[WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a hard time understanding this claim that using IPA improves
> communication. Surely a device intended to facilitate communication
> should make accessibility its first priority?

OK, its not about "communication" per se, its just a transcription
system for phonetics, that we chose a few years ago to use for
pronunciation keys.

> I suppose forcing all the various projects to use English might make it easier for the
> people who understand English to read them all; but as it
> happens,
> there are quite a few people who don't read English comfortably and
> we've sacrificed rigid uniformity for actual usefulness.

Straw man. Your confusing English with "Roman alphabet" - the latter
of which is just about universal at this point. The rest of your
argument sort of got lost.. I don't understand what you are saying,
except that you are misrepresenting my argument as one about
"universality."

Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think the prospect of a nice machine
> synthesizer in the future (with the ability to provide real
> recordings, of course) is probably sufficient justification for
> continuing to use IPA all by itself.

Ah. The minimalist argument. :)

-Stevertigo