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Shouldn't /mj/ be on the list?

I am nothing but a casual observer. I've never studied phonetics, language, speech, etc., so I have no idea if this is stupid to even bring up. If so, I offer my deepest apologies for wasting anyone's time. That being said, I saw entries for several other "letters followed by the (as I was taught in grade school) long 'U' sound," e.g., /dj/ dew, /lj/ lute, /nj/ newt, etc. Shouldn't there also be an entry for /mj/ as in music, mew, munificent? I have no clue if this is something valid that has been overlooked, or if I just don't know enough about my native language (all of which I'm sure could fill several VERY LARGE tomes) in this instance. Thank you for your time. Brutus6844 (talk) 18:46, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Brutus6844: It's because there is considerable varation in the realization of /dj/, /lj/ etc. in major varieties of English (see yod-dropping and yod-coalescence). In contrast, /mj/ stays /mj/ in all supra-regional varieties and only has yod-dropping in some traditional dialects of England (e.g. stereotypically in Norfolk), which is beyond the scope of variation that we try to capture in this pronunciation key. –Austronesier (talk) 19:56, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

/ɜːr/in British place names

I just came here as I noticed the IPA transcription for Herne Hill is given as /hɜːrn/. I checked a few other English place names and noticed the same use of /ɜːr/. The problem is that nobody says that, whether their accent is rhotic or not, in rhotic accents it is /hɜrn/ and non-rhotic it is /hɜːn/. Is there something I'm missing> Boynamedsue (talk) 07:13, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: The article is correct. If you look at the IPA explanation at Help:IPA/English you'll see a footnote in the entry for /ɜːr/:

In Received Pronunciation, /ɜːr/ is pronounced as a lengthened schwa, [əː]. In General American, it is phonetically identical to /ər/. Some dictionaries therefore use ⟨əː, ər⟩ instead of the conventional notations ⟨ɜː, ɜr⟩. When ⟨ər⟩ is used for /ɜːr/, it is distinguished from /ər/ by marking the syllable as stressed.

Bazza 7 (talk) 08:09, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I have seen that text, but it doesn't answer the point. In General American the pronunciation is different to /ɜːr/, and though I have never seen [əː] given for the NURSE vowel in RP (in as much as it exists), we can definitely agree it is not pronounced as /ɜːr/. As you allude to, the standard notation used for the NURSE vowel in the UK is /ɜː/. So why are we using a phonetic transcription which is not used by anybody?Boynamedsue (talk) 16:58, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not a phonetic transcription, it's a diaphonemic abstraction that encodes how it is pronounced in the major accents of natively-spoken English. The choice of /ɜːr/ is a blend of the traditional way of transcribing the corresponding RP and GA sounds, viz. /ɜː/ and /ər/. We could also have chosen /☎/, but that's less intuitive than the more realistic /ɜːr/. –Austronesier (talk) 19:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: Thanks. That looks like a more professional way of saying what I took four paragraphs to explain below. Bazza 7 (talk) 19:21, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Boynamedsue: I think you are mistakenly assuming that /r/ always means "pronounce it as in 'rye'". When combined with other symbols, such as /ɜː/, it can be pronounced differently or not at all, as shown in the tables and notes at Help:IPA/English.

Take a look at Collins dictionary on-line, which uses /nɜːʳs/ for the pronunciation of "nurse". Its [https://blog.collinsdictionary.com/ipa-pronunciation-guide-cobuild/ guide states that /ɜːʳ/ is pronounced as in "turn" or "third", with a note that the /ʳ/ superscript shows that in Received Pronunciation the /r/ is pronounced only when it is followed by a vowel, while in General American it is always pronounced. Apart from using a superscript, this is the same as the notation Wikipedia uses, so your assertion that this is not used by anybody is not correct.

Other publications use different symbols: Cambridge and [dictionary.com https://www.dictionary.com/browse/nurse] use the notation you used above for what they call the "UK" pronunciation of "nurse" (although people in Lancashire and Norfolk may argue that is wrong). They use a different notation for the "US" pronunciation: /nɝːs/ and /nɜrs/ respectively.

Wikipedia has chose to use the symbols and symbol combinations defined Help:IPA/English. So for "Herne", /hɜːrn/ means "h" as in "hi", "ur" as in "fur" and "n" as in "nigh" (which you will see as tooltips if your device supports hovering over the IPA), regardless of which variation of English you speak. In my southern English version of British English, I do not pronounce the "r" in "fur", so Wikipedia's IPA definition for /ɜːr/ ("ur" as in "fur") is correct for me. Bazza 7 (talk) 19:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to Austronesier for explaining the fact it is not actually intended to accurately reflect ANY pronunciation. I think that it probably should, but I would imagine the debate about whether to use local standard pronunciations in English-language place names was lost long ago. I am also a little worried that people who know the phonetic alphabet might take these transcriptions at face value, and it seems strange that this aspect of WP:IPA is in effect WP:OR.

Still, I doubt it's going to change, so there we have it.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:17, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

FWIW ⟨ɜːr⟩ is phonetically representative of RP when prevocalic, as in furry, occurring. It's also phonemically representative even when not prevocalic of some accents without the hurry–furry merger, e.g. Hiberno and West Country. Nardog (talk) 22:50, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that probably makes it worse to a degree! We might be better off with the telephone symbol suggested by Austrioneser. If even linguistically trained people need to click on the link and read Help:IPA/English to make use of our transcription system (and there is nothing to advise anybody they meed to do this) I don't think it is benefitting anybody.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:42, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 September 2024 — Article: Help:IPA/English

In the vowel table, switch iː and ɪ back. NoShldJ (talk) 05:46, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Nardog (talk) 06:30, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

COMMA example?

I'm a little confused. In my ear, and I'm pretty sure in British English in most (all?) accents, also Australian and New Zealand, maybe US but I'm not sure, the A in comma is Open-mid back unrounded vowel ʌ, not schwa ə. Like the second a panda? Or koala? 125.168.22.109 (talk) 08:53, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

In my several-decades-old British English accent, comma, panda and koala all end in /ə/. A /ʌ/ would be "too long and open", if you know what I mean. Bazza 7 (talk) 09:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

That's what a phoneme is: an abstract category of sounds that are not in contrastive distribution with one another. Colour in isolation may be pronounced with vowels of similar qualities, but not coloured, colourful, etc., which are still obviously colour + suffix. Nardog (talk) 14:01, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

/r/-less NEAR and CURE in South African English (and RP?)

By analogy with //ɜː//, we should probably add r-less //ɪə// and //ʊə// (note that it doesn't normally vary with /ɔː/ or /ɜː/ - another reason to make it separate from //ʊər//) for Afrikaans loanwords in South African English (see South African English phonology#Vowels). I can't imagine an American calling Reeva Steenkamp /ˈstɪrnkʌmp/, or Marie Koopmans-de Wet /ˈkʊrpmʌnz də ˈvɛt/. They'd go for /i, u/ or maybe /eɪ, oʊ/ (or, unlikely, /i.ə, u.ə/, which is the best they could do to approximate the Afrikaans pronunciation). We could also think about adding /a/ and /ɔ/ to the guide (the latter is written with ⟨o⟩ in South African English phonology, but the point is that it's a shortened THOUGHT vowel, so ⟨ɔ⟩ would be perfectly fine for this guide. Also, this is how this vowel is transcribed in Afrikaans, and invariably so, to the best of my knowledge).

Articles that would (as of now) be affected by this change:

• Botha
• Chenin blanc
• Diepsloot
• Koopmans-de Wet House
• Louis Botha
• Marie Koopmans-de Wet
• P. W. Botha
• Potchefstroom
• Reeva Steenkamp
• Roodepoort
• Vereeniging
• Vredefort
• Vredenburg
• Vredendal

And probably a few more that I'm not aware of. I'm planning on adding more SAE transcriptions in the future. I think Botha is traditionally /ˈbʊətə/ also in RP.

//ɔ// could be used in Hendrik Potgieter /pɔtˈxiːtər/ (see ), whereas //a// could be used in the aforementioned Steenkamp /ˈstɪənkamp/ and Koopmans-de Wet /ˈkʊəpmanz də ˈvɛt/ - and also in Vredendal /ˈfrɪədəndal/ (I think Nietgedacht also has this vowel and so does Bloubosrand). Olifantsfontein has both: /ˈɔlifantsfɒnteɪn/ (see ). I see no reason not to add at least the first two, as SAE is spoken by about 30 million people (give or take, I don't know the exact figure). This guide transcribes phonemic distinctions that the majority of speakers of English do not have in their vowel system, like the STRUT-COMMA distinction (see ), or a phonemic /x/ which, as of 2024, is probably the most South African feature of this guide, as it's disappearing from Scottish English and doesn't really make a regular appearance in other dialects.

This is how I'd add them to the table.

Also, do we have the SAE labels in the IPAc-en template? Sol505000 (talk) 12:32, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how it could be justified to add those when we no longer have a distinct FORCE. Like varieties that maintain NORTH–FORCE, SAE is not a variety large lexicographical works are available for. Whenever transcribing a word with a phonemic distinction the diaphonemic system doesn't account for, one should just not link to this key. In that vein, I'd find creating a phonetic key for SAE more sensible than adding marginal segments to this key. Nardog (talk) 04:58, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Also, what does SAE have in idea, theatre, cruel, etc.? Nardog (talk) 05:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

LPD transcribes a distinct FORCE vowel as a possibility in GenAm (as /oʊr/), but I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to reintroduce it to this guide.

Yes, you mostly have to transcribe by ear, which is not a problem at least with /ɪə ʊə/. With /a/, you can go by orthography (/ʌ/ is also fine, IMO. They're close enough. Lass didn't really convince me they're not the same phoneme, but that's off-topic). For the former two, the rule is that in loanwords from Afrikaans, ⟨ee⟩ and ⟨oo⟩ (sometimes just a single ⟨e⟩ and ⟨o⟩) stand for /ɪə ʊə/. The glide is easily detectable by ear. /ɔ/ is probably the most tricky of all to transcribe. ⟨ɔː⟩ would be completely inappropriate - it makes Potgieter into Port Gieter, with wrong length. ⟨ɒ⟩ is not terribly wrong, it has the correct length, but wrong height and too little rounding. It's sometimes used instead of /ɔ/. /ʊ/ is usually too central and not rounded enough in SAE, so ⟨ʊ⟩ is as wrong as ⟨ɔː⟩. I guess that SAE /ɔ/ truly cannot be transcribed using IPAc-en.

A guide specific for SAE is doable. One for Scottish English could be created as well. If we create a guide for SAE, should that system be always used, so also in e.g. Johannesburg [dʒœʊˈhænɨsbøːɡ]?

I'm not sure. They could be smoothed in Cultivated SAE, which is basically SAE-flavored RP with little difference between the two. But I think even (some?) Cultivated speakers have at least a distinct /ɔ/, due to bilingualism. If their /ʌ/ is consistently back (and it's not in General SAE), then /a/ must also be distinct, if it's not replaced with /æ/ instead. Sol505000 (talk) 10:29, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Problem with ɔː r not visible in the chart.

The symbols ɔː r in the chart don't show up properly in my default sans serif font, which I believe is Verdana rather than Arial (I never use Arial because it makes capital i and lowercase L look identical). I'm using Chrome on Windows.

If you don't put an extra space between "ɔː " and r in Verdana, the "ː " part overlaps with the r and you cannot see it at all (in fact, I had to write it as "ː " with the quote marks intervening to add an extra space, because WP does not allow double spaces and it looked like :part before I added the quotes). This is a significant visibility problem, and I'm not sure if the font is to blame or something else. 2600:1700:B7B0:950:F4A6:4C1D:FBBE:3291 (talk) 20:53, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

I assume you mean Tahoma, not Verdana. The font is to blame. See Help:IPA#Rendering issues, including how you can fix it (if you register). Or you can switch to another font such as—well, Verdana. Nardog (talk) 21:05, 23 January 2025 (UTC)

J

Why is 'j' used for a 'y' sound? 2001:FB1:10D:B016:FD42:14F4:6BAF:2DB5 (talk) 07:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)

Because it's a common letter for it. That's the "I" of the IPA. Nardog (talk) 06:34, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

Not in English, it isn't, so that's not a terribly helpful answer to someone asking the question. — LlywelynII 14:10, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Because the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is based on Latin and its kids and not on English. It's the same reason /i/ is used for what became the long E sound in English after the Great Vowel Shift. You already know the letter shape ⟨y⟩ has lots of sounds in English, only one of which is the consonant sound /j/. You probably already know that many other languages use the letter shape ⟨j⟩ for that sound, like the German ⟨ja⟩ that sounds like what you'd write as "yah" in English. That's why. — LlywelynII 14:10, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Starting 'a...'

I can't find the IPA for 'a' as in 'as', or 'accent', or 'advent' in the list; neither "ɑː" (cited: palm, bra, father - all longer vowel sounds), nor "ə" (cited: comma, abbot, bazaar - all more schwa sounds), fit well. What should be used, please? - MPF (talk) 00:38, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Use /æ/. /ˈæz ˈæksɛnt ˈædvɛnt/. It's in the chart with sample words "TRAP, bag, sang, tattoo". Indefatigable (talk) 01:35, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Indefatigable: Really? I read that as da:æ, same as de:ä, like a short -ae-, which is a very different sound. I also see /æ/ has a note "Some British sources, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, use ⟨a⟩ instead of /æ/ to transcribe this vowel. This more closely reflects the actual vowel quality in contemporary Received Pronunciation", so should it not be ⟨a⟩, which sounds far more realistic? Nobody æctuælly says an 'æ' sound when they mean æn 'a' sound? - MPF (talk) 09:43, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't have formal training in linguistics, but it is my understanding that /æ/ has been the de facto standard notation for this English phoneme for over a hundred years, and it has been in use for this purpose on Wikipedia since its inception. Indefatigable (talk) 00:12, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Indefatigable: Thanks! I'll not fight it then, even if it does look strange. - MPF (talk) 15:08, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Indefatigable or anyone else - I've been looking (and listening to the recordings) further, and it's definitely IPA 304 Open front unrounded vowel [a] that I need, and not IPA 325 Near-open front unrounded vowel [æ], which is definitely the wrong sound. But when I put in [a], it gives me an error message? How can that be sorted so it doesn't give the error message? Thanks! - MPF (talk) 14:48, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Have you read the prose parts of the help page? We don't represent specific sounds in transcriptions linking to this key, just abstract categories (diaphonemes). Nardog (talk) 14:59, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Nardog - I've taken a look, and don't see anything particularly relevant there! But it is rather out of my depth, unfortunately - MPF (talk) 15:51, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

@MPF: What Ndog is saying is that if you think ⟨as⟩ is pronounced /az/ instead of /æz/, that's an issue with your dialect and not standard English. There's a separate article Sound correspondences between English accents that might be more helpful for you to pin down what you're looking for. It lists something similar to your assumed pronunciation for a range of English northern and Midland dialects, along with the 'realized' contemporary form of RP and various colonial dialects like Barbadian and Cameroonian.

If you were trying to figure out what your dialect looks like when it's transcribed into IPA, the [bracket] form will be the exact sounds you make using their IPA symbols (here [az]) but what you'll find on Wikipedia and every standard dictionary will be transcriptions using the /slashy/ diaphonemic form that you find in the far left column on that dialect chart. In other words, what you say as IPA [az] will be transcribed as /æz/ to the point where you might as well just consider ⟨æ⟩ to represent your [a] sound when writing for the general public. (As for how that happened, see Lexical set#Standard lexical sets for English. He considered [æ] to be the transcription of the same sound in both RP and GA and his work's continued to be copied over and over, as with the needlessly smallcapped words on this page.)

You're right that the page should more clearly explain what it's using as the default dialect, because its current form is obviously wonky (e.g. the various yoddy consonants aren't normal in any major dialect these days but are being treated as standard English for some reason). — LlywelynII 14:31, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

/dʒ/

Surely we should include an example word using the letter J here, not just "giant" and "bridge". J and not soft G is the default English transcription for those sounds.

Any preferences? Jay? June? January? John? Japan? just? — LlywelynII 14:12, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

'June' might be problematic. Any of the others would be fine. I'd go with 'just'. — kwami (talk) 19:04, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Most examples are followed by /aɪ/ to form minimal pairs, hence giant. We could replace it with jive. Nardog (talk) 02:34, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

That works. I'll make the change. — kwami (talk) 03:27, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Smallcaps

Is there any particular reason to have those at all? What is the benefit to the wp:reader of drawing any attention to John Wells's list, especially if you're getting wp:pointy and removing some of his own examples from our list? The point of any lexical set is just to serve as what our examples are already doing. If we've improved on Wells's choices, that's great. Why highlight any of his work instead of just lowercasing everything except capitalized proper nouns? — LlywelynII 14:50, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

It's worth noting them because that's what the vowels are called. 'The KIT vowel' etc. They're not just examples. Also, they don't depend on us choosing our own words that might prove inaccurate if we've overlooked some accent, which is a problem we've had in the past. — kwami (talk) 19:07, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

There's a mistake in Note 17 where it says, "...as in [ˈdaəri] diary". The IPA should be [ˈdaɪəri]. The ɪ is missing. 1.126.110.116 (talk) 10:53, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

fixed — kwami (talk) 11:50, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

No, that is intentional. [ɪ] gets dropped in RP-like accents (what Wells calls Smoothing). Nardog (talk) 00:24, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Introducing superscripts

I’d like to propose a minor change to the key that would hopefully put an end to the frequent misunderstanding that our key is supradialectal. What about representing optionally silent sounds in realizations of the /əl/ /ən/ /ər/ /ɑːr/ /ɔːr/ etc. phonemes with a superscript? It would help distinguish them more clearly from the separate sequences and, for /r/-colored vowels, show the fleeting nature of the /r/ in a more straightforward way for those who insist on removing it from UK English transcriptions. This is already (partly) common practice on the Cambridge Dictionary. Examples:

• {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|ɪ|s|ən}} → /ˈlɪsᵊn/, {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|ɪ|s|ən|ɪ|ŋ}} → /ˈlɪsᵊnɪŋ/
• {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|eɪ|b|əl}} → /ˈleɪbᵊl/, {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|eɪ|b|əl|ɪ|ŋ}} → /ˈleɪbᵊlɪŋ/; but
• {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|eɪ|b|ər}} → /ˈleɪbəʳ/, {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|eɪ|b|ər|d}} → /ˈleɪbəʳd/, {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|eɪ|b|ər|ɪ|ŋ}} → /ˈleɪbᵊrɪŋ/.

(Compare with {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|ɛ|m|ə|n}}, not {{IPAc-en|ˈ|l|ɛ|m|ən}}, or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɛ|l|ə|n}}, not {{IPAc-en|ˈ|m|ɛ|l|ən}}, which would thus appear as /ˈlɛmən/ and /ˈmɛlən/, respectively.) What do you guys think? ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:11, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I think I basically agree with your proposal, though I'm not understanding why listen would be treated differently than lemon. Wolfdog (talk) 14:49, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

This is a fine and dandy idea and all, it's just weird. I'd say putting them in parentheses would look more logical. Also, yeah, why wouldn't the schwa in lemon or melon be considered un-optional? Babelball (talk) 14:51, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

The parentheses are already used in the template to mark entirely optional phonemes, so IMO it would be confusing to mark optional phonetic realizations in the same way. As for lemon and the like, as far as I’m aware sequences like [mn̩] are impossible in English. Correct me if I’m mistaken though. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 14:57, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

No, I use that sequence all the time. Oh, and also, in the case of /n/ occuring before /n̩/, the non-syllabic n becomes a nasal tap. Babelball (talk) 15:25, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

The aforementioned Cambridge Dictionary confirms they are different cases: listen vs lemon. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 15:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Although you're right that Cambridge bafflingly transcribes them differently, the (British) audio they provide has the exact same final syllables! In my own accent, an American one, they are narrowly [ˈɫɛmɪn] and [ˈɫɪsɪn], or in rapid speech certainly [ˈɫɛmn̩] and [ˈɫɪsn̩]. (I also wonder if Babelball's parentheses idea is preferable.) Wolfdog (talk) 15:18, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

As a non-native speaker, I find it interesting that you’re both having the same take on this, given that I was just checking the OED and they seem to do the same as Cambridge (listen vs lemon). There is surely a reason behind this choice so I guess we should dive deeper into the matter. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 15:32, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

It's most likely just a policy they have. Of course, it could also be that having a nasal cluster would be too unsightly, but I believe the former is more believable. Babelball (talk) 15:51, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

The OED seems to have the odd convention of not showing syllable breaks or syllabic nasals in such a way that they write /ˈlɪsn/. Following this logic, cannon would be the very strange-looking /ˈkann/, so they instead avoid the double consonant and write /ˈkanən/. In short, the OED seem to set themselves up for a trap that they then invent a second convention just to avoid. Strange. Wolfdog (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster (USA) also follows the initial pattern you presented (but, even more mysterious, not for soften!). American Heritage Dictionary just uses /ən/ for all these; at least some consistency there! Check this out too. I'm not sure how up-to-date the page is. Wolfdog (talk) 18:31, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, I do not recall ever seeing that page! Provides a good overall comparison. In any case, while I understand /ˈkanən/ over /ˈkann/, there would be no reason to transcribe /ˈlɛmən/ over /ˈlɛmn/ unless they viewed the final /ən/ as non-phonemic as opposed to /ˈlɪsn/; or some other sort of opposition. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I'd really like to hear [ˈɫɛmn̩] and [ˈkænn]. They both look awfully non-English to me, more like German or something. The frustration of deciding "did he just say kein or keinen?" is something I've never experienced when listening to a native speaker of English. Sol505000 (talk) 11:54, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

To be fair, both German and English use /n̩/. Babelball (talk) 13:52, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Not in the same contexts, that's the point. Sol505000 (talk) 15:39, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Firstly, this is relatively out of scope of the topic of this discussion. Secondly, German uses “en” as a plural suffix and as a suffix used for verb conjugation. English just uses the sound in regular terminology, i.e., linen, lemon, cannon, persimmon, clementine, etc, so it is technically different contexts. Babelball (talk) 03:15, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Please provide a citation for the usage of a syllabic nasal after nasals (or laterals), rather than [ən] or [ɨn]. These are not the same thing. You just keep repeating yourself without any backup. Sol505000 (talk) 08:38, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

You are going off track. The topic discussed here is a change in the symbol representing the cases in which that phoneme can be realized as a single sound in English. The issue is to clearly identify what those cases are. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 10:55, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

As suggested previously, if we're to do this the obvious route is to make the module automatically detect the surrounding sounds and superscript the appropriate letters (perhaps with an option to force or disable it, for truncated transcriptions with hyphens etc.). Nardog (talk) 14:23, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

I think using superscripts in that way is a good idea. 1.126.110.116 (talk) 10:55, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Btw I’ve been thinking, if we implement this change, that we would probably also have to go for /dʲ/ /nʲ/ /ʰw/ etc. out of consistency. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 11:56, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

I think not, judging by how inconsistent (and confusing) it would be with other guides that use ⟨ʲ ʰ⟩ in the proper official-IPA way, denoting palatalization and aspiration. Sol505000 (talk) 10:03, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

As has been pointed out in previous discussions, though, we’re already using IPA in a very peculiar way for this help key. And I’m sure there could be (and probably have been) attempts at replacing /nj/ /hw/ etc. with other transcriptions from users who fail to understand they’re diaphonemic. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 11:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

Support superscripts per the last time I remember this coming up. Double sharp (talk) 12:28, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

/dj/

The current example for /dj/ is dew, which is terrible as it’s only true for British English, despite examples of words that use the /dj/ sound in both American and British English. I propose the example be changed to pleasure. Note: originally this post stated examples jump and bridge due to a misunderstanding of the /dj/ sound. This has now been corrected.2600:1700:B3A0:1510:7032:33EC:C590:2771 (talk) 02:57, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

You're missing the point - it's [dj] in UK and [d] is most of US. 'jump' would be wrong for both. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

Oops! All the sources I found at that time said British English dew was pronounced with a “j” sound, but it turns out it is a different sound after all! The current example is still bad though for the reasons I gave in the original post. I now propose the change be made to at least add pleasure if not totally replace dew entirely. I will update the post now. 2600:1700:B3A0:1510:2956:9157:D64E:47AF (talk) 00:58, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

'Pleasure' again has an entirely different sound — kwami (talk) 02:01, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

That is the whole point. The key is diaphonemic: if you live somewhere (like most of the US) where dew has [d] and not [dj], then the key is telling you to read /dj/ as identical with /d/. And pleasure has the entirely different sound /ʒ/. Double sharp (talk) 02:10, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Just checking—are you familiar with the difference between phonemes (represented between slashes //) and phones (represented between square brackets [])? If not, the responses you've received may be confusing to you.

Also, in case it isn't clear yet: in IPA, the symbol j represents the sound that in English is associated with the letter "y" (but which in some other languages using the Roman alphabet, such as the Norse languages, German, Dutch, and Polish), is spelled "j"). So the word "you", for example, is represented phonemically as /ju/. IPA has a y but it represents a rounded vowel such as the one in French "tu" and German "über". Largoplazo (talk) 02:45, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

Jump and bridge have /dʒ/, not /dj/. Nardog (talk) 10:47, 2 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm thinking about deuterium, but some speakers pronounce it with a /dʒ/. I'm not sure is this example useful, as deuterium is not really a common word. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 12:44, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

It has the exact same pattern as dew, like many other words with historical /djuː/. Not sure what your point is; we want a word that's pronounced with /d/ by those with yod-dropping, with /dʒ/ by those with yod-coalescence, and with /dj/ by those with neither to illustrate the diaphoneme /dj/ because that's what it represents. Nardog (talk) 15:04, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

I speak southern British English, and pronounce the starts of each of "deuterium", "dew", "due" and "duly" as [dj], with a more intense "d" in "dew" than the rest (not sure how to signify that). Bazza 7 (talk) 10:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

More to the point is there a reason we're treating the yods here and at /zj/ etc. as standard English at all? They aren't. They were previously standard in some British dialects but now aren't the majority pronunciation even there. They should just be treated as a separate category of marginal consonants like you see in (e.g.) Help:IPA/Dutch. — LlywelynII 13:58, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree that it's a bit odd we list /dj/, /lj/, /θj/, etc. almost as if those are phonemes. However, I admit I can't think of any simple/better alternative. I assume the WP editors who made this choice are trying to create diaphonemes which (as Nardog already mentioned) neatly subsume yod-dropping dialects, yod-coalescing dialects, and more conservative dialects that do neither all under a single simple transcription convention. Wolfdog (talk) 14:39, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

I’m the one that originally made this (post? Talk? Idk) and I feel that if I’m able to be confused by the arrangement of the table, most others that don’t know much about the field, like I, would also be confused. We should probably make a separate table for these “dialect changing phonemes” (idk what to call it) to prevent further confusion, where the table could explain what exactly they are instead of being condemned to being a footnote. 2600:1700:B3A0:1510:65FF:1646:16E9:46B4 (talk) 17:28, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

As a separate and less important issue, the note here is wrong. In yod dropping dialects (which—again—are just all the standard English dialects at this point) dew and do aren't homophones. In most phrasing, they'll be distinct to native speakers, because the first is pronounced longer (/duː/) than the second (/du/). — LlywelynII 14:03, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

What's your source that yod-dropping is now the norm in the UK? That doesn't seem born out by the Brits I hear.

Dew and do are perfect homonyms in my accent, which is pretty much GA. I can't judge for others, of course, but we have plenty of refs that they are homonyms in yod-dropping accents. — kwami (talk) 19:02, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Per Phonological history of English consonant clusters#Yod-dropping, it's pretty normal in some environments, but not in others. Yod-dropping after /d/, /t/, /n/ does not seem to occur in British English.

(I think I consistently keep yods after /d/, /t/, /n/. After other consonants my idiolect isn't very consistent.) Double sharp (talk) 06:23, 18 February 2025 (UTC)

FORCE and NORTH

FORCE = /foːɻs/ while NORTH = /nɔːɻθ/. ~2025-31155-13 (talk) 11:46, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

This page is using the basic ⟨r⟩ grapheme to represent the cross-dialectal phoneme, not the symbol that reflects its realization in specific dialects. Also, check out the page's first paragraph. Largoplazo (talk) 18:21, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

Why are some examples using explicitly merged words?

It seems counterproductive at best, and a prank on the reader at worst, to use examples like "Mary, marry, merry" in the table. Shouldn't examples be chosen such that the greatest number of speakers would pronounce the word in the indicated way? For example, "moral" which I pronounce with ɔɹ, could be "borrow" instead, like it's own footnote says, and which more people, myself included, pronounce with ɒɹ. Tesserex (talk) 14:27, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Certain major English dialects pronounce "Mary" differently than "marry". If yours doesn't, then you can assume to just collapse /ær/ and /ɛər/ together. Certain major English dialects pronounce "moral" differently than "more'll" (as in "I don't have enough shipments, but more'll come soon"). If yours doesn't, then you can assume to just collapse /ɒr/ and /ɔːr/. (I sense you have an American accent? In most American dialects, borrow falls under a third category: /ɑːr/, so that the first syllable of borrow is the same as bar.) Wolfdog (talk) 14:57, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Read the paragraph preceding the tables. We don't want to convey specific sounds because they're not what the diaphonemes represent. We want to convey whatever is the realization in each reader's accent. Nardog (talk) 03:21, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

We should use different IPA symbol for english: English after RP

Hello,

I would like to bring the issue about the current use of the IPA symbol for english. It've been demonstrated by Linguist like Geoff Lindsey (from University College London) that the current IPA symbols choosen to represent english phonems are wrong in many ways. Like for exemble the phoneme /iː/ which is not at all pronunced like a long /i/ but like /ij/ in southern brittish english. Or another examble is the vowel in "boat" depicted by the symbol /eʊ/ unlike the real used pronunciation which is /ow/

The book "English after RP" explains all of that in great details, and for a free alternative, I don't know I it's allowed to post youtube link so I don't do it but I invite anyone interested to chek the youtube channel of Geoff Lindsey, there's videos about this exact topic.

Furthermore there is the CUBE dictionnary (CUBE = current brittish english) that act as a good source using a modern proper set of IPA symbols to better discribe the way english is pronounced. Malekpe (talk) 23:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

English is not restricted to RP. — kwami (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I assume that Malekpe meant the explanations of the RP correspondences of the diaphonemic signs on this page, not the actual diaphonemic system that Wikipedia uses - so what he was talking about is, indeed, restricted to RP. If he did mean the diaphonemic system, his remark was misguided not because 'English is not restricted to RP' but because that system isn't really an attempt to reflect adequately the phonetic realisation of any dialect. That said, this confusion only goes to show that the current diaphonemic system is misleading, since it looks like a phonetic transcription of an existing dialect, but is actually a set of abstract symbols that are meant to reflect all dialects simultaneously, regardless of the actual realisation. Wikipedia should adopt enPR like Wiktionary, because it does not create the misleading impression of an attempt at phonetic accuracy for those of us who do understand IPA.--Anonymous44 (talk) 23:17, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

If someone doesn't know what slashes indicate then they don't understand IPA. Nardog (talk) 23:55, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

No, slashes don't stand for diaphonemic transcription. They stand for phonemic transcription. That is not at all the same thing. Next, the very choice of using a phonemic transcription is debatable - unlike (broad) phonetic realisation, which is undeniable, it is a highly theoretical and debatable question what it is phonemic, underlying etc. The difference between phonemic form and phonetic realisation is often large and many non-native speakers would fail to figure out the difference and apply it. Finally, it is a reasonable assumption that most of our readers 'don't understand IPA', and, more importantly, that the ones who do tend to be non-native speakers who have been taught using IPA, where it was used in a broad phonetic transcription - and enIPA looks sufficiently similar to that very transcription to cause confusion. --Anonymous44 (talk) 11:55, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Finally, it is a reasonable assumption that most of our readers 'don't understand IPA': Isn't that what this help page is for? Also, I guarantee you that practically no reader understands the CUBE system, almost certainly never having heard of it or come across it. In addition, doesn't it amount to telling everybody that doesn't speak a certain variety of England English that they're on their own? That's the problem that phonemic transcription attempts to alleviate. (I found it described in a YouTube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tcrv8lgLbk. The dictionary at https://cubedictionary.org/ isn't responding. Or, rather, it doesn't accept modern https: secure communication, and using old http:, it redirects to a website with an .hu domain suffix that doesn't respond.)

Maybe how CUBE would be useful here is explained in the longer video. You can certainly post a link to a YouTube video in a talk page for discussion purposes! Is it the one at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OULnCCvdk8? If not, where is it? Might you please tell us where in the video the relevant portion is so we don't need to sit through the entire hour-plus of it to see what you have in mind? Largoplazo (talk) 13:43, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

No, slashes don't stand for diaphonemic transcription. They stand for phonemic transcription. – I wholeheartedly agree. We tried to amend this, but we did not reach a consensus (either way) in RfC: Should we keep delimiting diaphonemic transcriptions with single slashes? --mach 🙈🙉🙊 19:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

It still doesn't make our transcription of the vowels problematic unless we delve into phonemic mergers, or distinctions not covered in the guide. On the other hand, transcriptions like /nɔːrθ/ are problematic with single slashes as they suggest that the /r/ is there on the phonemic level also in non-rhotic dialects, which is not the case at all. I've heard non-rhotic Brits and Australians slip up and say things like [θɔɾt] for 'thought' when attempting a Russian or Scottish accent, countless times. The /r/ is long gone and so I'd support the switch to double slashes, also because the same applies to /hw/.

While I agree that Lindsey's system is vastly more accurate for SSB (though some changes apply cross-dialectally, e.g. FLEECE is almost universally a diphthong), it has the same problem as the reformed orthography for Australian English: ⟨ɔ⟩ is very likely to be misinterpreted as THOUGHT. The other problem is that almost nobody uses it and that probably won't change in the foreseeable future. Sol505000 (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

The fatal flaw with transcribing a specific accent is that soon there will be accusations of discrimination because we don't include my accent, and soon there will be half a dozen or more pronunciations for every entry, inconsistent and contradictory like the ridiculous system they use on Wiktionary. Because this is not a dictionary, there's a high likelihood that we'll end up banning pronunciations altogether, just as we banned Indian names and scripts (the only country so discriminated against on WP) due to the endless edit-wars that including them produced.

If you want to use double slashes or back slashes to mark our transcription as diaphonemic, I would support you, but it needs to remain diaphonemic. — kwami (talk) 20:14, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

My point is that someone who understands IPA by definition does not expect "phonetic accuracy" in transcriptions enclosed in slashes. Nardog (talk) 13:54, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

enPR is an american convention that's not readily accepted by the rest of the world. that said, i wouldn't be opposed to using it alongside the IPA instead of the current respelling system, which doesn't work for all words.

double slashes for the IPA have also been proposed, and would be more accurate, but it's been objected that anyone who needs that cue isn't likely to understand IPA anyway. i don't know how true that would turn out to be. — kwami (talk) 03:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

​ enPR and Respell are highly misleading to many outside of the US and most people outside of the Anglosphere. While non-native speakers should not be given priority over natives, there are many non-native users, and it is they who are more likely to need a pronunciation guide. These respellings can supplement IPA, but it should not replace it. —  AjaxSmack  15:34, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Everyone can look up what the symbols of enPR and Respell stand for by opening this page. And such looking up is inevitable, because there is no transcription system that can be guaranteed to be understood by a lay native or non-native speaker in advance. EnPR and respell are based on the way English letters are usually pronounced, which any non-native reading English Wikipedia will already be familiar with to a great extent, so they have a good start. For non-native speakers who haven't been taught using IPA, it is, if anything, likely to be harder to understand than enPR. For those who have been taught using IPA, Wikipedia's diaphonemic system is misleading, because they are used to interpreting IPA as a broad phonetic transcription, not as a phonemic one. I.e. they may well try to pronounce the words as if this were a phonetic transcription.--Anonymous44 (talk) 11:55, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Like for exemble the phoneme /iː/ which is not at all pronunced like a long /i/ but like /ij/ in southern brittish english. Or another examble is the vowel in "boat" depicted by the symbol /eʊ/ unlike the real used pronunciation which is /ow/. That's the whole point. We can't write a phonetic representation that covers the English spoken by more than the speakers of one variety of English. Written with correct notation, your statement would have been "Like for exemble the phoneme /iː/ which is not at all pronunced like a long [i] but like [ij] in southern brittish english. Or another examble is the vowel in "boat" depicted by the symbol /eʊ/ unlike the real used pronunciation which is [ow]." Symbols within square brackets represent the sounds that a given speaker actually produces. Symbols between slashes represent phonemes, abstract constructs put together to create a model for the actual diversity of pronunciation systems followed by speakers. So, for example, the first sound in "thin" is treated abstractly as a phoneme /θ/ that, for most English speakers, corresponds to the actual pronunciation [θ] while, for some, in some positions in a word, it's [t] or [tʰ] or [f] instead. The symbol chosen for a given phoneme is, to some extent, arbitrary. It's going to be chosen to be suggestive of the actual sound it typically corresponds to. But it isn't necessarily the actual pronunciation of any given speaker.

The alternative to this phonemic representation would be for Wikipedia to represent the actual pronunciation of a very small community of people that would then be useless to speakers from anywhere else. I think that that's what you thought was happening here, that only the speech of a small subset of the English-speaking world was being represented, but the phonemic representations cover much more of the English-speaking world. To translate that phonemic representation into the speech of a given variety of English, you just have to know how the speakers of that variety produces each of the phonemes when they speak. Largoplazo (talk) 16:23, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

/r/

The "r" sound in English is not /r/ (voiced alveolar trill), but rather /ɹ̠/, the voiced postalveolar approximant, or often for convenience generalised as /ɹ/, the voiced alveolar approximant. The voiced alveolar trill was used in older dialects of English, like high RP, but is now very far from the norm, only really appearing in Scottish dialects, and seems misplaced to list it here? I get this is explained in the footnote but it feels misinformative to generalise quite different consonants purely for the sake of convenience, as that seems to contradict the purpose of the IPA? Natejb2003 (talk) 12:26, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

Phonemic analysis isn't purely for the sake of convenience, and it doesn't contradict the purpose of the IPA. In fact it is the primary purpose of the IPA, which is clear if you read the Handbook of the IPA, pp. 27ff. Nardog (talk) 14:43, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

The linked text does not claim what you say - it only says distinguishing between phonemes is one of the purposes of the IPA, not the primary one - and in any case using broad transcription and sticking to standard letters of the Latin alphabet at the expense of phonetic accuracy is not 'phonemic analysis'. The real reason why using /r/ is acceptable is because the whole system used by Wikipedia is diaphonemic and abstract, i.e. it is not really meant to express the specific phonetic realisation of any given dialect of English, but to signal them all simultaneously. Which only goes to show, just like the previous thread, that the use of IPA for a diaphonemic transcription leads to misunderstandings. The proposals for changes are due to people not understanding that the system is diaphonemic, and the people objecting to the proposals obviously keep forgetting that fact just as the OPs do. Therefore, as I wrote above, Wikipedia should use enPR, as Wiktionary does, or something similar - a system that does not mislead readers by looking like a phonetic transcription.--Anonymous44 (talk) 23:37, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

It says From its earliest days (see appendix 4) the International Phonetic Association has aimed to provide 'a separate sign for each distinctive sound; that is, for each sound which, being used instead of another, in the same language, can change the meaning of a word'. This notion of a 'distinctive sound' is what became widely known in the twentieth century as the phoneme; /tru/ might be suitable for the English word true or the French word trou; and The term 'broad' sometimes carries the extra implication that, as far as possible, unmodified letters of the roman alphabet have been used. Nardog (talk) 23:58, 11 August 2025 (UTC)

decisions on which sounds qualify for their own letters depends on whether they're a phonemic distinction in languages, with exceptions like dentals. but it's still a phonetic alphabet; the phonemic criterion just means that few diacritics are needed for broad transcription, making for a cleaner appearance in many situations. — kwami (talk) 03:16, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

The value of each IPA letter is defined by natural classes rather than specific phonetic quality in the 1989 Principles, and that just follows in the footsteps of the first and second principles of the very first IPA of 1888. Nardog (talk) 09:45, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Exactly! This is pointless… Compare English pronunciation of name Robert (with [ɹ̠]) to Italian, Czech, Polish, Finnish or Dutch (with [r]). The difference is significant.

What is the point of making such a mess? ~2025-39939-23 (talk) 03:59, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Dutch /r/ can be almost anything, including the very retroflex/postalveolar approximant you can find in English. Typical Northern Standard Dutch renditions of the name 'Robert' would be [ˈɾɔʊbəɹt] (alveolar tap + pre-velar approximant), [ˈʀɔʊbəɹt] (uvular trill + PVA) and [ˈʀɔʊbəʁ̞t] (UT + uvular approximant, maybe slightly less standard) and now almost archaic (?) [ˈɾɔʊbəɾt] (with two alveolar taps). Alveolar trills are rare and their consistent usage is even rarer. Search for clips of Eddy Poelman and tell me if it sounds like normal everyday Dutch to you - to me his trills are highly unusual. Same with Polish - /r/ is far more commonly a tap/fricative/approximant in that language. In both of them (and in English), /r/ is used for convenience, though in contemporary English ⟨r⟩ has little phonetic justification (save for local dialects). Sol505000 (talk) 10:46, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, you just proved my point: it is crucial to type a specific /r/ letter sound because otherwise you will never guess how to pronounce Robert in Dutch, since there are different /r/ sounds within the name. Typing ɾ or ɹ as r is just mental. It just violates IPA philosophy.

So it is important to avoid such a mess like switching English ɹ to r, otherwise you will be pronouncing incorrectly.

About Polish though you are completely wrong. Thrilled r (alveolar trill) is the only /r/ sound there. So no ɹ, r, ʀ, ʁ̞ or ʁ, just r. ~2025-41552-59 (talk) 09:04, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

The realizations I mentioned are all equally standard. Actually, you can add [ˈʁ̞ɔʊbəɹt], [ˈʁɔʊbəɹt], [ˈʁ̞ɔʊbəʁ̞t] and [ˈʁɔʊbəʁ̞t], since the target uvular trill can be undershot as a fricative/approximant (and possibly a tap, adding two further possibilities). There's no better way of covering that than using the orthographic representation ⟨r⟩. The alveolar pronunciation is very far from gone in the language and for many speakers there's a big difference in how the phoneme is realized in the syllable onset vs. the coda, similarly to German and Danish (phonetics differ, however). Many speakers dislike and disapprove of the Gooise r and/or would not accept any transcription with uvular symbols as the default ones, so that would yield another pushback. The original pronunciation is an alveolar trill/tap and the consonant still patterns as alveolar in phonology. I can't think of any better symbol that would be universally accepted by all speakers, even though I dislike it myself.

I speak Polish natively and I rarely trill it. The target pronunciation is a tap, undershot as a fricative/approximant. This statement is sourced at Polish phonology, so I don't think I'm completely wrong at all - the opposite, actually. And I've never mentioned the uvular realizations as being standard. Sol505000 (talk) 17:02, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

These are phonemic representations, not phonetic ones. As such, we could use astrological etc. symbols if we wanted. (One phonemic analysis of a Micronesian language famously did precisely that.) Typically, people use the familiar basic Latin letters where they can, and try to avoid diacritics. This makes the transcription more legible. — kwami (talk) 12:04, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

You are the one creating that nonsensical mess? So my proposition is: let’s get rid off all those “a” sounds in English like ʌ, ɑ or ə! What is the point of having all of them if we can present the lot of them as a? (with sarcastic accent)

“Typically, people use the familiar basic Latin letters where they can, and try to avoid diacritics”.

Yes! That’s why pronuncation of ie. Black Sabbath’s album Tyr is represented as /ˈtɪər/, because the inner letters are simply “basic Latin letters” (so no to both i and a because these are not basic Latin letters). ~2025-41343-05 (talk) 09:16, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

/ɑ/ vs. /ə/ is a contrast found in every single dialect that features vowel reduction, ditto for /æ/ vs. /ə/ (that, of course, still applies when /ɑ/ merges with /æ/, as it potentially does in Scotland - /ə/ remains distinct from this merged phoneme). ⟨a⟩ is typically used for either /ɑ/ or /æ/, nobody uses it for the schwa. /ʌ/ vs. /ə/ is another story, but many speakers don't have the merger. So if /ə/ is clearly a phoneme (a mid central one, not an open one), what's the problem with transcribing NEAR with ⟨ɪə⟩? After all, it's a centering diphthong, at least in older RP. The target is a schwa. Also, /ə/ doesn't necessarily symbolize a vowel at all, it can signal syllabicity of the following sonorant. And ⟨ɪ⟩ is now universally preferred to ⟨i⟩ as pre-fortis clipping makes the contrast between it and /iː/ (the famous shit vs. sheet and bitch vs. beach examples immediately come to mind here) a qualitative one in that context (when a voiceless consonant follows), with length being almost irrelevant there. Many transcriptions drop the length mark for FLEECE, which is then transcribed ⟨i⟩. No serious transcription would then conflate it with KIT. Thus, again, there's zero problem with the transcription /ɪə/ as the letters are uncontroversially used for contrastive phonemes in English (also in unstressed syllables: RP doesn't rhyme 'rabbit' with 'abbot'). And non-rhotic English usually contrasts /ɪər/ with /iːr/, so that searing is usually distinct from keyring. I think even GenAm contrasts them in this context, as KIT + /r/ vs. FLEECE + /r/. Thus, we need both in the guide. Sol505000 (talk) 17:26, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

And there's another issue: before consonants and pauses, what we transcribe /ɪər ʊər ɛər ɜːr ɔːr ɑːr aɪər aʊər ɔɪər ər/ are all pronounced without any trace of consonantal /r/ in non-rhotic dialects - that's millions (maybe even hundreds of millions) of speakers, presumably including the members of Black Sabbath itself, an English band. So that ⟨r⟩ doesn't necessarily stand for anything in that position, we just add it after every /ɪə/ to accomodate rhotic and non-rhotic speakers alike. Sol505000 (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

Strut - comma

The strut - comma merger also happens in Rochesterian dialects as well ~2025-44015-48 (talk) 15:34, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, millions of speakers from the US, England and Wales have that merger. In fact, it is possible that the STRUT/COMMA contrast is rarer than the merger. What's almost universal is the FOOT-STRUT split, but it is often mischaracterized as a creation of a new phoneme /ʌ/, which is highly dialect-specific. Sol505000 (talk) 19:31, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

Ampersand and Cat merger

So the way I pronounce it, Ampersand and Cat's "æ"s are not the same. To me, the æ in "ampersand" sounds more like an "iæ", "ɪæ", or "ɛæ" sound to me. Try saying "ampersand" and "cat" right now. Can you hear a difference? Could you perhaps add this to the mergers or make a seperate symbol for it? ~2025-43927-71 (talk) 17:47, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

It's an environmentally conditioned allophony. For most Americans (and all Canadians AFAIK), the [ɛə ~ eə] allophone appears only before nasals, and before /r/. And this guide doesn't cover dialects in which /eə/ (the one from Middle English /a/, not the one from Middle English /aːr/, which we transcribe with ⟨ɛər⟩) is a separate phoneme. Sol505000 (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

So is it like a nasalized æ, like æ̃? ~2025-43854-80 (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

That's also a possible pronunciation (all realizations are nasalized, so [ɛ̃ə̃ ~ ẽə̃]), but long: [æ̃ː], or with slight raising [ɛ̃ː]. Non-natives mispronounce this tensed /æ/ by keeping it short, merging "man" with "men". They're always distinguished by length, AFAIK. Sol505000 (talk) 21:16, 30 December 2025 (UTC)