunciations' given in the article. I suspect the same would be true even if you limited it to 20 life-long NO residents that are linguistics professors. 24.18.215.132 03:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

You must be joking. How would an average American reader know how to pronounce "wä" in the example shown? It is just as cryptic as the IPA. However IPA is well standardized, whereas practically every dictionary has its own ways. In wikipedia we need to standardise and should not develop our own particular additional way. −Woodstone

Oh man, not only is the IPA developed-world centric, but this entire encyclopedia is knowledge centric. I mean, how do you expect people to know stuff like black holes, and the history of China? They could read the articles on them, but that's probably too much work. Knowledge centricity is the worst kind of bias for an encyclopedia since it assumes a certain level of literacy and competance in the reader. AEuSoes1 10:45, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Since I came up with the pronunciation respelling key that's used in the asteroid and moon articles, I thought I should weigh in here. I've also written half the IPA article, so it's not like I'm uncomfortable with it.

I created the key for two reasons:

• Wikipedia has yet to come up with a cross-dialectal IPA transcription for English, which results in cries of 'cultural imperialism' (especially when rhotic and non-rhotic dialects differ), and
• the existing pronunciation respellings were an ad hoc mess.

If one of you is able to transcribe English (and not just a dialect of English) in an IPA system that doesn't spark edit wars, that would be wonderful, but until that time arrives we need something functional.

Some phonemic distinctions that I do not control were later added to the key by people who do control them, the letter schwa was added so that a wouldn't have to pull double duty, and ah, oh were changed to aa, oe because some people were flustered by them, but other than that the system has been stable. It's unambiguous for the dialects that it covers. (It doesn't (yet) cover Scots.)

Anyone who could or would deliberately misinterpret what is meant by "oh" and "ah" must enjoy obfuscation. --dshep/12sept2006/

I personally would never transcribe a foreign word or name like açaí with this key. That's not what it's designed for, and it would not be dialect neutral if used that way. And I also agree that it should be used as an adjunct to the IPA, not in place of it. An additional benefit is that when both systems are used, people no longer seem to get upset that the IPA represents a specific dialect. kwami 23:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

You forgot to include a link to which one you mean, but am I right to assume it's Pronunciation respelling key (recently renamed from the more modest Spelling-pronunciation key for astronomical bodies). Although I appreciate your efforts, it doesn't look any better than any of the many versions already shown in Pronunciation respelling for English. Yours must be qualified as original research and as such not a candidate for standardisation in Wikipedia. −Woodstone 09:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

What research? It's a convention. It's no more "research" than a table of contents. kwami 07:18, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Then it must be moved to the Wikipedia: namespace. —Keenan Pepper 10:33, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Or Help:, that's good too. —Keenan Pepper 10:35, 28 April 2006 (UTC)