Help talk:Pronunciation respelling key

Foreign sounds

The article for John Boehner includes a note that reads, in part, "The German pronunciation of the name Boehner/Böhner is [ˈbøːnɐ] BURH-na". This uses the respelling key here to respell a sound that is not actually in the key, presumably by analogy with a similar sound (in non-rhotic dialects). The key should probably make a note of what to do in cases of foreign sounds such as this one. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 06:55, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

The respelling key is intended only for English words. Foreign words should use IPA only. Angr (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I've seen it used for non English names, e.g. Lady Gaga. Guess this confirms what many have feared: Some people try to establish this idiocy as a "standard". --Fenris.kcf (talk) 11:19, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Use respelling examples in key

The key lists the respelling symbols and example words that have the sound in question, but it does not demonstrate how to respell those example words in full. This can sometimes lead to confusion about how the symbols are properly used. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 07:01, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Discourage

On the whole, I think pronunciation respellings (PR) should be discouraged; I strongly favor IPA instead. There are many reasons. One is that it hinders communication between speakers of different languages, if they don't even use the same system for representing the sounds of language. It's a bit like us Americans using feet and pounds when the rest of the world uses metric. Esperantists claim that tyranny thrives on a lack of communication and understanding, and I agree, even though I despise Esperanto for a variety of reasons and do not believe it should be adopted as the “universal language”.

Another reason is that it reduces people's awareness of other languages. This is particularly important because so many English speakers can only speak English, which I find shameful. Also, PR makes people seem uneducated, like they don't know or can't learn IPA.

Perhaps my biggest objection to PR is that alot of the PRs are blatantly illogical, even ugly. Some of this is inevitable, because English has more vowels and consonants than there are letters, so odd digraphs are needed. However, I agree that, in particular, the respellings <ay> for /ei/ (face), and <y> or <eye> for /ai/ (time), are illogical; in a logical respelling system the former would be written <ei> or <ey> and the latter, <ai> or <ay>, almost a complete reversal of symbols. What in particular bothers me is that /stein/ is spelled <stain> and /stain/ is spelled <stein> when it should be vice versa. Another thing that bothers me is having /au/ (house) be spelled <ou> or <ow> instead of <au> or <aw>, encouraged in turn by another illogical symbol, <aw> or <au> for /ɔ/ (lawn). This is a major motive for me being a strong supporter of phoneticizing English (fonetisaizing Inglish).

I admit, however, that sometimes PR's can be desirable. However, would it be realistic to change Wikipedia's PR symbol for /ei/ (face) from <ay> to <ey>? In any "phoneticized" form of English, I would hate (heyt) to see the spelling of /ei/ normalized to <ai> or <ay> rather than <ei> or <ey>, so my aforementioned suggested change (cheynje) in Wikipedia's PR for English may (mey) be in the public interest.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 09:20, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

You seemed to be bothered by a lot of things, which I might suggest (based on personal experience) speaks to issues broader than just the use of a respelling system on Wikipedia. Part of maintaining a neutral point-of-view involves operating in reality rather than in the ideal; thus, one's opinions on the shame or logicality of the reality of many Americans don't have much sway in what we do on Wikipedia. One of the benefits, in my opinion, of using a respelling system on Wikipedia is that it has the potential to collapse insignificant pronunciation distinctions across dialects, particularly with regard to the realization of vowels. (For example, I pronounce "cab" as with æ-tensing, while you might not; however, this insignificant distinction would be hidden if the word were respelled as kab.) The respelling system is not meant to be logical from an absolute perspective; rather, it is meant to be as intuitive as possible to people who already know how to read English (no matter what dialect they speak). In that vein, I would imagine that the choice to use 'ay' over 'ey' for /ei/ and 'y' or 'eye' over 'ay' was made to avoid ambiguity in instances like 'key' and 'hey' and 'bay', where a respelling might represent a pronunciation that does not coincide with the homographic English word. I agree, however, that such a choice might cause ambiguity in a different context, so it might be a decision worth re-evaluating. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 16:57, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

I understand your point. Using <ey> as PR for /ei/ could be confusing if it results in <key> representing /kei/ when the ordinary word key is pronounced /ki:/. As a better alternative to reforming PR, I recommend using PR less and IPA more, and phoneticizing English; that is, changing the way English is spelled so that it is more phonetic, more logical. On the latter you can help by phoneticizing your name, if it is unphonetic: Stephen → Steven, Phillip → Filip, Sylvia → Silvia, etc. Also, regardless what part of the English-speaking world you are from, you can choose American spelling over British if the former makes more sense, and British if the latter makes more sense.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

If you want to advocate for phoneticizing English spelling, Wikipedia is not the venue for that. —Gordon P. Hemsley→✉ 16:04, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay. I'll advocate for spelling reform somewhere else. I was mainly explaining my views on PR.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 10:26, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Btw, some articles for which I've deleted PRs: Archaea, Eukaryote, Fuchsia, Heuristic.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 15:11, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Stop that. You're not adding value to Wikipedia, you're reducing its value. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

Why is this here?

I previously raised (almost three years ago) the basis for including this separate respelling system alongside IPA. It was not apparent to me then, and nor is it now, that there was ever a proper discussion prior to setting this up. As it is redundant to the international standard system, and is solely based on the original research of Wikipedia editors, I am suggesting that we get rid of it, unless there is a demonstrable project-wide consensus to include it. I realise a lot of well-intentioned and hard work has been done by editors to produce it, but I really think it merely adds noise and clutter and dumbs down our articles. Articles that have both IPA and this made-up system in the lead sentence look terrible to me. Would I be better off going to MfD, an RfC or what? I thought I would raise it here in the first instance. --John (talk) 17:18, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia never requires "proper discussion" prior to setting anything up. If we did, nothing would ever get done around here. The point of this respelling system is to placate those who can't read IPA and can't be bothered to spend 45 minutes learning it. I don't quite understand the charge of "original research", though; it's no more or less based on original research than the IPA system is, and since it's losslessly convertible to and from IPA, it requires no original synthesis or unverifiable personal knowledge to implement if the IPA is given. Angr (talk) 18:10, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Does this respelling system exist in the real world outside Wikipedia then? Generally, I'd say that introducing an entirely redundant and synthetic system to placate a minority of lazy and/or uneducated users definitely would need a consensus to do here. Nothing in your answer convinces me that we need this. --John (talk) 18:36, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

This specific one perhaps not but it's very similar, for example, to the one used in the World Book Encyclopedia. And to judge from the amount of whining about the IPA we have to put up with, I'm not convinced it's a minority of users who prefer this system. If you really think Wikipedia is better off without it, you're free to nominate it for deletion, but it survived a deletion attempt before, and that was when it was in article space and subject to stricter requirements than it has in the Wikipedia namespace. Angr (talk) 10:27, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

IPA suffers from one primary logic failing. When looking to see how an English word is pronounced (by definition, language specific), no one, not even a foreigner benefits from an international (by definition, language non-specific) formalism. IPA was a formalism for formalism sake and does not solve a problem and creates confusion in its wake. I want English specific representations of phonemes for English pages, Spanish specific representations of phonemes for Spanish pages, and Chinese specific representations of phonemes for Chinese pages. And outside of folks attempting cerebral arguments for what they perceive to be somehow the fairest and most accessible greater good, all this has done is aggravate people. A pronunciation formalism that doesn't resemble the language that people have to *learn* BEFORE they can learn about the word itself???? It'll never be universally accepted by the general population of any country.Tgm1024 (talk) 23:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Yep. Just like the metric system. No one benefits from an international system of units of measurement. The metric system is formalism for formalism's sake and does not solve a problem and creates confusion in its wake. I want America-specific units for weights and measurements in the U.S., and Mexico-specific units for weights and measurements in Mexico, and China-specific units for weights and measurements in China. A system of weights and measures that doesn't resemble the things people actually weigh and measure in their everyday life? It'll never be universally accepted by the general population of any country. Angr (talk) 12:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Broken analogy. Sorry, try again.Tgm1024 (talk) 20:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a very good analogy. Opposition to both the metric system and the IPA boils down to nothing more than "I'm not familiar with this system, and change frightens me." Angr (talk) 21:05, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Kh

What is the point of describing "kh->loch->/x/ but then adding "Pronounced like k by many speakers"? We may as well say that "s" is pronounced "th" by many speakers, which is equally true. It's all very well saying this is descriptive and not prescriptive, but having a "guide" or a "key" implies some sort of prescriptivism! "Ch" is a Scottish sound and it is properly pronounced as /x/. --John (talk) 18:44, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Replacing /x/ with /k/ isn't a speech impediment like a lisp, though. Many English speakers outside of Scotland really can't make a /x/ and replace it with /k/. Probably 90% or more of Americans when singing "Loch Lomond" or speaking of the Loch Ness Monster will pronounce loch with a /k/. Even I probably would in most circumstances, and I have no difficulty saying /x/. (I use it all the time when I'm speaking German.) But if I said something about the Loch Ness Monster to another American and pronounced it with /x/ it would sound affected and pedantic. For someone from Scotland it's different. (It's only replaced with /k/ at the end of a syllable though; at the beginning of a syllable in words like Hanukkah and chutzpah it's replaced with /h/.) Angr (talk) 10:22, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

How do you pronounce Bahrain or Dhahran, when talking to another American? --John (talk) 10:58, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Bahrain is /bɑˈreɪn/. I don't suppose I've ever uttered Dhahran in my life, but if I did, my first attempt would be /dɑˈrɑn/. In both cases probably influenced more by the spelling than by the Arabic pronunciation. Angr (talk) 13:36, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

The BBC always pronounces them with the /x/ sound. I am very sceptical indeed of the claim that anyone cannot pronounce it. I think people sometimes do not like to pronounce it, but it is that which is an affectation. I am deeply uncomfortable having a page which states this in the WP namespace, without either a reference or a consensus to include it. --John (talk) 14:34, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I meant "cannot pronounce" in the sense of "haven't learned to pronounce", not the sense of "are physically incapable of pronouncing". Angr (talk) 15:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

How about chutzpah? How do you pronounce that in your ideolect? I lived in the States for five years and I heard "hoots-pa" a few times but most Americans seem to be able to pronounce it correctly, with the /x/ in the start of the word. As you say, when Americans speak German they seem to say "ich" and "nicht" without any problems. I am getting more uncomfortable as this conversation goes on; we should always defer to reliable sources for encyclopedic content, and to as wide a consensus as possible for guidelines and policies. This seems to have neither. --John (talk) 18:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I saw you had mentioned that above. This directly contradicts the guide, you know. How about Spanish words like jamón? Many Americans can speak Spanish successfully in spite of this supposed inability. --John (talk) 18:26, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, the variety of Spanish most familiar to Americans has already turned /x/ to /h/ itself, so /haˈmon/ is what we hear Spanish speakers say, not just our faulty rendering of /xaˈmon/. (Americans who simplify /hw/ to /w/ also do so in Spanish words, so Joaquín is rendered /wɑˈkin/.}} Chutzpah I do pronounce with /x/, since its /x/ is part of the charm of the word, but Hanukkah I pronounce with /h/. And as I mentioned above, some people (including myself) avoid /x/ not because they can't articulate it but rather because it isn't part of our phonemic inventory. I have no difficulty pronouncing loch and Hanukkah with /x/, but I don't, because those words are stored in my head as having /k/ and /h/ respectively; I'd only use /x/ in them if I'm intentionally "putting on" a Scottish or Yiddish accent as a joke, as when I wish my Jewish friends a "/x/appy /x/anukkah!" As for sources, consider this quote from John C. Wells's Accents of English (p. 190): "A more English, less Celtic pronunciation commonly involves the replacement of this /x/ by /k/: English people call Buchan /ˈbʌkən/. In Ireland /h/ is common corresponding to putative earlier /x/, as in Donaghadee, Haughey, though some speakers do have a /x/." Or in the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary by the same author, loch is given as "lɒx lɒk" for RP and "lɑːk lɑːx" for GenAm (in both cases the bold face indicates the pronunciation to be preferred by learners of English as a second language); chutzpah is given as "ˈhʊts pə ˈxʊts-, -pɑː"; Hanukkah is given only with /h/, San Joaquin only with /w/, San Jose only with /h/. Are there any other Scots words with /x/ besides loch that are likely to be familiar to Americans? Angr (talk) 20:18, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Broch I suppose. Is this respelling guide explicitly aimed at Americans who are unable to pronounce certain sounds or use the IPA system? Because I think that's a little insulting to Americans (when it's obvious that they can pronounce the sounds when they want to) and a little annoying to our other readers who have to put up with two mutually redundant spelling guides on many articles, just to cater for Randy from Boise. --John (talk) 07:20, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, I didn't know the word broch before now. I don't know whether it's really only Americans who say, "The IPA is gibberish and I can't read it. Why doesn't Wikipedia use a normal pronunciation key?" (see the top box at Help talk:IPA), but there are plenty of people who do feel that way and are just as opposed to using IPA as you are to using respelling. So we use both. After all, a good compromise leaves everyone equally unhappy. Angr (talk) 11:51, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Just having the IPA by itself leaves no one happy but academics.Tgm1024 (talk) 20:20, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. You merely have to be literate to learn the IPA. Learning to read IPA transcriptions of one's own native language takes no more than an hour. Learning to produce IPA transcriptions takes somewhat longer, and learning the symbols for phonemes one doesn't have in one's own language takes longer still, but it takes very little time for a literate speaker of English to learn to read IPA transcriptions of English. Virtually all English dictionaries published outside the U.S. use the IPA, and their _target audience is definitely not only academics. Angr (talk) 21:04, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

ɹ

The "/r/" in the consonants table should be "/ɹ/". Valkura (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Definitely not. See English phonology#Sonorants. There are far more variants of Standard English than only RP and General American (compare List of dialects of the English language). It is well-known that many speakers of Scottish English employ a tapped (or sometimes even trilled) /r/. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:34, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Text to speech?

Is there a text to speech program that can handle this PR key? Illegitimate Barrister 11:59, 19 July 2014 (UTC)

Error in the title?

The title uses the 'schwa' in the title key, for pronunciation. Is this incorrect? The sound is 'ɵ,' as in the 'u' in nun, isn't it?

86.154.34.159 (talk) 18:09, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

What's your native language or accent of English? I don't know any variety of English (excluding foreign accents of English such as Dutch-coloured English) where u in nun is pronounced as [ɵ], the close-mid central rounded vowel. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:57, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 September 2014

In "It does not use special symbols or diacritics apart from the schwa, "ə", which is used (for example) for the a in about.", "or" should be "nor", and "a" and "about" should be in quotations. 2601:E:100:BD7:C949:A686:7408:FBC9 (talk) 21:54, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Not done: "or" is acceptable, and a and about are already italicized, which is appropriate. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

"Or" is not only acceptable, it's preferable to "nor" after "not". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Automated stress?

How do I prevent automatic stress formatting? I'm trying to get awkh|ən|TAW|shən but it forces this to AWKH|ən|TAW|shən which is wrong. Akerbeltz (talk) 12:51, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

The documentation says: When unstressed syllables follow one another (– . . .), they need to be hyphenated together in a single parameter". −Woodstone (talk) 17:20, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

>.< I did look at that but must have missed it. Many thanks. Akerbeltz (talk) 19:17, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Free lax vowels

The way this key writes lax vowels, as simple a e i o u, seems liable to cause confusion when they fall in open syllables, since many of them have naive readings in this position which are tense. For instance, Up Helly Aa indicates /ˈʌphɛliə/ UP-he-lee-ə, where he suggests rather /hiː/. Even if you think this is accidental (the problem being that he collided with a word), there are several such landmines around.

Should we do anything about this? The sort of thing I'd think of as a good fix would be to double the following onset C to close the syllable (UP-hel-lee-ə); but that doesn't play so nicely with the marked syllable divisions, and it's less uniform, which some might dislike. 4pq1injbok (talk) 12:58, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

While it's tempting to want to maximize the syllable onset whenever possible, English doesn't really work that way. The lax vowels are checked, so the syllable divisions would necessitate that they are followed by consonant. I would say UP-he-lee-ə is incorrect in that regard and UP-hel-ee-ə would be the way to go. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:15, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Eh, that works for me too. (I learned a theory of English phonology with ambisyllabicity for such consonants way back when. But perhaps there's no need for it; I haven't thought so much about the problem since.) 4pq1injbok (talk) 22:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Seriously?

What is this really good for? In the articles it is used in, it only seems to provide respelling for what would sound like chewing-gum English of Americans with little education and no linguistic skills. There is no explanatory or educational value gained, whatsoever. Is there any comprehensive justification for using this extreme attempt to dumb down articles? It seems utterly non-encyclopedic. ♆ CUSH ♆ 19:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

It's to help indicate pronunciations. It is designed in particular for people who find IPA less intuitive than the respelling systems found in American dictionaries. I don't care for it personally, but I'm very familiar with the IPA so this isn't really for people like me. For people different from myself who struggle with IPA, I don't doubt the value of having an alternative to the IPA. Do you think there's a better way to accomplish this goal? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

IPA notation plus audio recordings would be better than this, but they're time-consuming to create and awkward to patrol. Even Wiktionary has very limited audio coverage thus far. Equinox (talk) 09:59, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

The Pronunciation respelling key follows no discernible rules of pronunciation. One would need IPA to understand what the PRK is supposed to sound. And truly, those people the PRK is intended for (white trash and ghetto kid?) should rather be redirected to some simple English version of WP. ♆ CUSH ♆ 10:04, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what makes you think what you've just said is appropriate, but you would do well to revise your statement. Not only is it racially insensitive, but it's totally inaccurate. There are many informed, educated, and intellectually curious people who happen to be unfamiliar with IPA. As an educational tool, we should be flexible enough to cater to them. If you can't understand that, it may instead be you who this project is not for. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Believe me, the words for which I would need to look up the pronunciation have no respelling on this Wikipedia. Although I only speak English, German, and some French, I can grasp the pronunciation of most European languages, including those with Latin, Greek, Cyrillic alphabets. I can even puzzle together the letters of Phoenician and (Paleo-)Hebrew.

The Pronunciation respelling key is based on the weirdness of (mostly American) English pronunciation vs its spelling. Unlike other languages, spoken English usually does not represent the individual sounds of the letters in its words. The effort of WP to create its own quasi-standard despite existing international century-old standards is ridiculous. This is the international version of WP and editors should be aware of a global readership, not just Americans with their linguistic peculiarities. For readers whose first language is not English, PRK is of no value whatsoever. E.g. uː rendered as "oo" or iː rendered as "ee". And for those who are familiar with English, it just means a dumbing-down to annoyance level. Who is the _target readership of this PRK supposed to be?? According to the other comments on this talk page, PRK is intended for English speakers who do not know how to speak English. How is this encyclopedic in any aspect???? ♆ CUSH ♆ 20:30, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

That's not quite an accurate characterization of the respelling key. The American nature of pronunciation respelling comes mostly through a comparison of the pronunciation keys found in American dictionaries, which generally avoid IPA for their own in-house conventions that incorporate some manner of respelling.

Remember, too, that IPA is given priority over respelling at Wikipedia; Per WP:PRON, respelling should not replace IPA or be used without it. This is in line with the international nature of the project. There is an important thing you seem to be missing with your appeal to this international nature: it goes both ways. With a primary readership that potentially includes hundreds of millions of Americans, disregarding the interests, preferences, viewpoints, or needs of American readers does not make something "international" as much as it makes it anti-American.

You are right that pronunciation respelling has much less value to ESL readers; I have not seen the other comments that you refer to, but the description on this key is quite explicit in agreeing with you on this point:

The IPA has significant advantages over the respelling system described here, as it can be used to accurately represent pronunciations from any language in the world, and (being an international standard) is often more familiar to non-native speakers of English. On the other hand, the IPA (being designed to represent sounds from any language in the world) is not as intuitive for those chiefly familiar with English orthography, for whom this respelling system is likely to be easier for English words and names.

Seems pretty clear to me, anyway. Respelling utilizes the orthographic rules that native English readers are familiar with. So long as no information is lost, this is not a "dumbing down" of pronunciation information. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:41, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

For an example where respelling is both necessary (in the sense that the correct pronunciation is not even obvious to a native speaker) and used on Wikipedia, I can name William Stokoe – like many other personal and place-names with unpredictable pronunciations, even when they are of English origin. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:29, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Help talk:IPA for English which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:59, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

That discussion is closed as of 13:16, 15 December 2015 (UTC). --Thnidu (talk) 21:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

OK to represent "long" vowels using ordinary English spelling conventions?

I wanted to add a respelling pronunciation to Lompoc, California, which has an unusual pronunciation that may not be clear to non-IPA-readers. So I put LAHM-poke. According to the key, the systematic version would actually be LAHM-pohk, but I think that's less intuitive; it could easily be read as a "short o" (IPA /ɒ/), especially by users who are inclined that way anyway because of the spelling.

Maybe it would be a good idea to accommodate this technique explicitly in the key? --Trovatore (talk) 07:43, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

I would consider the use of orthographic devices as silent e in a phonological representation not a "technique", but a muddle. The least one can require is that all sounds are represented by one (compound) symbol and occur in the right sequence. −Woodstone (talk) 12:40, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

The whole idea of respelling, as I understand it, is to provide a guide that can be understood in most cases by most English speakers without looking up the key. In my judgment, pohk for /poʊk/ does not accomplish that, but poke does. --Trovatore (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

In order to work it should form a well defined system, and not be loosely based on guessing. Each sound should be written according to a fixed list of representations. −Woodstone (talk) 15:09, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

But the user should not have to look anything up, can we agree on that? If the user has to look something up, no matter how related to English orthography it might be, it defeats the purpose. --Trovatore (talk) 17:58, 29 June 2016 (UTC)

Can we allow both? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:59, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

If both are allowed, in each case it would have to made clear which one is used. That seems rather burdensome to me. A system that is self-evidently clear without looking up anything is illusionary. If it existed, the world's English dictionaries would have adopted it long ago. So let's stick to a well defined system, which might occasionally require some mental effort of the reader. −Woodstone (talk) 07:29, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

There is no need to make the system deterministic, in the sense that an editor has only one choice. It needs to be deterministic in the other direction; that is, for any respelling, it needs to be clear how it sounds. But I don't see any problem with allowing more than one possible representation, as long as their meanings are clear. --Trovatore (talk) 22:57, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

This page is both meant as information for an editor who wants to render the pronunciation as well as the reader to interpret it. The use of alternatives is not helpful for the editor. In the specific case of silent e, it would make for a very complex table using wild cards such as "o*e" is pronounced like "oa" in "goat" preceding the sound corresponding to the "*". It is simpler to have just mono-, bi- and trigraphs as symbols in the order as spoken, making a simple alphabetic lookup work. −Woodstone (talk) 13:51, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It is simpler for the editor, but not as useful for the reader. That's an easy choice. --Trovatore (talk) 17:10, 1 July 2016 (UTC)

It's more complicated for the reader, because it is bound to be ambiguous without a clear definition in a table.−Woodstone (talk) 15:20, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

In most cases it should be simpler for the reader, because it would allow representing most words (quite unambiguously) without the reader having to look anything up. There are admittedly some exceptions. The hardest case is words containing /ʊ/ or /u:/, because both are commonly spelled "oo" and there are no clear general alternatives.

But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The goal should be that you don't have to look anything up, at least in most cases. If we're going to make readers look up the key, we might as well use IPA. --Trovatore (talk) 05:05, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Most important requirement is that it is unambiguous. That means it must be well defined and described. The idea that a system can rely just on the reader's intuition without ever needing lookup is illusionary. −Woodstone (talk) 15:40, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Without "ever", yes, but I didn't say "ever". I said in "most cases". By the way, you missed a subjunctive — should be "... that it be unambiguous".

Grammar nit aside, I don't agree that that's the most important thing. We're not implementing an IPA-lite here; if we were, we should just use IPA. The most important thing is that the reader understand it just by reading it. We can't make that always happen, but we can make it happen a lot more often, just by using the patterns that competent readers of the language already know. --Trovatore (talk) 17:30, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

It seems to me that, if we have both ⟨oh⟩ and ⟨o*e⟩ to represent /oʊ/, then there isn't ambiguity for the reader. It's not like ⟨oh⟩+consonant is a natural feature of English orthography. The most common word that even has such a construction is John and that isn't pronounced with /oʊ/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:01, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 July 2016

The "Syllables and stress" section should indicate that consecutive unstressed syllables need to be separated in wikicode by hyphens, not by pipes. Currently it simply states that syllables are to be separated by pipes and the stressed syllable should be all-caps, but this is not entirely correct. The Template:Respell page details this, but since this Help page also describes the wikicode for syllables, then it should be corrected so other users are not misled like I was.

71.166.62.141 (talk) 02:34, 2 July 2016 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format.  ^B E _C K ^Y _S A ^{Y L} E _S  14:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

/ə:/-sound

How is the /ə:/ represented in this system? Like 'bird'. --Wester (talk) 17:26, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

That's a /ɜː/. Double sharp (talk) 06:20, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

As ur like in nurse. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Help for Harambe

In Killing of Harambe#Harambe the pronunciation is hə-RAM-bee. Here is the original video where his name was first annouced [1]. Sounds like "Huh ROM bay". Need help if we have it right. -- GreenC 20:39, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Original discussion: Talk:Killing_of_Harambe#Listed_pronunciation_of_Harambe_is_wrong. -- GreenC 17:41, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Open syllable

Making references to checked vowels in open syllables strikes me as not understanding what an open syllable is or the phonotactic restraints of English phonology. Outside of a few interjections, the vowels /ɛ æ ɒ ɪ ʊ ʌ/ do not appear without a following consonant. I had made this edit in the hopes that @Espoo: might consider a different term (as I imagine there must be a more accurate one). @Mr KEBAB: seems to think otherwise. His explanation that they may appear "immediately before a stressed syllable" sounds funny to me. I'm forced to wonder how exactly we are we using the postvocalic h here. Anyone care to explain? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:32, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists:

- 244 cases of /*ɛ.ˈ*/, for example Benin /bɛ.ˈniːn/ (RP and GA), which has alternative pronunciations with /bɪ.ˈ-/ (also an example of syllable-final /ɪ/), /bə.ˈ-/ and /-ˈnɪn/.

- 281 cases of /*æ.ˈ*/, for example tattoo /tæ.ˈtuː/ (RP and GA; probably because the second /t/ is aspirated). It has an alternative pronunciation with /tə.ˈ-/.

- 197 cases of /*ɒ.ˈ*/, for example Australia /ɒ.ˈstreɪl.i(.)ə/ (RP only), which has alternative pronunciations with /ɔː.ˈ-/ and /ə.ˈ-/.

- 3929 cases of /*ɪ.ˈ*/, for example eruption /ɪ.ˈrʌp.ʃ(ə)n/ (RP and GA), which has an alternative pronunciation with /ə.ˈ-/

- There's probably less than 3929 entries that have /*ɪ.ˈ*/, because LPD's imperfect search engine also includes the /eɪ, aɪ, ɔɪ/ diphthongs.

- 1552 cases of /*ʊ.ˈ*/, for example Burundi /bʊ.ˈrʊnd.i/ (RP and GA), which has an alternative pronunciation with /bə.ˈ-/.

- There's probably less than 1552 entries that have /*ʊ.ˈ*/, because LPD's imperfect search engine also includes the /əʊ, aʊ/ diphthongs.

- 34 cases of /*ʌ.ˈ*/, for example frustration /frʌ.ˈstreɪʃ.(ə)n/ (RP and GA; no alternative pronunciations). Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:36, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I see. So let's take tattoo as a good example. If we represented it as {{respell|tat|OO}}, that would be an inaccurate representation of its pronunciation, since both t's are aspirated. If we represented it as {{respell|ta|TOO}}, I'm guessing that people would be unlikely to read that first syllable as having /æ/ and an h would... lend itself to that pronunciation? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:08, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Sounds correct, though if someone objects to using <h>, we can always think of something else. Mr KEBAB (talk) 15:25, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I wonder why one could not write {{respell|tat|TOO}}? -Woodstone

Because it's not a geminate as in unnamed. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

What makes you think it's not? −Woodstone (talk) 17:50, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

...? Do you actually pronounce two /t/ there? I don't think so. Mr KEBAB (talk) 05:06, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

There is practically no danger of the respelling "a" being misunderstood as representing anything except /æ/. And it is not possible to add "h" to ensure it's understood as /æ/ because "ah" is this system's way of indicating /ɑː/.

We only need to add the alternative respellings with "h" with the letters "e", "i", and "u".

We don't need to decide what technical term instead of the apparently incorrect "open syllable" correctly describes the situations where use of these letters alone can be misunderstood as representing /i:/, /aɪ/, and /(j)u:/. What do you think of my newest editing attempt? --Espoo (talk) 21:05, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I like it. I don't think h does a good job of indicating /æ/. There's simply no good answer for that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:55, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

What to do for respelling an initial "y" sound? "EW"?

Am having a bit of a time deciding how best to handle the respelling of the Nintendo game system Wii U. The IPA is fine, and "Wii" gets respelled "WEE", which is fine too, but according to the respelling key "U", which sounds like the word "you", gets respelled "EW"... Intuitively I'd rather respell it "YOO" but of course the letter "y" has already been set aside for the diphthong "ai". On the the hand, "EW" by itself and without any preceding consonant could imply that this sound is like the interjection in "Ew! A worm!", corresponding to IPA /ʔɛuː/. The current respelling in the article matches up with what we have in our key here— but it doesn't match up (here) with the intuitive pronunciation that it is intended to evoke. Has this ever been discussed or dealt with before, does anyone know? Is "WEE EW" really how we have to respell "Wii U"? 'Cause it just don't look right. KDS4444 (talk) 02:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with "yoo." — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:25, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, use "YOO". You'll see that y appears in the consonant chart as well as the vowel chart. So "YOO" follows the Respell system just fine. I think that ew is intended only for where the pronunciation can be either /ju:/ or /u:/ depending on dialect, such as in tune or new.Indefatigable (talk) 17:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah ha, the tricksy letter y, both consonant and vowel! I will modify the article according to the above, with much thanks to you both. KDS4444 (talk) 23:36, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Orthographic variety in examples

@Woodstone: I believe illustrating orthographic variety in English words on this page is indeed important, because the fact some Wikipedians thought they needed this system is precisely because of the spelling inconsistencies in English (and people's lack of awareness about them), and those who need this page are exactly the kind of people who are unaware of how many phonemes they have, which spelling represents which sound, etc. This page isn't "just about pronunciation", but it is about both pronunciation and orthography and how they relate to each other, at least more so than Help:IPA for English is. I'm not suggesting to list all the possible variations, I just think it wouldn't hurt to have some, and it would be weird if Help:IPA for English had more examples (not all of which add phonetic diversity) than this one. I'd appreciate someone else chiming in on this, though. Nardog (talk) 17:48, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

This page is about pronunciation, as the title clearly indicates. Most of the sounds can be spelled in a myriad ways. See the huge table on page English orthography. The key needs to show the chosen "respelling" and examples for the most important phonetic variants. For consonants these are at most one example for initial, intervocal and final use, regardless of spelling. For vowels some more phonetic variation may exist, but never should examples be included purely because they are spelled differently. This page often attracts editors who start adding spelling variants here and there, thereby cluttering the page. This creep should be avoided, because there is almost no end to it. On page help:IPA, where the same creep is happening, I have occasionally cleaned up as well.−Woodstone (talk) 14:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I guess I agree with you in principle and disagree slightly in practice. I'm certainly not advocating for adding examples "purely because" they are spelled differently, and I agree the creep should be avoided. However, I just think having a few examples for each phoneme that illustrate archetypal orthographic variations, while you're at it, also wouldn't hurt (the huge table on English orthography is exactly why it wouldn't to have some). Were they deemed redundant, then I don't know if examples illustrating allophonic variations are also necessary because most speakers wouldn't have a clue how differently they pronounce p in pie, spy and tip. I guess the reason we need those examples, in theory, is that they can help those with linguistic expertise identify what sounds constitute a given phoneme, but then why can't we also include some examples illustrating orthographic variations that can help others identify what sound is in discussion, as some of the speakers also don't realize they pronounce nurse and girl or comma and focus with the same sound? But again, I feel we've both laid our points out, so I guess I'd go with whatever a third person goes with at this point. Nardog (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Stress difference is "automatic"?

I've never understood why both primary and secondary stress are emphasized the same way. Although there is a variety between dictionaries, a secondary stress could come either before or after a primary stress, and therefore prə-NUN-see-AY-shən could be read as either /prəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ or /prəˈnʌn.siˌeɪ.ʃən/. So one wouldn't be able to tell if HY-SKOOL is a secondary school or a school that's high up. It seems to me secondary stresses need not be emphasized at all. Nardog (talk) 19:18, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Syllabification

Re: these edits: The maximal onsets principle isn't the only way of syllabifying English words, much less the "correct" one. Attributing a sequence of a checked vowel and a consonant to the same syllable (as opposed to universally applying the maximal onsets principle except where the consonant cluster is impossible) does make sense in this respelling system because the checked vowels never occur in open syllables save for a very few exceptions, and transcribing /mɪˈtɒnɪmi/ as mi-TO-ni-mee increases the chances of it being interpreted as /mɪˈtoʊnɪmi/. Granted, mi-TON-i-mee is also susceptible to being interpreted as /mɪˈtʌnɪmi/, but that is comparatively a small problem because there just happens to be the word ton in this specific case and does not apply to all respellings of syllables with checked vowels. There are probably a myriad of monosyllabic words that contradict this respelling system, and there cannot possibly be a respelling system that doesn't involve such disagreements because English orthography is just too inconsistent.

The potential problem with attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final isn't words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently from the respelling (because this isn't limited to syllabification but concerns the respelling system as a whole); the problem is syllabification (theoretically) modifying the result of articulation. For instance, t in English is generally aspirated in syllable-initial positions except when it is preceded by s. So, if t in historic is not aspirated, then one has to transcribe it as /hɪˈstɒɹɪk/ and not /hɪsˈtɒɹɪk/. Similarly, if the second r in frustration is voiced, that means the syllabification should be /fɹʌ.stɹeɪ.ʃən/ rather than /fɹʌs.tɹeɪ.ʃən/, because the latter would indicate that the second r is voiceless. These are the only kinds of instances in which one needs to attribute the consonant after a checked vowel to the following syllable, i.e. hi(h)-STORR-ik  · fruh-STRAY-shən, not his-TORR-ik  · frus-TRAY-shən. This is why eh, ih, and uh were added as options for /ɛ, ɪ, ʌ/ to avoid confusion with free vowels (vowels that can occur in open syllables) such as /eɪ, iː, aɪ, uː/ (see #Open syllable above). But since ah and oh are already taken, no such solution is provided for /æ, ɒ/ (/æ/ isn't much of a problem but o at the end of a syllable is more likely to be misinterpreted as /oʊ/), which is all the more reason breaking the maximal onsets principle is encouraged wherever possible (that is, where it doesn't affect aspiration or devoicing).

Whatever the case, attributing consonants after checked vowels as syllable-final is already practiced in many articles, so please get a consensus before making a change if you wish to. Nardog (talk) 10:40, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

how about respell roof, root as ruoof, ruoot ?

Words like root and roof are pronounced with the respelling vowel oo as in goose by some English speakers and uu as in put by others.

Could we add a single respelled vowel sound to indicate this? Perhaps uoo?

uoo : roof, root

So for example roof would be respelled as ruoof which would be pronounced with an oo by some and uu by others.

DavRosen (talk) 17:22, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Any respelling has to correspond to the preceding IPA notation in accord with the Help:IPA/English key, so in order to add what you're proposing you have to first propose a similar thing in IPA and get approval. But as far as I know there is no IPA convention that stands for "either /uː/ or /ʊ/" and to concoct one on Wikipedia would be original research, so it is highly unlikely that you will. And how many other words are there that are pronounced /uː/ by some and /ʊ/ by others? You can always simply write /ruːt, rʊt/ root, ruut, /ruːf, rʊf/ roof, ruuf, and so on. Nardog (talk) 03:37, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

/oʊ/

Hello. A discussion recently arose among Wikipedians on how to represent pronunciation of a name of a chemical element. One thing that came as a complete surprise for me was that /oʊ/, which sounds like two separate vowel sounds, was represented with "oh." Because of that, I was not able to correctly read names of some elements at first, which quite defeats the whole point of the respell. I suggest we represent /oʊ/ with "ou"; that is not taken.--R8R (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

The problem with ⟨ou⟩ is that it is too ambiguous if we are to expect readers to use their understanding of English spelling rules as a guide. We have words like shout and thought, as well as through and southern, all with different pronunciations. ⟨oh⟩ has the advantage of not only being less ambiguous, but also the default pronunciation for /oʊ/. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is right; that has, however, only come up later. But what about "oa"? I wasn't able to think of an example where it would not have the /oʊ/ pronunciation.

Also, why is "oh" the standard? And who invented this measure of standard? /oʊ/ is usually not what I have on my mind when reading "oh."--R8R (talk) 16:59, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

@R8R: /oʊ/ is usually not what I have on my mind when reading "oh." That's because you're a non-native speaker. No offence, but that's the truth. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:43, 30 November 2017 (UTC)