Template talk:Pron

Consensus for usage

• Support. A while back, someone started using this template on Portuguese phrasebook, and I have expanded the usage there. I approve this very helpful template and would like to see the {{experimental}} tag removed. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 03:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• I don't understand why this is a template. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  Please see Template:Pron/doc#Inputs and outputs. The template offers standardization of long descriptions associated with IPA pronunciations. It saves editors from memorization and typing in order to provide travellers with useful pronunciation help. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 05:09, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  To clarify, I believe this was designed for use in phrasebooks. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 05:16, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  I can't even memorise one so this template is pretty useful for me. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 05:33, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  I see some room for improvement. K in "kit" and "skit" and c in "cam" and "scam" is the same consonant to me. Also, my tongue touches my teeth to begin the "n" in "nose", so what does "like nose but pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth" mean? The tongue remains on the teeth? Pin/spin - same consonant. Run and butter have the same "r" to me, but many Americans have non-rhotic accents. Again, "s" in "seem" is begun with my tongue touching my teeth, so more specificity is needed in explaining how "s̪" is different. It's late, so I'll go through the rest later, but I am not ready to approve use of this template yet. Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:03, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  In most accents of English, including all standard US accents I believe, the "c" in "cam" and "scam" is pronounced differently (though speakers may not be consciously aware of this, because it's the same phoneme). The "c" in "cam" is aspirated – similar to the difference between the "p" in "pot" and "spot".

  Maybe we should clarify that "s̪" involves the tip of the tongue against the teeth, not just the sides of the tongue. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

  While to Americans (and most other English speakers as Granger points out), these are perceived as the same, there actually may be slight differences that our backgrounds make difficult for us to discern. In other languages, the differences between the sounds are clearer to their native speakers. But I agree that there is always room for improvement. Linguistics and IPA are not straightforward subjects. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 19:36, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Granger, in regard to "cam" and "scam", you're talking about a tiny puff of air that I don't notice unless I really pay attention, having been prompted by you? If so, there's definitely no difference between the "p" in "pot" and "spot", but there's a really almost imperceptible "h" in "cam" - not close to the Hindi "kh", but just a tiny puff of air. I think most English-speakers would be really hard pressed to notice it, though, which makes the distinction pretty useless and mostly confusing - therefore, on balance, quite likely counterproductive - in our phrasebooks. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:06, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Oh, and I pronounce the "s" in "seem" by starting with the tip or the top of my tongue just behind the tip and not the sides of my tongue on my upper incisors. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:08, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

You're right that the aspiration difference is not very salient to English speakers, but it is an essential difference in some languages, so we have to cover it in some phrasebooks. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:23, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Sure, but the coverage has to be more explanatory than cam and scam. Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:36, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

So, looking further: "ch" in "chair" and in "teach" are exactly the same (both have that little aspiration Granger referred to). And again, "like zoo but pronounced with the tongue touching the teeth" is not clear enough because my tongue touches my teeth at the beginning of the "z" in "zoo". Finally, is "ʔ" a glottal stop? That's not the same as an unaspirated "t", so "like uh-oh, or some speakers' cat" is very problematic. In Malay, glottal stops, unaspirated "t"s and unaspirated "p"s are all different sounds that can change the meaning of words. For example, "mak" means "mom" while "Mat" is a man's name, short for Mohammed. (K at the ends of words in Malay is always a glottal stop.) Ikan Kekek (talk) 01:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I would be remiss to not point out that the template only covers consonants and the schwa (ə), no vowels. I did, however, use it at Portuguese phrasebook#Vowels for the time being. Any input that it can't process, it outputs as given. Nelson Ricardo 2500 (talk) 08:19, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Ikan Kekek, it's true that there's a lot of flexibility about how to pronounce certain word-final consonants in English, which means they may not be the best examples for a phrasebook. "Mischievous" may be a better example than "teach". Some speakers do pronounce "cat" with a glottal stop and not a [t] at the end, at least sometimes, but I agree this example is more confusing than helpful. —Granger (talk · contribs) 09:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

"Mischievous" has the same consonant as the other words with "ch" in my pronunciation. What difference is there in your pronunciation? Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I don't think I aspirate the "ch" in "mischievous". —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:45, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

I might aspirate slightly less, but the difference, if any, is so minute that it doesn't seem relevant. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

• Support!!! why not. Quite useful. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 04:28, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not sure it is right yet, mainly because I have not looked at it in detail, but I'm inclined to support anything that makes using IPA easier.

In the pairs of stops p/b, t/d and k/g, the first of each pair is unvoiced & the second voiced. Voicing is phonemic (makes a difference) in English so we hear them as different sounds & write them with different letters. Aspiration (little puff of air), though, is not phonemic; it varies by context & we generally consider the aspirated and unaspirated forms to be the "same sound".

There are languages where aspiration is phonemic & voicing is not. I think this is why Arabs, among others, often mix up 'p' and 'b' in English. Pashley (talk) 06:31, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, Arabic has no letter "pa", unlike Malay when it's written in Jawi (adapted Arabic alphabet). But in Malay, the "pa" isn't usually distinguished from the "fa", and borrow words with "f", which are often from Arabic, can use "p", so "faham"="paham". "P" and "b" are different letters in both Jawi and Rumi (Malay in the Roman alphabet), and I don't think they're ever interchangeable. I think quite a few other languages that are often written in Arabic alphabets, such as Farsi and Urdu, have a "p" sound. Ikan Kekek (talk) 06:51, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Name

Do you all know that "pron" is a common intentional misspelling for "porn"? Ikan Kekek (talk) 23:48, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

yeah, often to bypass filters, but I'd hate to have to type pronunciation compared to pron. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta.wikimedia) 23:50, 31 August 2021 (UTC)