(Crossposted to wikien and foundation:)
Some points about IPA on all language wikis.
1) As a rule, all language wikis should use International Phonetic Alphabet as their standard pronunciation scheme. Very few appear to actually do. 2) All language wikis should attempt to use IPA to pronounce the endonym of a foreign word, not the exonymic re-pronunciation (ie. Iraq = /iːˈrɑːk/ not /ɪˈræk/). 3) With rare exceptions, IPA should be the default phonemic transcription scheme, and alternate schemes such as [[Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key]] should be avoided or deprecated. 4) Feedback from languages about IPA should be useful. IPA is actually quite flexible about exactness, while still being phonetically precise. If there are flaws in IPA itself, the Wikipedia community can help raise them for the Internation Phonetic Association. 5) Ambiguity about how it is supposed to be used is a cross-project issue should be dealt with at the Foundation level (ie. global not just inter-wiki policy).
-Stevertigo
What's the point of using a phonetic alphabet that 95% of our readership can't interpret? If the idea is to help readers understand how a word is pronounced in English, it should actually be useful to the majority of readers and not largely useless but academically perfect.
Nathan
Hoi, A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans and expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA hard to use.
Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all we HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed. Thanks, GerardM
On 22 April 2010 00:58, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
What's the point of using a phonetic alphabet that 95% of our readership can't interpret? If the idea is to help readers understand how a word is pronounced in English, it should actually be useful to the majority of readers and not largely useless but academically perfect.
Nathan
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On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 4:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans and expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA hard to use.
Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all we HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed.
Quite. We need to make the distinction between exonym and endonym transcription. Endonyms come first, and exonym-repronunciations are noted as such. But likewise we can't get too stuffy about pronouncing words according to native phonologies, clicks and whirrs and so forth. :P
-Stevertigo
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans and expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA hard to use.
Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all we HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed. Thanks, GerardM
I disagree to an extent of the first part of you post, and agree with the second part. I actually answered an email about this situation, the ticket can be found here if you have access < https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&Ticket...
The correspondent wasn't very, how shall I say, nice in the initial email or the reply to my response, but here's what I wrote:
"The Wikimedia Foundation projects, which include the English Wikipedia, are aimed at and have a broad global appeal. In fact, many of our contributors are not native speakers of English but use the project as a way to enhance their knowledge of English and providing translations. We actively encourage that.
The "gobbledygook" is the International Phonetic Alphabet, contrived and maintained by an international collection of linguists over a hundred years ago as a method, based on Latin characters, to phonetically pronounce even unfamiliar languages. This method of adoption across our projects allow people from around the globe to understand a pronunciation no matter their language.
We are sorry that this is inconvenient for you and diminishes your interest in Wikipedia. We do hope that you can learn the IPA from our language guides available- it's actually pretty quick to catch on to and is a common sense approach to phonetics.
You can find more information about the IPA here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International Phonetic Alphabet> which includes external links to educational tools in learning the system!
Again, we do appreciate your concerns about the usability of Wikipedia."
Enabling a pop-up (for example) for the IPA prononciation would be a big plus as far as I am concerned. I've never quite got my head around it, but can see its usefulness. This is particularly useful when the word is of non-English extraction: I find it an added benefit to see the word in its original form (spelling and script), notably when there is a local version of the word which has completely transformed the native version (e.g. Londres from London, Maroc / Morocco from المغرب).
Alexandr Dmitri
2010/4/22 Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans
and
expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA hard to use.
Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all
we
HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed. Thanks, GerardM
I disagree to an extent of the first part of you post, and agree with the second part. I actually answered an email about this situation, the ticket can be found here if you have access <
https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&Ticket...
The correspondent wasn't very, how shall I say, nice in the initial email or the reply to my response, but here's what I wrote:
"The Wikimedia Foundation projects, which include the English Wikipedia, are aimed at and have a broad global appeal. In fact, many of our contributors are not native speakers of English but use the project as a way to enhance their knowledge of English and providing translations. We actively encourage that.
The "gobbledygook" is the International Phonetic Alphabet, contrived and maintained by an international collection of linguists over a hundred years ago as a method, based on Latin characters, to phonetically pronounce even unfamiliar languages. This method of adoption across our projects allow people from around the globe to understand a pronunciation no matter their language.
We are sorry that this is inconvenient for you and diminishes your interest in Wikipedia. We do hope that you can learn the IPA from our language guides available- it's actually pretty quick to catch on to and is a common sense approach to phonetics.
You can find more information about the IPA here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International Phonetic Alphabet> which includes external links to educational tools in learning the system!
Again, we do appreciate your concerns about the usability of Wikipedia."
~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, It is much easier to have sound files that have you listen to it. I had added soundfiles to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer among others on the English WP.. I had an Italian friend do Silvio Berluscone
For whatever reason they were removed.. Dutch can be hard language to pronounce .. and as has been said, IPA is not universally understood. Thanks. GerardM
On 22 April 2010 09:11, J Alexandr Ledbury-Romanov < alexandrdmitriromanov@gmail.com> wrote:
Enabling a pop-up (for example) for the IPA prononciation would be a big plus as far as I am concerned. I've never quite got my head around it, but can see its usefulness. This is particularly useful when the word is of non-English extraction: I find it an added benefit to see the word in its original form (spelling and script), notably when there is a local version of the word which has completely transformed the native version (e.g. Londres from London, Maroc / Morocco from المغرب).
Alexandr Dmitri
2010/4/22 Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.comwrote:
Hoi, A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans
and
expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of
IPA
hard to use.
Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all
we
HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed. Thanks, GerardM
I disagree to an extent of the first part of you post, and agree with the second part. I actually answered an email about this situation, the
ticket
can be found here if you have access <
https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&Ticket...
The correspondent wasn't very, how shall I say, nice in the initial email or the reply to my response, but here's what I wrote:
"The Wikimedia Foundation projects, which include the English Wikipedia, are aimed at and have a broad global appeal. In fact, many of our contributors are not native speakers of English but use the project as a way to enhance their knowledge of English and providing translations. We actively encourage that.
The "gobbledygook" is the International Phonetic Alphabet, contrived and maintained by an international collection of linguists over a hundred
years
ago as a method, based on Latin characters, to phonetically pronounce even unfamiliar languages. This method of adoption across our projects allow people from around the globe to understand a pronunciation no matter their language.
We are sorry that this is inconvenient for you and diminishes your
interest
in Wikipedia. We do hope that you can learn the IPA from our language
guides
available- it's actually pretty quick to catch on to and is a common
sense
approach to phonetics.
You can find more information about the IPA here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International Phonetic Alphabet> which includes external links to educational tools in learning the system!
Again, we do appreciate your concerns about the usability of Wikipedia."
~Keegan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
What's the point of using a phonetic alphabet that 95% of our readership can't interpret? If the idea is to help readers understand how a word is pronounced in English, it should actually be useful to the majority of readers and not largely useless but academically perfect.
On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Emily Monroe bluecaliocean@me.com wrote:
I'd have to agree with you, Nathan. I can't read IPA to save my life!
The idea behind IPA is, that there be a single standard alphabet that everyone can use which can help us all communicate a bit better when speaking a new language or just using a term from another language. It's basic and encyclopedic information and should be included. Consider a word we've all seen recently: Eyjafjallajökull, which apparently just means "island-mountain glacier" (I suggest that "Eyja-fjalla glacier" is the sensible English translation). It's not necessary that anyone pronounce it exactly as [ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl̥], still its basic information about the name itself. A name is a key into a concept, and a foreign name is a key into a foreign concept. We don't omit basic information just because it gives us too much of a window into strange and foreign ways of conceptualization that we just don't understand.
The issue of accessibility is valid, but I can answer that by understating IPA's usability as flexible, ranging from the basic to the expert. Most people I imagine start with learning few of the IPA vowels, and the consonants are mostly intuitive. Being flexible means that its also quite forgiving, and that anyone who makes an honest attempt at writing in IPA is making a contribution, even if they are politely corrected here and there by someone a bit more.. 1337.
I agree that IPA can seem a bit cumbersome and even ambiguous when used at extreme detail (ie. it gets into reproducing whole foreign-language phonologies at a single-word level, which isn't always useful nor necessary). At least I can understand why it's not universally accepted and used on our foreign encyclopedias, namely that its still a bit esoteric enough for us on en. Nevertheless its, again, encyclopedic and necessary.
-Stevertigo
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