Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) for the style guide on the English Wikipedia regarding the use of IPA symbols.

What is the source of the egressive consonant table and its POA categories

What, exactly, is the source of the IPA egressive consonant chart used in this article? It differs from the official IPA chart in several ways, notably in the place of articulation categories (labial, coronoal, dorsal, radical), which are *not* in the official IPA chart. Where did these come from? Are they reliable? Why are they here at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.20.201.145 (talk) 07:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a bit more user friendly, that's all. Both this and the chart found in the IPA Handbook are summaries, not the complete IPA. As for coronal, etc., those higher-level categories can be found (among other sources) in SOWL, co-authored by a former president of the IPA. kwami (talk) 12:48, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Help on IPA way of denoting a consonant

Hi, I would like to know the correct IPA symbol to denote a sub-apical retroflex nasal that is pronounced at the palate. That is, it's a retroflex nasal pronounced with the underside of the tongue (sub-apical) pressed against the palate, as opposed to the postalveolar region. I don't know if that would be considered 'palatization', and if so, would ɳ^j be the correct symbol? Thanks. — Jclu (talk) 15:06, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think it would be considered palatalization. I've heard it claimed (no refs off the top of my head but I may be able to find some if you need them) that retroflex sounds cannot be palatalized, or at least are never attested as palatalized. I'd probably use the retraction sign (a small minus sign underneath the symbol) to indicate that the place of articulation is further back than customary. However, even that I'd only do if the distinction between a palatoalveolar and a palatal place of art. is the topic under discussion. If you're just transcribing a language whose retroflex n happens to have a palatal place of art. and there's no discussion of the distinction between that and a palatoalveolar place of art., I'd just use ɳ and explain in prose where the place of art. is. —Angr 15:28, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Angr here; I don't think it's articulatorily possible to palatalize a retroflex (except maybe a retroflex dental or something), since that would involve raising both the underside of the tongue and the front of the tongue towards the roof of the mouth...for me, at least, my tongue simply isn't that long or flexible. Politizer ^talk/_contribs 15:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Then is there any way to denote a sub-apical pronounciation? Perhaps I could transcribe the consonant better as a palatal nasal pronounced sub-apically? That should satisfactorily denote the palatal place of art., and include the retroflex component since one would have to curl the tongue back to pronounce with the sub-apical part of the tongue. — Jclu (talk) 16:03, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Hm...as far as I know, there is no "official" diacritic for sub-apical pronunciation (whereas there are diacritics for apical, laminal, yada yada)...I don't know if there is one that's accepted but just not on the chart, or whatever. May I ask what language this is and what you're transcribing it for? Depending on the project, it might be ok just to make up some convenient notation and include it in your legend/key... Politizer ^talk/_contribs 16:11, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

If the subapicality of this retroflex consonant is not directly relevant to the discussion at hand (i.e. unless you're comparing a subapical allophone with some other allophone, or unless you're comparing a subapical retroflex in this language with some other kind of retroflex in another language), there's no reason to transcribe it as anything other than [ɳ]. IPA symbols are flexible; if only one kind of retroflex is under discussion, you can use the unadorned retroflex symbol for it. —Angr 16:30, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I'll just use the retroflex nasal symbol. As to the project, it's actually a personal project. Every so often I like to create a conlang; even if nothing comes of it, it gives me a practical opportunity to apply various linguistic theory. — Jclu (talk) 19:22, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

By the way, in The Sounds of the World's Languages, Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson do use separate symbols for apical/postalveolar retroflexes and subapical/palatal retroflexes: for the subapical/palatal ones they use the IPA symbols [ʈ ɖ ɳ] etc., while for the apical/postalveolar ones they use the non-IPA symbols [ṭ ḍ ṇ]. —Angr 11:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

"Explicitly recognized?"

Both the page on voiced retroflex implosive and this page state that the Unicode symbol for voiced retroflex implosive is "not explicitly recognized" by the IPA, but is supported in the Unicode Phonetics Extension Supplement. Should the phrasing be "not officially recognized"? Explicit recognition doesn't make sense in this context. If the phrasing should be changed, let me know and I can change it on both pages. Thanks. — Jclu (talk) 20:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Why shouldn't explicit recognition make sense? It means the symbol doesn't actually appear on the chart, but it's fully consistent with IPA principles, so in that sense it's implicitly accepted. —Angr 11:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, we've just demonstrated by the event that the phrase "not explicitly recognized" sometimes needs to be explained, and you explained it as not appearing on the IPA chart, so why don't we say "not appearing on the IPA chart"?

• Although not confirmed from any language, and therefore not appearing on the IPA chart, a retroflex implosive, [ᶑ], is supported in the Unicode Phonetic Extensions Supplement, added in version 4.1 of the Unicode Standard, or can be created as a composite [ɗ̡].

Pi zero (talk) 12:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, [ɗ̡] is [ɗ] with an old-style palatalization mark (U+0321). The retroflex hook (U+0322) points to right: [ɗ̢]. — Emil J. 12:15, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Good catch. Some fonts get them mixed up. kwami (talk) 12:54, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

cover symbols

These aren't part of the IPA, but should be covered somewhere.

C for "any consonant", V for "any vowel", G for "glide", N for "any nasal", F for frics, S for sibs, K for velars, T for alveolars, A for low vowels, R for rhotics, L for laterals, etc. Used for archiphonemes, phonological rules, and reconstructions.

Any ideas where to put them? kwami (talk) 23:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Surely not in the IPA article, as they don't belong here. But I can't think of an article to put them to, either... maybe something general about phonetic transcription? — N-true (talk) 14:20, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Would it be better to cover them in the articles on what they're used for, such as phonological rule (which does not currently exist, but I might make a stub out of sometime soon)? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Phonetic transcription covers all sorts of scripts, and I couldn't think of an on-topic way of working them in. A phon. rule article might be best. Or maybe a "phon. cover symbol" stub to merge into a phon. rule article later on? kwami (talk) 19:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

A phon. cover symbol article would probably be nice, if you have enough to write about it. By the way, I created User:Rjanag/Phonological rule to start the phon. rule article; I probably won't have time to expand it until tonight or next week, but my plan is to at least include some examples of rules and have a little diagram or whatnot pointing to what each part of the rule means ("this is what changes...this is what it changes to....this / means 'in the environment where'... this part is the environment..." etc.). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

Since the cover symbols would be just a list, how about we agree on them here, and you can incorporate them into your article when you're ready?

C: consonant

V: vowel

N: nasal

S: sibilant

K: velar/dorsal

A: low vowel

Etc. There's enough variation from text to text that I don't know how much we want to set in stone. How far should we expand this for maximal utility? kwami (talk) 02:07, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

A few more:

R: sonorant/resonant

X: non-sibilant (maybe not as common)

T: stop

σしぐま: syllable

I would add to either phonetic transcription (although it's not phonetic) or natural class (although not all classes have nice abbreviatory symbols). This is really about phonological representation not phono rules (you can use the same symbols in constraints). – ishwar  (speak) 02:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

If we're listing things that aren't purely featural, like σしぐま, then we could also list # , for word boundaries. Who knows what else is out there, I'm not actually a phonologist, I just lurk around here :) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:25, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction?

"Among the symbols of the IPA, 107 represent consonants and vowels, 31 are diacritics that are used to further specify these sounds, and 19 are used to indicate such qualities as length, tone, stress, and intonation." (Section 2, "Description") "As of 2008, there are 107 distinct letters, 52 diacritics, and 4 prosody marks in the IPA proper." (Introduction) Is this a contradiction? —Jchthys 16:00, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we seem to be off by 6. kwami (talk) 19:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

THE BIGGEST CONTRADICTION is the international alphabet is recognized as: ALPHA, BRAVO, CHARLIE, etc. all this bs is NOT the recognized "international alphabet" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.101.235.167 (talk) 14:31, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

The "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie" system is neither international, nor phonetic, nor an alphabet, so it can hardly be called an international phonetic alphabet (let alone the International Phonetic Alphabet). +Angr 14:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

There's already a hatnote on this article, {{distinguish|NATO phonetic alphabet}}. —Pi zero (talk) 16:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

transcribe this article using the IPA

Wouldn't it be more informative to transcribe parts of this article using IPA? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.186.142 (talk) 13:32, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Parts of the article, no. A single example sentence or two, maybe. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 13:40, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Link to ipatrainer.com

Hi! I'm just wondering why the link to ipatrainer.com was removed? I feel it is a very relevant page.

--129.242.182.27 (talk) 07:18, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:EL for Wikipedia practices on the inclusion of external links. —Angr 09:29, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review.

I passed it under some doubt; though it's generally speaking a very good article, it is somewhat low on references, and would probably not have passed if it was nominated today, without some work. The references need some cleaning up, e.g. the first one has no page number. The article also include some external links in the text, which should be avoided. Lampman (talk) 14:43, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Why doesn't somebody address the obvious???

There are not a great many Americans (percentage-wise) that have a better grasp of English than I do, and I am interested in other languages and cultures as well. But the fact is that to interpret what these IPA hieroglyphics are meant to aurally represent is utterly impossible for anyone who hasn't read a 200-page book on the subject. For the love of God, people giving pronunciations in articles in Wikipedia should ALWAYS include, in addition to the IPA gibberish which is intended for those with a Ph.D. in linguistics, a simple thing like, e.g., "ennui" is pronounced: än wee', or in French: äN nwee' (or whatever -- you know ... we all know that the capital "N" represents the nasal sound). Even us dummies can understand what that means. I think Wikipedia should require that all articles include the same pronunciation representations that are used in almost all English dictionaries. Duh. Worldrimroamer (talk) 05:12, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where all this "omg IPA is so hard" comes from. Have you actually sat down and tried to learn it? I learned IPA in less than a week when I was an undergrad and not even trying very hard. It's one of (if not the) most widely-used phonetic notations in the world, partly because it's relatively easy to learn (especially for people who grew up using the Latin alphabet, as you probably did); it's not perfect, but it pretty easy. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 05:51, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

He's American. As am I. Americans aren't supposed to learn how the rest of the world does things, the rest of the world needs to learn how Americans do things. While we're at it, we should get rid of this Frenchy metric crap and restore intuitive Imperial units (US version, of course). And abolish those funky Arabic "ciphers" with their "zeros" for good ol' Roman numerals. kwami (talk) 06:31, 31 August 2009 (UTC)