User talk:Macrakis/Italian accents

Genova [ˈʤenova] vs. Gènova

Most Italian placenames (like other Italian nouns) have a stress accent on the next-to-last syllable (penult), e.g. Roma, Milano, Firenze. Some placenames have it on the last syllable (ultima), e.g. Cefalù, Salò, Forlì, and in that case, a grave accent is invariably used on the accented syllable. Other placenames have it on the third-from-last syllable, e.g. Gènova, Pàdova, Ìmola, Èrice. In this case, the accent is optional in standard Italian orthography, and is normally not written.

However, in many standard reference works, the accent is written. In particular, the maps and guides (in the first use) of the Touring Club Italiano generally indicate stress accent when it is not on the penult, or if the word ends in -ia (where there is no clear default).

In the Wikipedia, I believe it is desirable to indicate stress accent in Italian placenames. There seem to be two reasonable ways to do this. One is to use the Italian system, using the grave accent on the first use of the name. The other is to use the IPA. The advantage of the Italian system is that it is compact, clear, and simple. The disadvantage is that the user who does not know Italian may think that the accent is an obligatory part of the placename's orthography. The advantage of the IPA is that it is the same system for all languages, and is more precise (showing open/closed vowels, in particular). The disadvantage is that it is unnecessarily complicated, since Italian orthography is almost entirely phonetic, so most Italian placenames need no pronunciation guide at all; using IPA simply to indicate accent in the small number of cases where it is not predictable seems like overkill. (But I suppose having to use the IPA template is a pretty poor argument against...)

Examples of the alternatives

Italian accent	Gènova	Èrice
IPA only	Genova [ˈʤenova]	Erice [ˈɛritʃe]
Italian accent + IPA	Gènova [ˈʤenova]	Èrice [ˈɛritʃe]

(Actually, I am not sure whether it is [ˈɛritʃe] or [ˈeritʃe]...)

One argument that has been given against this convention is that it is not used in the Italian Wikipedia. But writing the stress accent in this case is optional in Italian, so I don't think that proves anything either way.

Discussion? --Macrakis 05:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd imagine that it's not used in italian wiki for the same reason that pronunciation guides are not normally used in english wiki - people can be expected to know where the stress falls. But that's not the case for our english-speaking audience. I like the Touring Club Italiano solution of first use. However, they have the advantage that their readers understand something of italian, which we can't assume, and if we introduce a name with a diacritic and then drop it, we'll be constantly having people "correct" our mistake. Therefore I'd suggest introducing the Genova article as "Gènova or Genova is ..." or "Genova (optionally Gènova) is ..." (Pedagogically I prefer "Gènova or Genova", because that first occurrance is what sticks in people's minds, and they'll be able to better remember the stress that way. The touring club got it right.)

As for the IPA, I'd agree that it doesn't have much benefit. Where italian is ambiguous, such as with open vowels and z, it may prove useful, but even here it's debatable. Suppose that Genova and Erice are open or closed in standard Italian, but the opposite locally? Do we then have four transcriptions, two orthographic and two phonetic? Not saying that's undesirable, but it's not straightforward. — kwami 17:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The main reason I don't want the first word of articles like Imola to be Ìmola is that some people will think the diacritic is part of the orthography (as an acute would be in Spanish, for example at Úbeda) and then call for the article to be moved to Ìmola, which would be silly. Even the Italian Wikipedia has its article at it:Imola; there's not even a redirect from it:Ìmola, just a blank page. In regular Italian orthography the accent is used to indicate stress on the final syllable only (e.g. città). Using it on other syllables in reference works is purely a pedagogical convention in Italian, but not a convention that's used in English. That's why we should spell the name as it would be spelled in Italian newspapers for example (not reference works), and use a pronunciation guide to indicate where stress belongs. Angr/talk 16:09, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

In fact Genova is open in Italian wide pronunciation, but is spoken as close by the Genoese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.140.17.99 (talk) 13:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Though I still like the Gènova solution, I do understand its shortcomings -- but I don't think it's correct to characterize it as 'pedagogical'. The IPA solution also has shortcomings. The same situation comes up in other languages which have phonemic distinctions with standard (but optional, and generally not used) means to write them. So, for example, in Croatian, tone, length, and stress are not normally written in words like Dùbrōvnik [ˈdǔbro̞ːvnik] and Cȓna Gōra [ˈʦȓ̩ːnaˌgo̞ːra], but they are much simpler than IPA. IPA of course has the advantage that it is universal and systematic, but the disadvantage that some combinations are not widely known, hard to type, and may not render correctly (the long, falling-tone, stressed syllabic r in Crna) -- and dare I say simply ugly?

I am not sure what should be done about all this. Kwami's solution is not bad:

Imola (or Ìmola)...

adding IPA seems disruptive in simple cases like Italian

Genoa (Italian Genova or Gènova IPA: [ˈʤenova]; Genoese Zena...)

and IPA is ugly in Serbian/Croatian

Dubrovnik (or Dùbrōvnik IPA: [ˈdǔbro̞ːvnik])

Montenegro (Serbian Црна Гора or Цр̂на Го̄ра IPA: [ˈʦȓ̩ːnaˌgo̞ːra])...

And this discussion should probably be somewhere other than a subpage of my personal Talk page! --Macrakis 19:05, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Angr's right about not having diacritics in the first instance. While superior for retention, it just won't work in an open-source reference, unless maybe we make a comment in the coding telling people not to move the page - rather a messy solution. I think Imola (or Ìmola) is probably best. And you're right, this discussion should be moved to Genova or Italian orthography or some such. kwami 00:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)