Talk:International Phonetic Alphabet

Phonemic representation "for legibility often uses simple and 'familiar' letters rather than precise notation"

Oh oh. Time for reciting what many preach to students? "Mean what you say, say what you mean"? True enough that e.g. /n/ and /m/ are more legible to the uninitiated than /ɱ/. But assuming that [ɱ] is allophonic only in the language examined (thus */ɱ/), using /n/ or /m/ in the appropriate instances of reporting phonemes is accurate, not imprecise at all, not "for legibility". Claiming that it is -- conflating epiphenomenon with purpose -- misinforms readers fundamentally. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:23, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

@Barefoot through the chollas: Can you take a look at your comment again? I'm having a hard time understanding it and I think there's a mistake in the penultimate sentence. Nardog (talk) 08:39, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

@Nardog, maybe this will be clearer. IPA conventions dictate that the nasals as usually pronounced in Standard (North American) English sun and sunk are reported at the phonetic level [n] and [ŋ] respectively. Phonemically, the two are described as both containing /n/, not because /n/ is more familiar than /ŋ/, thus more easily legible, but because the phonetic [ŋ] of sunk is the result of a basic rule of partial assimilation /n/ → [ŋ]/_[k] (clearer across word boundaries, such as in Columbus, where either [n] or [ŋ] can result, depending on speed of speech, etc., and both are understood to be realizations of the same phoneme, /n/). On the other hand, sung leaves no choice. Normal standard pronunciation of the nasal in sung is [ŋ], and a version with [n] is a different word, sun, thus sung is analyzed as containing phoneme /ŋ/, pronounced [ŋ]. Those who established the IPA chose familiar graphemes whenever possible, but the selection of e.g. /n/ over /ŋ/ in IPA phonemic representation is in no way due to the analyst's preference for legibility, nor is /n/ in sun and sunk less precise than /ŋ/ in sung. (Hope this makes sense. I meant to answer your question re vocality today, but I've more than run out of time just now. Sorry; later.) Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:03, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

how does this apply to the article? — kwami (talk) 03:09, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I guess I misread "using..." as a dependent clause rather than as the subject and thought the verb never came. Nardog (talk) 14:15, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

the point is that authors will often use, say, /i e a o u/ even though phonetically the vowels are closer to [ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʉ], or /ɪ ɛ ɐ ɔ ʊ/ rather than /i̙ e̙ a̙ o̙ u̙/ even though atr is phonemic, or tone numbers rather than ipa tone letters or diacritics. since phonemes are abstractions, not physical sounds, you can use dingbats if you like, and indeed people have.

do you have a better way to word this? — kwami (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

A mite slow to respond to your earlier question, but my rambling above of May-June applies to this, under Brackets and transcription delimiters: Phonemic notation commonly uses IPA symbols that are rather close to the default pronunciation of a phoneme, but for legibility often uses simple and 'familiar' letters rather than precise notation, for example /r/ and /o/ for the English [ɹʷ] and [əʊ̯] sounds, or /c, ɟ/ for [t͜ʃ, d͜ʒ] as mentioned above. Among other concerns, /ŋ/ of sung or sunk vs. /n/ of sun would seem to call into question the claim of simplicity for the sake of legibility at the phonemic level (assuming ŋ is unfamiliar before encountering IPA), while also somewhat obscuring for readers the distinct status and purposes of phonemic representation and phonetic transcription. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:01, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

how is 'ŋ' relevant? what other option is there?

you choose symbols for your phonemes. you then use those symbols. for sung, there is no symbol more familiar than 'ŋ', so that's what you use. phonemically, most people would analyze sunk as having the same phoneme, but if you analyze it as /n/, then that's how you would write it. that's unrelated to which symbols you use. — kwami (talk) 19:33, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Exactly.That's the point. Phonemic representation shows the phoneme, regardless of its "simplicity" or "legibility" (I assume familiarity is most likely actually what's meant). Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 19:48, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

It seems we're talking at cross purposes. Obviously if a phonologist wants to claim that sunk contains the phoneme /n/ and the nasal undergoes assimilation to [ŋ] in pronunciation, that's what s/he'll claim. If the same phonologist claims phoneme /ŋ/ in sung, pronounced [ŋ], ditto. None of the choices have anything to do general familiarity of the notation. // I don't know why the excursus beginning Phonemic notation commonly uses... was placed in the section describing use of brackets and slashes. Seems uncalled for there, but/and in any case it's already accomplished by the`more straightfoward pin - spin example. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:35, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

so what point are you trying to make with 'ŋ'? it seems completely unrelated to your initial question. — kwami (talk) 00:04, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Phonemic representation shows the phoneme, regardless of its "simplicity" or "legibility"

no, that's not true. representation requires a choice of notation; there's no such thing as 'the' phoneme in written form. in broad notation, including phonemic, people tend to avoid diacritics to the extent possible, and to stick to basic letters to the extent possible. the extent to which people do this varies, of course. — kwami (talk) 00:12, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

We may be saying the same thing, but with different purposes. The way the section is set up, it's a description of the uses of / / and [ ], in which case it's useful to make it clear to uninformed readers that diacritics indicating phonetic detail will not be found in the phonemic representation if the feature indicated by the diacritic is irrelevant to phoneme status (not because the phonemic transcription is less precise). The English pin - spin example illustrates the principle clearly by showing both phonemic and phonetic transcription. There's certainly much more to dazzle readers with concerning phonemes and allophones and their representations, even if just sticking to English, but that's for elsewhere. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

omitting detail does make it less precise — kwami (talk) 17:44, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Of course, if/when detail is omitted. Representing the bilabials of English spin and pin as phoneme /p/ omits no detail. Representing the usual pronunciation of pin in most varieties of English with [p] would omit detail -- not just less precise, but inaccurate. Turns out to be a good very basic illustration of the / / - [ ] purpose of the section in question: /p/ realized as [p] or [pʰ] depending on environment. (For English there's more fun to be had with intervocalic /t/, but that would bloat the section.) Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 22:13, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

but under the usual convention of using the 'elsewhere' allophone to stand in for the phoneme, the phoneme is actually /pʰ/; it's just often written 'p' for convenience. so yes, it does omit detail. as for 'spin', that's the archiphoneme {pʰ, b}; it's only historical convention that causes it to be identified as /pʰ/ — kwami (talk) 03:20, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

Argumentum ex cross purposes continues, it seems. I've been addressing the text of the section describing the use of slashes for phonemes and square brackets for phones, assuming that the explanation and exemplification should be accessible to a broad readership that very much includes those with no experience in phonetics or phonology, thus adopting the most basic acceptable principles possible of phoneme/(allo)phone(s). With that purpose, modes of analysis beyond the most basic belong elsewhere. (And back to the original point: an IPA character such as ɱ (and numerous others), while simple, is neither familiar nor necessarily imprecise.) Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 15:09, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

and where exactly is /ɱ/ used? — kwami (talk) 05:41, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

It was not difficult to trace back the source of the claim, which seems to be perfectly valid. The quote in contention, in brackets and delimiters:

Phonemic notation commonly uses IPA symbols that are rather close to the default pronunciation of a phoneme, but for legibility often uses simple and 'familiar' letters rather than precise notation, for example /r/ and /o/ for the English [ɹʷ] and [əʊ̯] sounds, or /c, ɟ/ for [t͜ʃ, d͜ʒ] as mentioned above.

Refers to the info at the top of the section:

When the IPA is used for broad phonetic or for phonemic transcription, the letter–sound correspondence can be rather loose. The IPA has recommended that more 'familiar' letters be used when that would not cause ambiguity. For example, ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩ for [ɛ] and [ɔ], ⟨t⟩ for [t̪] or [ʈ], ⟨f⟩ for [ɸ], etc. Indeed, in the illustration of Hindi in the IPA Handbook, the letters ⟨c⟩ and ⟨ɟ⟩ are used for /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/.

If you go to the source pages it lists, you find written very clearly:

19. In broad transcriptions the different members of a vowel phoneme should all be represented by the same letter, notwithstanding that the sounds may be situated in different cardinal areas. For instance, although the Russian e-phoneme includes sounds in the cardinal areas marked e and ɛ in Fig. 4, nevertheless the single letter e is adequate for representing the sounds in broad transcription.

20. When a vowel is situated in an area designated by a non-roman letter, it is recommended that the nearest appropriate roman letter be substituted for it in ordinary broad transcriptions if that letter is not needed for any other purpose. For instance, if a language contains an ɛ but no e, it is recommended that the letter e be used to represent it. This is the case, for instance, in Japanese. Similarly, in broad transcriptions of Southern British English the vowels in coat, caught, cot may all be written with the same letter o, thus ou, oː, o, although the two latter sounds are in the ɔ and ɒ areas. (In a slightly narrow transcription they might be written ou, ɔː, ɔ, in a still narrower one öu, ɔː, ɒ.)

21. As sounds of the ɒ type have considerable acoustic similarity to those in the ɔ and ɑ areas, it is generally advisable to represent them by one of these more familiar symbols, or in some cases by one of the ordinary roman letters o or a. For instance, in transcribing Southern British English the ɒ-sound in hot may be written ɔ (or in broad transcriptions o) without a length-mark, while in transcribing Hungarian it may be written ɑ (or in broad transcription a) without a length-mark.

— Principles (1949), p. 7

(a) As with vowels (§ 20), it is desirable to substitute more familiar consonant letters for less familiar ones, when such a substitution can be made without causing ambiguity. For instance, in a language containing a retroflex ʈ but no dental t the sound could generally be denoted by t. And in a language such as Tswana, which contains ɸ but not labio-dental f, the letter f may be used to denote the sound. So also, as the sound ɱ is not known to occur otherwise than as a member of the m-phoneme, it can, as a rule, be written with m (with the appropriate convention). Several other examples are given below.
[see source, I'm not listing them all]

— Principles (1949), p. 12-13

oklopfer (💬) 00:20, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

References

RfC notice

Template talk:IPA#RfC: add option to disable link to IPA help page?

Hello, above is a WP:Request for comment about the template {{IPA}} that may be of interest to users of this page. grapesurgeon (seefooddiet) (talk) 21:39, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Small capital vowel icons never meant "lax vowels"

In the 1899 source I provided from the IPA, lowercase i/y/u are referred to as "very close" (now just "close"), while small-cap i/y/u are referred to as "close" (now just "near-close"). In the 1900 source, the near-close variants are described as being intermediary between their close and mid counterparts. It does not say that that they ever were intended to be "lax vowels".

The closest it comes to this is the categorization of half of the vowel inventory as "open" tongue position in the 1899 source and half as "close" tongue position, with all three small-caps falling under the "open" position category, but with seven other regular lowercase letters as well - so there is absolutely not even an unspoken rule that small-caps ever indicated this, as it has never held up. Oklopfer (talk) 14:27, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

As I said said in one of my previous edit comments, I am frustrated by the attempted perpetuation of a verifiably false statement, and am unsure why there is an insistence on maintaining the incorrectness of the Wikipedia page over the reality of the provided sources. Oklopfer (talk) 14:33, 2 August 2025 (UTC)

you provided a source that the distinction was originally tense vs lax [tendue vs relâchée]. a later conversion to french vowel equivalents isn't likely to word it that way, as french doesn't have such a distinction, and so that omission isn't evidence for anything. you also used wp as a source for wp, which is not encyclopedic. — kwami (talk) 00:57, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Please show me where in the 1899 source the distinction is tense vs lax. [tendue vs relâchée] is written in French, so that would be from the 1900 source, which you keep removing.

The entire section is not encyclopedic, and only refers to Wikipedia by your standard. "Among consonant letters, the small capital letters ⟨ɢ ʜ ʟ ɴ ʀ ʁ⟩, and also ⟨ꞯ⟩ in extIPA, indicate more guttural sounds than their base letters – ⟨ʙ⟩ is a late exception." This has no sourcing, and "guttural sounds" is improper terminology. It may as well be removed entirely. Oklopfer (talk) 01:10, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

tendue vs relâchée is from the 1899 source, which you should know as you provided that source. it's in french because the author is citing a french source. so you provided a source for the very thing that you're contesting.

the fact that you don't like a word is irrelevant. 'guttural' has a long history in linguistics.

how can you claim that you adding a ref to the article is 'by my standard'. that's ridiculous. — kwami (talk) 01:15, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Capital letter iconography having distinct meaning does not have a long history in linguistics. Oklopfer (talk) 01:16, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

what does that have to do with anything? it's older than the IPA, which is the relevant time scale. — kwami (talk) 01:19, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

I am talking about using Wikipedia as a source. You are using Wikipedia as the primary source for the section. It should either be backed up with sources or removed, since this page is about the IPA and the section about its iconography. Oklopfer (talk) 01:21, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

you literally added a reference to this discussion — kwami (talk) 01:25, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

no, I used the feature, to prevent you from continuously reverting without discussing. Oklopfer (talk) 01:28, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

ah, you're right. my bad. — kwami (talk) 01:30, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

"tendue vs relâchée is from the 1899 source, which you should know as you provided that source. it's in french because the author is citing a french source. so you provided a source for the very thing that you're contesting."

I still cannot find this. Can you please show me the context where it says that they are lax vowels? Oklopfer (talk) 01:24, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

p 38 line 6 — kwami (talk) 01:29, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

that is referring to what I said before:

The closest it comes to this is the categorization of half of the vowel inventory as "open" tongue position in the 1899 source and half as "close" tongue position, with all three small-caps falling under the "open" position category, but with seven other regular lowercase letters as well - so there is absolutely not even an unspoken rule that small-caps ever indicated this, as it has never held up

There are many other vowels in the row provided, which are not caps, so this rule about lax vowels being small caps is nothing. it is only the near-close vowels which receive the treatment. Oklopfer (talk) 01:31, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

there's a logical error there. no-one ever said this is what small caps mean in an absolute sense, only that small caps are used for this meaning - which they are. whether other conventions are also used for this meaning, or small caps also mean other things, is beside the point. you've made this over-generalization before. an equivalent would be me saying that people keep dogs as pets, and you saying that's false because some people have cats, or because there are stray dogs that are not pets. whether all pets are dogs, or all dogs are pets, it is still true that people keep dogs as pets. whether all small caps are lax vowels, or all lax vowels are small caps, it's still true that those three lax vowels are small caps. — kwami (talk) 01:38, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Currently, the page reads:

“Among vowel letters, small capital ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ indicate what had been intended as lax vowels; ⟨ʊ⟩ had originally been ⟨ᴜ⟩”

as a reader, this says to me, “Among vowel letters, small capitals indicate what had been intended as lax vowels”; or conversely, "the vowels that had been intended as lax are small capitals". It ignores the formerly dubbed "lax vowels" which are not small caps.

Saying i am making a logical error or an overgeneralization is an admission of poor wording, and should not be blamed on the reader. I am fixing your logical error of making the claim that this was the intention. Oklopfer (talk) 01:47, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

And their laxness is not relevant to their small caps-ness any more than their near-close position. Why is their historical categorization taking precedence over their current categorization? Oklopfer (talk) 01:50, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

Also, in the consonants section, it reads:

"indicate more guttural sounds than their base letters"

However, for the vowels, you do not make any connection to their base letters. The point of even mentioning "⟨ʊ⟩ had originally been ⟨ᴜ⟩" is that ⟨ɪ ʏ ᴜ/ʊ⟩ are the "lax" variants of ⟨i y u⟩, showing a clear correlation between the two. Mentioning their position, as is standard for vowels, is helpful to show this connection (near-close vs close). Oklopfer (talk) 02:11, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

My latest edit attempts to remedy this, with the rewording:

"-- Among vowel letters, small capital ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ indicate what had been intended as lax vowels;"

"++ Among vowel letters, the small capitals ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ indicate what had originally been considered more lax articulation than their base letters;"

I do not wish to further any edit warring, only to have this wording be clarified. Oklopfer (talk) 03:54, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

It seems my edit was reverted - please take a look at my suggestion above to reword. Oklopfer (talk) 13:51, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

yes, your wording works for me, and it is clearer; i restored it as consensus since we don't have other opinions in this thread — kwami (talk) 16:15, 3 August 2025 (UTC)

ʟ̠˔

@Kwamikagami does the voiced uvular lateral fricative actually occur in languages, or is it theoretically possible? BodhiHarp 17:12, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

the IPA chart has a place for it. — kwami (talk) 20:33, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

Just because it's not shaded on the chart, that does not make it occur. Citation? BodhiHarp 23:32, 8 September 2025 (UTC)

you asked if it's theoretically possible. according to the IPA, it's theoretically possible. — kwami (talk) 01:51, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

So it doesn't occur in any languages? BodhiHarp 04:24, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

i don't know.

if we can't attest to it, then it's not demonstrably notable enough to cover.

frankly, i don't see how it could be distinct. [f] and [v] are often lateral fricatives, but we ignore that because it's not distinctive. i imagine this might be similar, but that could just be my ignorance speaking. — kwami (talk) 23:55, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Wiktionary Linking Question

Hey! I'm kind of tired of clicking on words in Wikipedia and getting redirected to an alphabet page instead of a Wiktionary page containing the word. I'd like to know whether there's a best practice reason why we do that, or if it's simply a time-saver when making an article?

I can also understand if the concern is "not every foreign word has a corresponding Wiktionary article," but I'd like to know whether it's all right for me to go into an article like this IPA sound article and point the examples under the Occurrences heading to a corresponding article in Wiktionary, if it exists. Vincent.Xavier.Zell (talk) 14:19, 9 September 2025 (UTC)

The idea behind those links is that the article about the orthography will have relevant information about how the sound is represented in writing. One can debate whether that's helpful, but I don't think a link to Wiktionary would be either. Nardog (talk) 10:54, 11 September 2025 (UTC)

ô

"all, horn, law, oar". My Webster's New World Dictonary in its very succinct "PRONUNCIATION KEY" (on the inner hard cover) says. I was unable to find the symbol's pronunciation here.

It would be good to have those short and sweet pronunciations here, I believe. (As is, the respectable article seems too complicated to me, the ESL every-day non-linguist, quickly searching for the pronunciation of ô.)

ESL - English as a second language

May I help with adding them?

(This article seems to work with another transliteration than the one I encountered at the ô case.)

Szozdakosvi (talk) 14:26, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

@Szozdakosvi there is actually a separate page for what you are referring to, take a look at Pronunciation respelling for English ~ oklopfer (💬) 15:16, 2 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Szozdakosvi (talk) 20:38, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

The IPA for that phoneme is /ɔ/, if that is what you're asking. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:06, 3 January 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. (I see that Google Translate [that I use] are using non-IPA, Webster's, symbols. That is new info for me, as well as what phoneme means, thank you.)Szozdakosvi (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2026 (UTC)

Voiceless /ŋ/

It should be ŋ̊, not ŋ̥. James7500 (talk) 12:21, 10 April 2026 (UTC)

Voiceless /j/

I can hear /ȷ̊/ sound in japanese, that is 人 (hito "[ꜜȷ̊i̥.to̞]"). James7500 (talk) 09:53, 11 April 2026 (UTC)