Talk:Alain-Sol Sznitman

Pronunciation request

I've added the template {{Pronunciation needed}} after Sznitman's name, twice, and it has been removed three times by @David Eppstein. (There is something like a short debate in the edit summaries.)

It is not at all obvious how "Sznitman" is pronounced (and it's not even clear what orthographic rules might be relevant to the pronounciation). MOS:LEADPRON says "If the name of the article has a pronunciation that is not apparent from its spelling, include its pronunciation in parentheses". The template {{pron}} is used "to request the [...] pronunciation of an article page". Should it really be controversial to request the pronunciation of Sznitman's name? --St.nerol (talk) 08:28, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

It is not clear whether we would ever be able to provide such a pronunciation, because it requires having reliable published sources for it. This talk page is an acceptable place to ask for the pronunciation. A big cleanup banner as the first thing any reader sees in the first sentence of a biography of a living person, when there is no reasonable expectation of ever being able to perform that cleanup, is not. More generally, {{pronunciation needed}} should only be used for topics where one could reasonably expect the pronunciation to be easy to look up in a dictionary. As that template's documentation prominently states, If the textual pronunciation is cannot be found or is not verifiable, {{Pronunciation requested audio}} can be posted on the talk page. I interpret that as meaning that it should be posted instead of on the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:13, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

You claim that {{pronunciation needed}} "should only be used for topics where one could reasonably expect the pronunciation to be easy to look up in a dictionary". However, names of individual persons are usually not found in dictionaries and MOS:LEADPRON explicitly says that proper nouns often needs pronunciations. Do you really mean that the use of this template in biographies is always wrong?

In practice, it seems that the pronunciations in most of our biographies don't have a cited source; those that do usually point to a video in which the subject pronounces his own name (e.g. Barack Obama). I don't see why this should be ruled impossible before we have even tried. --St.nerol (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I really mean that the use of this template in biographies is always wrong. Also, failure to follow our requirements of sourcing all material in biographies of living people should not be cited as a good example to follow. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:42, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not citing failures, I'm citing what seems to work well in practice even in our best biographies. Furthermore, from what I read WP:BLP only says that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation". But perhaps you had some other part of the policy in mind? --St.nerol (talk) 17:57, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

In fact, YOU have explicitly challenged the material you wish to have included, with your edit-summary claims that the pronunciation of Sznitman's name is not obvious. You are citing "failures" and calling them "what seems to work well". But without proper sourcing, they are failures of our strict requirements of sourcing in WP:BLP. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:05, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

No, I have not challenged anything. If someone adds a pronunciation which seems reasonable and is correct, it'll probably be left alone, and if it's wrong, someone will hopefully correct it.

Now, I'll see if I can find somewhere where he pronounces his own name. In the meantime, we should have a pronunciation request on the main page, since this substantially increases the likelihood that the page will end up providing correct and helpful instructions for the pronunciation of it's subject matter. This is simply standard procedure. –St.nerol (talk) 11:59, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

No we should not. If you try again I will escalate. It is not standard procedure as the template documentation makes clear. This talk page is perfectly adequate. It does not need to gunk up the main article. Whyever do you think that to be an appropriate thing to do? What constructive outcome do you think will be obtained by making [pronunciation needed] the first thing any reader of the article sees about him? —David Eppstein (talk) 15:36, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The purpose of adding the template is that it may prompt someone to add the pronunciation and remove the template. A template in the talk page will be far less visible and thus less likely to lead to anything. St.nerol (talk) 19:07, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

So you're trying to push other people to add unsourced content to WP:BLPs? That's not a good thing to be doing. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:34, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems that the two of us cannot find consensus on this issue. How do we proceed to find further guidance? If I'm in the wrong and have misread common practice, then I simply won't add requests for pronunciation in any biographies from now on. --St.nerol (talk) 20:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

You could try asking for guidance at WP:BLPN on what kind of sourcing is considered acceptable for pronunciations and on how to proceed when that sourcing is not found. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:55, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

@Nardog: You are the other person who added the {{pronunciation needed}}-template, and, judging by your user page, you seem very involved in issues of phonemics. What are your thoughts on this discussion? --St.nerol (talk) 20:21, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Pronunciation

In this video at 1h26m another natively French speaking person seems to pronounce "Sznitman" as [snitman]. I don't feel confident to add anything without further corroboration. –St.nerol (talk) 20:38, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Maybe the French have some magic power that the rest of us do not, but in the US, at least, it is common for natively English speaking people to mispronounce the names of other people. Only the person's own pronunciation can be definitive. And in any case the transcription from a recorded piece of speech into IPA also involves a matter of interpretation and of expertise in certain phonemic distinctions that may not come naturally (for instance, Americans are unlikely to hear the difference in final vowel sound between German Anne and Anna, even when a German would say that the two vowels are clearly and distinctly enunciated; Americans are also not likely to hear the initial vowel sounds of the Greek name Ioannis as three separate vowels, interpreting it instead incorrectly as a y-glide followed by a single vowel). In the case of Sznitman, in my experience the "sz" combination often has either a Hungarian or Polish origin, but unfortunately with different interpretations: the Hungarians pronounce it as English "s" while the Polish pronounce it something like English "sh", reversing the way they would pronounce "s" alone. And in Sznitman's case, even if the name originated elsewhere and kept its older spelling it may well have become gallicized in pronunciation. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:43, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

The pronunciation of someone's name, just like any pronunciation, exists as a cultural consensus, which might even vary from context to context. The most relevant for this article would arguably be the consensus of french mathematicians. I do agree, however, that Sznitman's own pronunciation would be a very strong indicator of how his name is generally pronounced by those who are familiar with him. This, of course, is what we want. –St.nerol (talk) 08:41, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

When you put it into cultural context rather than how the individual person says it, it's difficult to say whether the pronunciation can be meaningful at all. Take, for example, British folksinger Kate Rusby. She has a name that many native English speakers would pronounce something like /rʌzbi/. But because she is from Northern England, she speaks with a Northern English accent in which she pronounces her own name more like /rʊzbi/. It's the same vowel, in the sense that she would consistently make the same vowel shift for any other word with the same vowel in it. So now should someone who doesn't have that accent put on a fake accent when saying her name, and pronounce it /rʊzbi/? Or is the correct pronunciation to use the same vowel as one would pronounce it in one's own accent and call her /rʌzbi/? I don't think there's a correct answer, but that also means that it may not be possible to write a single correct pronunciation for her name. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:10, 28 April 2023 (UTC)