Delirium wrote:
Adam Raizen wrote in part:
You malign ad hoc pronunciation schemes, but they do have *some* redeeming value. You can use a single ad-hoc system to represent different dialects more easily than you can use IPA for the same purpose, since users will read their own dialect into the pronunciation guide for the ad-hoc system. Still, I can't imagine making up an ad-hoc scheme for wikipedia; IPA is probably best for us.
I agree with this criticism of IPA -- how can IPA even be remotely useful for us, given that there is no one correct phoneme mapping for nearly *any* word in the English language? Are we going to have dozens of different IPA entries for each word, representing the full range of pronunciation in the English of England (including many dialects), Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, India, the United States (including many dialects), etc.? And how about for the range of pronunciation of Chinese words within different parts of China, or countries outside China that also have significant Chinese-speaking populations? The whole thing just seems pretty useless.
-Mark
The nice thing about IPA is that it allows to to have a range of phonetic details. You can specify exactly where a vowel is with respect to, for example, Daniel Jones' cardinal vowels, or you can just use the plain vowel symbol, meaning it's somewhere near that vowel.
The problem is fundamentally that dialects _do_ sound different and using the system "this sound sounds like this sound in another word" breaks down eventually.
There are, however, standard dialects, and other dialects can be described in terms of those standards. Likewise, pronunciations should be presented in the standards, and speakers who are unsure how their dialect differs from the standard can view the page on their dialect.
In the cases where a word is pronounced in a dialect in a way that is not predicted by the regular differences between the dialect and the standand, then it seems only reasonable than to present that dialect's idiosyncratic pronunciation along with the standards.
- David [User:Nohat]