Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet for English

message: The "Wikipedia:Pronunciation" page should have entirely different material, touching on all efforts to render words correctly, whether they be textual, audible, tactile. etc.,. I came here hoping to see at least a paragraph on Wikipedia's use of digitally recorded speakers giving correct pronunciations, instead I get an entire involved page on IPA. I formally move that the redirect from "Wikipedia:Pronunciation" no longer point here, and that other general Pronunciation links which link here be changed to some other page that treats the topic in a practical way. If that page, or even the germ of it. currently exists, the move and link changes should be done immediately. If the article must be written from scatch, "Wikipedia:Pronunciation"  redirect to a dab page. JDG 04:19, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Pronunciation doesn't redirect here; it redirects to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) and always has. —Angr 08:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm, musta been half or even 3/4 asleep. Thx. JDG 12:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:Pronunciation 

message: I have proposed an IPA pronunciation guide for English and a hover mechanism that would display part of it at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28pronunciation%29. With it I attempt to find a more rational way to use the International Phonetic Alphabet for English.--Gheuf 20:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: IPA Pronunciation Guide and Hover

message: For the pronunciation of General American words like 'bird', the IPA symbol for the 'ir' is reversed open e with hook. It seems to me that it's closer to a syllabic turned r than a rhotic vowel, at least in my idiolect. Is there a reason it's considered a vowel instead of a syllabic consonant?
:I'm not sure that there is any good reason why the vowel is used. After all "i" is just a syllabic "j", too. Similarly with "u" and "w". I think the vowel sign is used in imitation of the RP notation, where the backwards epsilon is NOT equivalent to a syllabic "r". If there is any real phonetic or theoretical distinction, I don't know it.--Gheuf 03:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a phonetic difference between American English "r" in onset position in words like red and "r" in rhyme position in words like "bird" and "car"; and some people use  for the former and non-syllabic  for the latter. However, the difference is clearly subphonemic, so there would be no harm in using  in broad transcriptions for both. And in fact, many people do transcribe  as a syllabic . I think the main reason for using  (and for that matter  which is really hardly distinct from ) is to make comparison of rhotic and non-rhotic dialects more transparent. —Angr 06:15, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm maybe that explains why "your eyes" doesn't really sound like "yaw ryes" although it seems like it should. But there doesn't seem to be much notational consistency here. The bright "l" of "lead" on the one hand is quite appreciably distinct from the dark "l" of "bottle" or "welt", but the difference is not usually indicated in transcription, and, if it is indicated, this is done through the addition of a wavy diacritic to show velarization and never through the use of a completely different sign for the syllabic variant.--Gheuf 22:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Since laterals involve actual contact of the tongue with the roof of the mouth, it's difficult if not impossible to have a "lateralized" vowel. With -like sounds, it is possible, so the IPA provides a diacritic that can be used with vowels to show that they are r-colored. These symbols are just a rhotacized  and . As for "your eyes/yaw ryes", you're right. John McCarthy once made recordings of the phrases "Paint the loo for Ed" and "Paint the loofah red" to show the difference between the two r-sounds; maybe it's still up at his website. —Angr 05:57, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syllabic turned r 

message: For the General American section, I understand how  is a rhotacized vowel, but not so much how, for example,   is a rhotacized diphthong.  It's a vowel plus /r/, no?  Just because English /r/ is an approximant doesn't mean that it is part of a diphthong.  I'd take it out but it's been there a while and I don't want to start a revert war if people feel passionately about it. Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not 100% settled, but there are various phonetic and phonological reasons to believe that things like , and even more so  and  are complex nuclei (i.e. diphthongs) in English. —Angr 04:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rhotic Diphthongs

message: Isn't the use of flapped r in place of d's and t's in American English important enough to include here? Or are we keeping this strictly to phonemes?
:This page is sticking to phonemes. But we do have an article on flapping. —Angr 17:51, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  flapped r 

message: You might want to check out Help:IPA English pronunciation key which some of us put together and which is linked to . It's just a list of phonemes and sample words, so that RP, GA, and Oz speakers can all read a single transcription. There is some argument as to whether that's appropriate, or whether for every article we need separate transcriptions for each dialect. kwami 12:04, 19 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chart in Help space