Help talk:IPA/Mandarin

“[ɨ]”

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

That's a different analysis. The analysis adopted here takes zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si to be syllabic consonants. (See zh:空韵.) Double sharp (talk) 09:46, 28 August 2021 (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)

I agree with kwami. Double sharp (talk) 09:03, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Conflicting information between 中文 and English version of this article.

For instance, the Chinese IPA page gives ɤ̞͗w for pinyin "ou" or zhuyin ㄡ which sounds more accurate than oʊ to me, but I'm not a linguistics expert. It certainly doesn't sound like it ends in ʊ based on recordings.

Metzkorn (talk) 06:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

IPA of Tone 3 and 4 swapped?

In the vowel table, the IPA of tones 3 and 4 does not seem to agree with the pinyin etc. - might be a typo, but I don't speak Mandarin and so won't correct it without consulting with someone 89.144.205.16 (talk) 10:48, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Pinyin and IPA are not the same thing. See the note at the bottom of the table. Nardog (talk) 11:06, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

zi, ci, si

The pronounciation of "i" in "zi, ci, si" is shown as being "ɹ̩" but shouldn't it be "ɯ"? Eduardoadl (talk) 18:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

It's kind of hard to transcribe these narrowly. Personally, I prefer the analysis of -i in zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci, si as underlying /i/ (which makes sense from historical Chinese phonology), but the one used here conventionally also has a point. Double sharp (talk) 19:50, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Disagreement with x in pinyin being transliterated into "ɕ"

I am a native mandarin speaker, and I completely disagree with the transliteration of x into /ɕ/. I believe that the Voiceless Palatal Fricative /ç/ makes more sense, and matches the pronunciation better that the former. Take the word 叫 (call), which currently approximates to /tɕʎɐ:ɵ/. But in my opinion, a /tç/ or /dç/ at the start fits better with how we say it, even thought it is not a "real" affricate. Same with the word 旗 (flag). That would perhaps be a /tʰçi/ (excluding tones) or a /tç/ with an affricate band. I'm not a linguist with 6 Harvard PhD's, just piping in as a native. ReelmsyWiki (talk) 12:38, 13 February 2023 (UTC)