Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation)

See also: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

What about pronounciation rules? Some pages (Guernica, for example) have a pronunciation guide. In the current format, these usually clutter the first (definition) sentence, and it looks ugly. A common practice in encyclopedias is to put the pronounciation in italic immediately after the word is first mentioned. In our case, we'd have to link it as well, so something like s{mpA:? Any other suggestions? Jeronimo 14:05 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)

Including pronunciation is quite hazardous, I think. Whose pronunciation do you use? - Khendon 14:16 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)

I don't find SAMPA the least bit communicative, but people have complained about the handmade phonetics, as in Guernica (which I added). I prefer the latter, as communicating more information to more people despite the issue raised by Khendon. Look at the SAMPA and concise SAMPA and see how much you get out of it. I don't think SAMPA is all that well known, either. Ortolan88

The problem with "handmade" phonetics is that there's no standard. Different writers will split different phonemes and transcribe them differently. I agree that SAMPA isn't very well-known. I would much rather have IPA, which is -- all British dictionaries use it. However, AFAIK, we can't display IPA in HTML. :( The advantage of SAMPA is that it is one-to-one correspondance with the IPA -- so when one day HTML can do IPA, it won't be hard to convert it. -- Tarquin

We can display IPA in HTML, using numeric character references. [1] (http://eo.wikipedia.com/wiki/Internacia_Fonetika_Alfabeto)[2] (http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/sampa/english-uni.htm) But, it's A) ugly in source, B) not easy to type, and C) they don't show in all browsers; a lot of people don't have the fonts, or don't have them configured. --Brion 20:24 Oct 10, 2002 (UTC)

The "handmade phonetics" (as at Guernica, indeed) are ugly and often far from correct. Pronounciation should be denoted in a correct way, and an informal method won't do for that I guess. I don't care which method is used, as long as there's a page where I can find what the signs mean (you have to do that as well with your dictionary, so this shouldn't be a problem). If SAMPA's easy to display, let's go with that. Jeronimo

Just a whimper here, but at least one native Spanish speaker has edited Guernica several times since I put the "Gayr NEE ka" pronunciation in there, which is much clearer (and therefore more accurate) than "SAMPA [gernika]", which doesn't even show where the stress goes, one of the most important aspects of pronouncing Spanish. Ortolan88

My opinion is that it should depend on what sort of word we're "pronounciating". If it's a difficult English word, then we should use handmade English "phonetic" spelling, taking care to include exactly the same dialectical ambiguity in our phonetics as in the word itself. For example, if there's a question about whether a certain /r/ should appear in the word, then we should spell it phonetically with an "r" whose possibility of pronunciation in a given dialect would match. OTOH, if it's a foreign name, then we should use IPA (or an ASCII equivalent such as SAMPA) to render the phonemes of a standard dialect associated with that person or place. — Toby 14:04 Oct 28, 2002 (UTC)

SAMPA/To Do has a list of pages with pronunciation guides on them, if we ever decide on a solution. Martin

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Here's another new user question: How does one indicate pronunciation in an entry. Is it acceptable/desirable to do so? I haven't find any information about this. The example I have in mind is the Arkansas River and the city of Arkansas City, Kansas. The common pronunciation of Arkansas is like AR-kan-saw, but we Kansans do things a bit differently. The river starts in Colorado with the above mentioned pronunciation, but as it crosses into Kansas, the pronunciation becomes like ar-KAN-zus. The city name is also pronounced the latter way. The river reverts to the "normal" pronunciation when it enters Oklahoma. Thanks for any advice. Zeaner 00:03 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

Even if that's a somewhat vague answer: I think the criterion should be the relevance of the pronunciation. A Frenchman with only a basic knowledge of English asking a Londoner how to get to Beauchamp Place (near Harrods) will never be able to make himself understood, so it may be important to point that out. Also, in a bookshop it can be quite embarrassing if you have no idea how to pronounce names like Carl Hiaasen or Chuck Palahniuk. I don't know if similar misunderstandings could crop up if a tourist said AR-kan-saw instead of ar-KAN-zus. --KF 00:19 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

How to represent pronunciation is one of those issues that keeps getting discussed but never resolved. Take a look at Talk:Language and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (under the "Pronunciation" section) for some previous discussions. In your particular case, I think your information is very interesting, so I would include it just as you have here, with a homemade pronunciation guide. If the issue of how to represent pronunciation ever gets sorted out, someone can go back and change it. If not, it communicates what you want to say perfectly well. -- Stephen Gilbert 00:38 Dec 18, 2002 (UTC)

The absolute best way to represent pronunciation, of course, is to record a sound file (preferably encode as Ogg Vorbis) and upload it. --Brion

Is pronunciation of a printed proper name or words on Wiki a real issue? If you're from Oklahoma, you might pronounce "oil": all, or from New Zealand Oy-el. Dictionaries do help. Dialects vary all over the world. BF