Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects/Archive 5

message: I really appreciate the additions to the IPA chart because RP, GA, and AuE were not adequate.  I participate in a language forum with various people from around the world and the non-Canadians cannot imagine the Canadian monophthongs.  It would be really helpful if someone could add a column for western Canadian (BC through Quebec) that includes the three monophthongal vowels that are common in this dialect.
see
toe
hay
Thank you, Rindahl (talk) 00:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: How are they pronounced? — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a little confused.  Isn't that how it's pronounced in American English? — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:28, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: As a Korean speaker I'm very sensitive to changes in formants. (At least, I think I'm sensitive...) As such, the only time I've noticed see, toe, hay as monophthongs in the US was the "ee" in "really" being pronounced as "rilly" by some people. --Kjoonlee 10:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Well, in my dialect, there is a considerable difference between 'well' and 'wale'.  I can understand that foreigners hear things differently.  It's possible that the way I say 'wale' is the same way you'd say 'well'.  This is why I'd like a Canadian section in the chart.  I can't make sense of foreign pronunciations as represented in IPA unless I have a base of knowledge about how CE is represented in IPA.  The Canadian English 'lay' is an exact homophone of the French 'les' and the Canadian English 'mow' is an exact homophone of the French 'mot'.  When I refer to CE here, I mean the western dialect spoken from Quebec to BC.  Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island each have their own dialects and Newfoundland has a few dialects. Rindahl (talk) 00:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, "whale bone" I heard from two young girls from Toronto and "fingernails" I heard from Ellen Page, who's from Nova Scotia. --Kjoonlee 16:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't have the DVD with me and I can't check for sure for some time, but "pain" seemed to be a normal diphthong. --Kjoonlee 10:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: I did it just for you.  No, actually, it was a long time coming. Jack(Lumber) 15:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Great! Now, can s.o. do SA? kwami (talk) 17:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  CE 

message: Is it worth adding another section for tripthongs?  From what I understand, there are three main ones in Standard English:
* Fire, hire, wire, etc. which take 
* Cure, pure, etc. which take 
* Power, shower, etc. which take 
Any thoughts on this?  Epa101 (talk) 08:17, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If by "Standard English" you mean RP, I'd say only  and  are triphthongs.  is a consonant followed by a diphthong. —Angr 17:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

text: You'd need to change them to rhotic schwas. Player is  even in non-rhotic dialects. There's also the question of diminishing returns: A long list makes it more difficult to find the thing you're after, but these triphthongs are all pretty obvious once you know the diphthongs. kwami (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See Talk:Received Pronunciation (we should move this discussion to one place).  Such words often syllabify the schwa.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

text: I doubt it's necessary. Anyway, the r is pronounced in player up, which means it's , not . The latter is found in maia. kwami (talk) 08:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So much depends on what you mean by "the r is pronounced".  In my Canadian dialect, the vowel+r digraph represents a distinct monophthongal vowel.  It isn't correct to use IPA to transcribe the Canadian 'player' as /pleər/ because what you are presenting as ər is a monophthongal vowel -- perhaps (I'm guessing) this ɚ is the one.  In RP, the er digraph would be pronounced as /ə/.  My dialect uses a liquid r (rounded lips, bearing some relation to a w)in most places (as in 'Ralph') where RP would use a consonantal (flapped) r.  Canadians use a consonantal r only when it is combined with a th digraph and I think the same is true for many American dialects.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rindahl (talk • contribs) 02:33, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: RP doesn't use a flap in "Ralph", it uses an approximant. Some varieties of Scottish English use a flap or even a trill in "Ralph", though. —Angr 06:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Captain Picard (actor Patric Stewart) uses RP, although Stewart is from Yorkshire, and he uses flaps/trills in syllable-initial Rs a lot. Anyway, I think Rindahl is saying that "player" ends with a vowel phoneme unless it's followed by a vowel. --Kjoonlee 10:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Which means that it is required in a phonemic transcription. Though I personally have no objection to using <ɚ>. kwami (talk) 18:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I have no idea what you mean by a consonantal vs. vowel r in the last example, or the difference between prrr and grrr. kwami (talk) 20:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

text: That's exactly what I was talking about. For you, then, the distinction has been lost. For other non-rhotic speakers, however, I believe it's maintained. kwami (talk) 06:40, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tripthongs

message: There have been a few reforms to the chart recently, mostly good ones.  I have noticed that the English pronunciation for tour is now given with two forms.  Do we need to use "tour" as our example, or could we not use a word that is a clearer example?  
I know that some linguists have talked about  becoming less frequent but there are still lots of words where it is the only recognised pronunciation: cruel, jewel, jury, rural, endure, cure, lure, endure, pure.  If you want words that sound similar as tore and tour do, how about door and dour or bore and boar?  Epa101 (talk) 09:08, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have checked the Oxford Dictionary and "tour" only has the  as R.P.  I also changed the vowel for the my group of words, as I noticed this whilst I was checking.  Epa101 (talk) 15:40, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My edit has been reversed.  What sources claim that tour may be pronounced with  in R.P.?  Are these sources reliable?  Why do the guides that you get to how to use IPA at the start of dictionaries always use poor as the example of ?  Epa101 (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

text: Note that the Wells link provided by Jack in the discussion on the Oxford Dictionary below uses  for poor as well.  Epa101 (talk) 21:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tore, tour examples

message: I'm going to try to clean parts of this table up a little.  In particular, I'll try to add Welsh English vowels. - Gilgamesh (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, but you're making up a new wiki standard which links to but doesn't match anything else. kwami (talk) 18:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Conservative distinctions

message: Hi all. I am a little confused... in my freshman phonology class at Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA), I was taught that the glides that follow the tense mid close vowels and close vowels in GA are [y] and [w]—which my professor carelessly said one day were exact Americanist equivalents for IPA [j] and [w]. I was also taught that these glides combine with [a] to form [ay] and [aw], which was I again told translate seamlessly to IPA [aj] and [aw].
I see, however, that consistently in almost all literature on GA I have been able to find on the internet (including every Wikipedia article I have read on English phonology), the glides that follow tense vowels are represented as [ɪ] and [ʊ], respectively. Is this just an alternative way of representing the same sounds, or are Americanist [y] and [w] not exact equivalents of IPA [j] and [w]? And if the latter is true, what is the scientific evidence behind this convention?
If [ɪ] and [ʊ] are just alternatives for [y] and [w] when representing glides, then perhaps we should show "Americanist-style IPA glides" (for lack of a better term) as alternatives for GA vowels—namely [j] and [w]. However, I have noticed that even Merriam-Webster uses a simplified version of the GA transcription proposed in this article, so I am beginning to question my phonology professor's casual claim that there is an exact correspondence between the two ways of representing the English tense vowel glides... --Rcgy (talk) 07:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The difference depends on how precise you wish to be, and which features you consider relevant. See English phonology#Transcription variants. —kwami (talk) 07:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, got it. Thanks. And so why are we not being consistent and putting down /iɪ/ and /uʊ/ for the tense close vowels? Plain [i] and [u] occur less frequently than their allophones [iɪ] and [uʊ]—are we really justified in choosing the less common allophones for the GA close vowels simply because they are easier to write? --Rcgy (talk) 08:09, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, they'd be /ɪi/ and /ʊu/. I think we had that at one point. You can find the discussions in the archives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs) 09:51, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. Someone must have removed that section because I have searched for it and I don't see it. So, for future readers, we are basically saying that a modern, nitpicky listing of the 'tense' vowels of GA would be: /eɪ/, /ɪi/, /oʊ/, /ʊu/ where /ɪi/ and /ʊu/ are pronounced [i] and [u], respectively, in unaccented syllable final positions... which is why, for convenience, we are using /i/ and /u/ as the underlying phonemes... but we're leaving /eɪ/ and /oʊ/ because the glide is more salient in these two and omitting it in pronunciation would cause a perceptible difference to a native speaker... right? This is all very interesting, clears up many doubts; please correct me if any of my assumptions are wrong. Thank you! (And if anyone out there remembers exactly why we are no longer listing /ɪi/ and /ʊu/ for GA please share. Thanks again!) --Rcgy (talk) 00:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's mostly for the same reason we use ; it's what the literature most commonly uses.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 03:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "aw, aj, ej, ij, ow, uw" vs. "aʊ, aɪ, eɪ, i, oʊ, u" for GA

message: What's the source for this line, with its ɔa for GA and Hong Kong and its own symbol in the "compromise" column?  In Wells's lexical sets, pour is a FORCE word, just like tore, boar and port in the row above.--JHJ (talk) 08:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: An error introduced by the HK column, which has been reverted several times pending correction. kwami (talk) 08:33, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's also shown as different in the Welsh column.  I can't find any evidence in either the originally cited source or in this one (Rhondda) for words spelt with our having a different vowel from the  of FORCE.  Nor can I find any evidence for words spelt with air having a different vowel from the  of SQUARE, so the row with hair and their is also questionable.--JHJ (talk) 12:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Pour" 

message: Any reason why the columns for South Africa are empty? OhNoitsJamie Talk 03:51, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, we haven't found anyone to fill them in. Are you volunteering? kwami (talk) 04:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Empty South African columns

message: Hello,
I think, one should bring the consonant table and the vowel table further apart in the layout. I am invariably inclined to associate parts of the consonant lines, wherever these are parallel, to parts of the vowal lines - an error instantly recognized, but nevertheless annoying and yet so easy to be avoided. Bringing the example column to the front of either table would also alleviate the tendency to this faultive matching. 
Thanks, User:91.49.194.178 21:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've been thinking about this too.  How about a single table, with the consonants following the same pattern to the vowels – a column for each dialect.  For most consonants and most dialects there will be repetition, but the differences will stand out and will illuminate the subject – it would also allow rows to represent phonemes rather than sounds.  For example, the sound  is generally used for the phoneme "f", but is also used for the Estuary English unvoiced "th" –  would thus appear in both the "f" and "th" rows.  Similarly, the Australian use of  and the Welsh English use of  for all (?) uses of the phoneme "l" would be clear, in contrast to other dialects.  At present these and other dialectic variations in consonants are not apparent. --Richard New Forest (talk) 22:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we would want to exhibit phonemic distinctions rather than phonetic ones so the  vs  distinction isn't as important as the merging of dental and labial fricatives.  — Æµ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Better layout 

message: I do not understand what the vowel chart means. What is the chart sorted by primarily, and secondarily? What is meant by having some cells in the table merged? What is meant by having a comma or a slash between two IPA symbols, does it mean that the distinction between those two sounds is not recognized or significant in that dialect?
How should someone use this chart if they want to know how to correctly pronounce a word written in the IPA? Should the person first find their column based on the dialect they speak, then scan down until they see the symbol they don't know, and then scan to the right until they find the example? What if I speak one dialect, and I want to learn how other dialects differ from mine?
For example, I think I speak GA, and I can't figure out what the "e" symbol in the IPA means. If I am interpreting the chart correctly, it seems that I would never say "e", I only say things like "ɛ" and "eɪ". Who does say "e" and what does it sound like?
Upon closer inspection, I don't think I understand the IPA. I speak GA. According to the chart, the word "boy" ends in ɔɪ. I would hope that ɔɪ is essentially ɔ plus ɪ, but I feel like that is not true. The "oy" sound in boy does not contain the sound of ɪ, if the sound of ɪ is truly the "i" from "sit." The "oy" from boy seems like it should be ɔi. That is what seems right to me. I am no linguist, so someone please explain to me why I am wrong. Thanks.66.92.68.214 (talk) 14:12, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: A lot of these symbols are established by decades-long tradition and may not be as phonetically accurate as they could be. For many Americans, the vowel of boy probably could better be transcribed [oi] or [oj] rather than , but we use  here because basically everybody transcribes it that way. It's best to just learn  as a unit standing for however you pronounce the vowel of "boy" and not worry about it too much.  and  are also conventions. For many American Southerners, for example, the vowel of "dress" is considerably higher than the starting point of the vowel of "face", so it would be more accurate to write them  and  respectively, but here we stick to tradition. —Angr 14:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't know what "English" is doing in the COMMA lexical set. I don't think it's there in Wells's definition of the set. I don't think he has a lexical set for the unstressed vowel of "English". —Angr 14:33, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Yep, that's pretty much it. —Angr 20:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: What exactly does the vowel chart mean?