[WikiEN-l] IPA issues

[stevertigo]

Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:

>I'm seeing arguments like "too international" (not so handy for
> English readers) and "not  international enough" (too Anglo-centric).

Hm. People, myself included, don't understand it too well in a couple
of ways: "Too international" to me translates to IPA was meant to be a
tool for understanding foreign phonologies and not just word
pronunciations, so its usage in that area might be excessive. "Not
international enough" to me is an issue with IPA being largely
Roman-based with highly specialistic-looking glyphs that were
conceived of over a hundred years ago by mostly French and English
linguists. I agree with both criticisms.

> I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that there should be more IPA on
> the various Wikipedias and other projects. But I don't feel the
> foundations for that discussion have been laid. If for the
> example the WMF handed down some view on IPA, would it be >endorsing  a "standard international standard" like the SI
> system, or a "standard" such as some version of "imperial" > >units? All this affects
> attitudes, and the discussion on automation too.

We can consider IPA's usage on en.wiki as widespread enough to call a
"foundation," keeping in mind that its a linguistics tool that we
turned into something that many of us consider commonplace. I remember
when some first discussed using IPA back in 2003-2004. Linguists were
highly in support of it, and the word of linguists was enough for our
fearless leader and everyone else. Those are the foundations.

What caused me to write here about this was this alternate system
being promoted on en, which to me is disruptive to the professional
quality of our articles. IPA is specialized, true, but it should not
be abandoned as some appear to suggest. We would be better off looking
at ways to reform it in ways that make it more accessible. As I see
it, simply offering tips on the basics of learning IPA - like learning
the vowels first - sufficiently answers most critics.

-Steve