Help talk:IPA/Mandarin

Removal of duplicate footnote and documentation, Revision of description of [ts]

1. @LiliCharlie:, can't we remove one of the footnotes around [b]cheap[b] -- why does it need to have both pointing to the same note?

2. Why do we need to write (aspiration) in parens after describing it as "with a breath of air" and also linking out the aspiration page?

3. Most importantly, why would we expect the average reader of English to know how to pronounce/read "Greek τσ, as in τσάι", regardless of if it's accurate? Isn't the goal to give the Anglophone an idea of how these sounds might be approximated in English? With this description, we're not only requiring the reader have a familiarity with Greek phonology, but also that they can read the Greek Alphabet. Maybe "kids" isn't the best approximation, but it's more intuitive than Greek. Let me know why you believe the Greek should be maintained.

Estherliebowitz (talk) 15:15, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

1. The footnote in front of cheap is an obvious mistake and should be removed.

2. I am not sure if the wording "strong burst of breath" is correct when we talk about affricates, as the burst, or release of the stop element, is not immediately followed by breath/aspiration, but by an intervening fricative element.

3. I agree that Greek isn't helpful. We could use kids as an approximation and add a note that the Mandarin sound is fully voiceless, or use something like outset, which doesn't require further explanation and is prevocalic like the Mandarin affricate. And I believe that unaspirated word-final cats for /tsʰ/ is a bad illustration and ought to be replaced with something like let's help. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:24, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

“[ɨ]”

What happen about “[ɨ]” sound? Juidzi (talk) 02:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Consonants sorting order ?

Is there a raison for this specific order ? From what I understand, it would be more logical :

• to move :
  • ʂ right before ʈʂ, ʈʂʰ ;
  • ɕ right before tɕ, tɕʰ.
• to have therefor :
  • s right before t, tʰ.

OR

• to group s, ʂ, ɕ.

But the current order is a mix between 2 logics and makes little sense. Do I miss something ? Yug (talk) 14:31, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Our IPA help pages usually follow the order used in Table 3 on pp. 166–171 of the Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ("pseudo-alphabetical order by symbol shape"). This means that the consonants should be reordered as follows: ⟨ɕ f ɥ j k kʰ l m n ŋ p pʰ ɻ s ʂ t tʰ tɕ tɕʰ ts tsʰ ʈʂ ʈʂʰ w x⟩, and the monophthongal vowels as ⟨a e ə ɚ ɛ~æ ɤ i o ɹ̩ ɻ̩ u ʊ y⟩. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

tɕ's english pronunciation

Current :

• tɕ j ch ㄐ 叫 cheap

Suggestion :
I may be unwillingly biased, but I think it would be more accurate to suggest :

• tɕ j ch ㄐ 叫 Jeep, Jeans, Djinn

@LiliCharlie: Yug (talk) 14:40, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that Mandarin has an aspirated–unaspiated contrast for affricates (and plosives), which in syllables that aren't completely unstressed are always voiceless, whereas English has a fortis–lenis contrast with voiceless vs. voiced segments, esp. when surrounded by vowels and resonants. I agree that the affricate in cheap may be somewhat aspirated when stressed, so this is not an ideal choice. On the other hand inital obstruents in English are often more or less devoiced. Before deciding on a this change which affects all affricates and plosives, I'd like to have this commented by other users, e.g. Nardog, Kanguole, Kwamikagami. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

English plosives tend to be devoiced in initial position, but that's not true for affricate 'j'. "Jeep" is quite voiced, at least in my accent. Affricates also don't occur after 's', so that option's out. What might work is a d-sh sequence in a compound word, like broadsheet, though that would have the problem that it's no longer an affricate. I doubt there's a good solution. — kwami (talk) 13:20, 15 August 2020 (UTC)