[WikiEN-l] Re: Pronunciations and IPA/SAMPA

[David Friedland]

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]