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Should non-distinctive vowel length be shown in transcriptions?

It was pointed out to me elsewhere that the transcriptions are intended for people who have perhaps little knowledge of French. These readers can hardly be relied on to supply vowel lengths automatically. Older French-English dictionaries did include vowel lengths systematically. Perhaps that's less common now, though. 96.46.204.126 (talk) 06:17, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We do that for Italian, so I don't have a problem with that. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 13:22, 13 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If transcription is phonetic [...], non-distinctive length should be shown. If it's phonemic /.../, no. In Italian, for example, vowel length is non-distinctive word-internally, predictable by stress and structure: long in stressed open syllable, otherwise short. The minimal pair fato 'fate' and fatto 'done' are phonemically /ˈfa.to/ and /ˈfat.to/, thus phonetically [ˈfaːto] and [ˈfatto] --47.32.20.133 (talk) 14:49, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, transcription is phonetic. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:45, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

But how does vowel length work in French? Does it work the same in all major dialects? If so, there's nothing stopping us from transcribing it. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:53, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that we should transcribe Parisian French on Wikipedia, with phonetic vowel length. The distinction between [ɛ̃] and [œ̃], [a] and [ɑ] as well as [ɛ] and [ɛː] should be deprecated in favor of the former member of each pair. Exceptions to this could (not that they necessarily should) be made in the case of Quebec French as it is spoken in Canada. But I don't think we should transcribe Southern French, Belgian French or Swiss French (let alone African French) here. Parisian French is acceptable everywhere and it's the main variant taught to non-natives as well as the model used in dictionaries. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The length distinction of /ɛ/ vs. /ɛː/ is rarely indicated in recent leading dictionaries published in France. The same goes for the /a/ vs. /ɑ/ distinction, which many Île-de-France speakers still seem to maintain, but with wildly varying distributions among speakers and in dictionaries published in the last one or two centuries. Conversely, the distribution of /ɛ̃/ and /œ̃/ follows orthography — in native words, /œ̃/ is spelled with ⟨un⟩, and an opposing /ɛ̃/ is spelled otherwise — and is therefore much clearer; however it is maintained only by a minority of standard Hexagonal French speakers.

As to stress and combinatory vowel length: I don't think we should indicate them, as the former depends on sentence structure — what has been called the French "phonetic word" is an entire phrase, not a syntactic or orthographic word —, and the latter depends to a large extent on the former. (It is interesting to observe that French loans are usually pronounced with final stress on every single orthographic word in American English and Germany German, whereas the English and the German-speaking Swiss, who are more acquainted with the French language, prefer to treat them as having no particular stress pattern, so they apply their own Germanic rule of stressing the initial syllable.) Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:38, 14 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"French has no word-level stress" yet "grammatical stress is always on the final full syllable..."

The claim of no word-level stress is contradicted in the French phonology article that the Help links to, where it's made clear that word-level stress exists, and the position is described (albeit, alas, not immediately exemplified): "grammatical stress is always on the final full syllable (syllable with a vowel other than schwa) of a word." --47.32.20.133 (talk) 15:21, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Word stress exists in French but is always rendered on the last syllable. Thereof, it would be pointless to denote it using IPA as every word always be denoted with a stress on every last syllable. --Bankster (talk) 17:37, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Last full syllable. That excludes syllables whose nucleus is /ə/. Nardog (talk) 17:41, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If it were just that, we would still want to denote it in our transcriptions, as we do with contextual allophones that are non-phonemic but also consistent and predictable. We don't indicate stress in French because it's phrase-level, so a word's stress will differ depending on if its position in a phonological phrase.

I mean, if someone doesn't like that reason, I can listen. After all, we tend to indicate transcriptions of words in languages with final-devoicing as if they are pronounced in isolation and we could do the same with French and stress. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:18, 30 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

English approximation for [e]

The FACE vowel is diphthongal in most accents and its nucleus can be as low as [ɛ] or [æ] particularly in modern Southern British and Australian varieties, while KIT is monophthongal and can approximate or even be lower than [e] especially in North America (see e.g. the vowel diagrams for RP, GA, California, Inland North, and Standard Canadian). So KIT conveys the value of French [e] most efficiently. Nardog (talk) 12:29, 2 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sympathetic to resistance to changing this from the FACE vowel. That's the vowel we choose for a lot of these guides. There are a lot of French words where [e] appears in open syllables, so using the KIT vowel feels very counterintuitive. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:34, 2 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't counterintuitiveness what we want, though? English speakers typically use FACE for [e] or [ɛ] at the end of a word in another language, often without realizing it's diphthongal, sounding off to the speakers of that language. Citing KIT and DRESS as approximations for those vowels, even though they would be in violation of phonotactics if used word-finally in English, draws attention to this difference—which is beneficial to those hitherto unfamiliar with it. We shouldn't be using FACE for a monophthong except for languages with a three-way contrast of [i–ɪ–e] in the close-front region IMO. Nardog (talk) 11:41, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Most of that makes sense, and I'm hand wringing about this because it's unusual to choose KIT as the closest approximation both at Wikipedia and in pronunciation guides in general. What if we specifically identified the GA variant of the FACE vowel as the closest English approximation? We do often focus on dialect-specific variants in cases like this. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:34, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

But again, GA FACE is diphthongal. We can do something like "grey", but I thought you were opposed to breaking up diphthongs like that (which I agree with). Are you talking about specifying the dialect of FACE in guides for languages where there is an [i–ɪ–e] contrast, or just in general (including French)? Nardog (talk) 16:58, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I am opposed to breaking up diphthongs like that. It's not a deal breaker for me that the GA FACE can be diphthongal, even when there isn't the three-way contrast that you talk about for other languages. We might even be able to identify a word that more often features a monophthongal pronunciation (does this occur before voiceless stops as in wait?). Maybe other people can chime in and share what they think. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:49, 3 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am not extremely knowledgeable in this area, but the close-mid front unrounded vowel page lists MAY as being the [e] sound in English. The vowel sound in KIT is a near-close front unrounded vowel -- not even close in my Inland North accent, nor in any other accent in the U.S. that I have personally ever heard. -PanYaLin (talk) 18:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not knowledgeable, either, but "HIT" is simply wrong. "MAY", "DAY", "FACE", might be somewhat diphtongal, but at least the initial vowel sound is correct. "HIT" is a completely different, incorrect, vowel sound. I'm going to change it back to "DAY". If there's a better word, great, but reverting to "HIT" is clearly inferior. Derekt75 (talk) 20:13, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I am opposed to breaking up /eɪ/, too. Please note that the realisations of /eɪ/ mentioned in article Australian English phonology are [ɛɪ~ɐ̟ɪ~ɐ̟ːɪ~a̠ːɪ], so English day is a confusing example (at least) for native English speakers from that continent. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 20:35, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, "DAY" isn't great. but it's better than "HIT". If there's something better, I'd welcome the change. just please nobody revert back to "HIT" again. :-) Derekt75 (talk) 15:56, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Again, see the vowel diagrams at Received Pronunciation, General American, California English, Inland Northern American English, Standard Canadian English, etc. You haven't provided an actual argument based on phonetics or phonology. Why exactly is /eɪ/ better than /ɪ/? (Meanwhike, I'm changing it to kid because it might even be slightly closer to French [e] because it doesn't have the glottalization and clipping hit has.) Nardog (talk) 17:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The vowel in question is /e/, not /ɪ/. In America, we call it the "long A" sound. The links you provide only prove my point. If you read the General American vowels page, you'll see that the vowel is almost always a diphthong to Americans, and it provides the examples of "lake", "paid", and "faint". Use one of those if you prefer. Most English speakers (maybe not Australians?) would think of the right vowel when provided the word "day" or "may". The page Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel uses the word "may" as the English equivalent, and I think that's good enough for me. If you want something more monophthongal, I think the 2nd "a" in "alligAtor" would do the trick, but that's awfully long, and I really think most English speakers don't pay attention to the fact that their vowel shifts when they say the word "may". Derekt75 (talk) 06:28, 2 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Symbols are not sounds. You said it yourself: the vowel is almost always a diphthong ... most English speakers don't pay attention to the fact that their vowel shifts when they say the word "may". French /e/ is not. And we want readers of the guide to pay attention to this difference, or else what's the point of a guide? Think of it this way: If [e] in a French word was replaced by a vowel in English, which one would French speakers find less marked, /eɪ/ or /ɪ/?

It seems to me most of the opposition to using /ɪ/ as the approximation to French [e] has come from native English speakers. I want to hear from native French speakers, or at least native speakers of languages that permit an [e]-like vowel to end a word. If they also think /eɪ/ is better, I'll concede. Nardog (talk) 07:49, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably better for non-native speakers to err on the [ɛ] side than on the [ɪ] side. The reason is simple: [ɪ] is a frequent allophone of /i/ in some well-known accents (e.g. of Quebec), while many speakers (e.g. of Southern France) always pronounce /e~ɛ/ as [e] in open and [ɛ] in closed syllables, so that contrast is very weak, and listeners are prepared not to rely on it. My favourite choice would be to say that French /e/ is like Australian English /e/ [e], and if English speakers from elsewhere pronounce English/French /e/ as [ɛ] this is unkikely to hinder communication. — I think English /eɪ/ should not be used, or be used in cases like French /ei/ in paysage or /ɛj/ in oreille. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:42, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

nardog, You could also try listening to any Frenchman. Here's a link to a Macron press conference: [1] He uses the [e] phoneme a number of times in his first handful of words: mesdames, messieus les membres ... J'ai souhaité vous rencontrer devant les Français.... That last vowel in Français is held, and it's very distinctly [e]. None of those vowels matches [ɪ]. I'm largely unfamiliar with the Canadian French accent, but I've heard the province Québec said enough times to know that the Québécois use [e] for the first vowel in Québec. I'm going to change the word to match the word on the Close-mid_front_unrounded_vowel page. Before you change it back, consider how many wikipedia editors have changed the word to a [ɪ] sound. As far as I can tell, it's just you. Now consider how many have tried to make it a [e]. Derekt75 (talk) 18:01, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say we have a pre-existing consensus to use FACE, given that whenever a language contrasts two front mid vowels, we overwhelmingly tend to use the FACE vowel in our "English approximation" column for the closer one. Because this page is a little too high profile for us to experiment, let's just keep it as FACE until we actually get consensus for KIT.

I've never seen a French-language learning guide use KIT as an equivalent to French [e] and have only seen them use the FACE vowel. Nardog, have you looked at such guides to see if any use something different than English FACE, either with IPA or English-orthography based respellings?

As I said before, it might make the most sense to identify a specific dialect that has a FACE vowel closest to French [e], that way our Australian readers won't be as confused. If GA is too diphthongal, we can always specify a dialect like Scottish. — Æµ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:32, 3 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oi

"oi" is missing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.91.51.235 (talk) 11:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Guttural R example is wrong

The page claims:

ʁ regarder, nôtre[3] Guttural R, Scottish English loch, but voiced

But the ch sound in loch sounds nothing like a R of any kind.