[Wikipedia-l] policy suggestion: SAMPA

[rose.parks at att.net]

Hello members..

In regard to the suggestion below - that pronunciations 
be supplied in phonetics or pseudo-phonetics in SAMPA, I 
find a number of problems.

First, American English and British English do not have 
the same pronunciation for the same words, yet the two 
are intermixed in the English wikipedia.

Second, no dictionary or encyclopedia offers phonetic or 
pseudo-phonetic pronunciations. They offer some kind of 
_phonemic_ pronunciation.

The decision to use SAMPA is not an obvious one. Very 
few ordinary people are familiar with SAMPA symbols. 
Probably British English speakers are much more aware of 
the IPA, since it is used consistently in the Oxford 
Press publications. American English speakers use 
dictionaries that use a variety of pronunciation guides, 
but all based on the IPA.

     I think any decisions on supplying pronunciations 
require a great deal more consideration, before anything 
is implemented.

              As Ever,

                 Ruth Ifcher

--
			
> I suggest we formulate a policy on using SAMPA for pronunciation of words
> In the long run, IPA might be nicer, since paper dictionaries & 
> encyclopedias use it. However, until there's good support for Unicode, 
> sampa is readable on any browser. If at some point we can switch, the 
> two are in direct correspondance.
> 
> I've started looking for articles which use pseudo-phonetic 
> transcriptions, & putting a list on 
> http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/SAMPA/To_Do
> 
> We could make [[pronounced]] a redirect to SAMPA, or a simplified SAMPA 
> table page for ease of linking from articles which give pronunciation.
> 
> 
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