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ɚ

based on sound file English approximation should be after not far http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~kjohnson/English_Phonetics/vowel_er.html--Dicey2020 (talk) 13:56, 11 December 2019 (UTC)Dicey2020[reply]

This guide now has two different IPA renderings for er, 二，兒/儿. There should be only one. Kanguole 10:05, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ɻ̩: "somewhat like sir"

British or American? WP Ludicer (talk) 02:53, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In a General American accent. — Note that rhotic accents do exist in the UK, as well as non-rhotic ones in the US, so don't describe this as a British vs. American matter. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 03:23, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Are there rhotic accents spoken in the British Isles that realize the NURSE vowel as a syllabic approximant? I don't think it hurts to qualify the variety and say "somewhat like American sir", which I'm sure most readers will construe as referring to an R-colored vowel. Nardog (talk) 04:33, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. [ɚ ~ əɻ] and [ɻ̩] actually realize different rhymes in Standard Mandarin — the former is also a frequent result of erhua, which is completely neglected on this help page. "Somewhat like American sir" is perhaps the best English approximation that a majority of users understand, though that wording will not lead to an easily comprehensible, unambiguous pronunciation in all cases. Or should we write sir or err, in order to prevent a pronunciation with a schwa-y vowel? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 05:38, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Err is often pronounced /ɛər/ in American English. I don't know what's wrong with using sir. Nardog (talk) 09:46, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe let's use RP furry (which isn't r-colored) for the former and GA fur for the latter? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:50, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure. Ideally, users should differentiate between the rhymes [ɻ̩], [ɚ], [ɐ˞], and perhaps also [ä˞], though the difference between the latter two is by no means essential and only maintained by a minority of Mandarin speakers. (Very careful or dialect speakers may use V+[ɻ] sequences instead of rhotacized V. — In article Erhua, rhoticized [ɐ˞] and [ä˞] are written [ɐʵ] and [äʵ], a not-really-IPA transcription that is probably due to poor font support of the rhotacized diacritic.) To me it seems quite unacceptable to say that English far is similar to [ɚ], as we currently do. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 13:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@LiliCharlie: This suggests that RP furry for [ɚ], GA fur for [ɻ̩] and starring for [ɐ˞] could be the best choice. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:14, 9 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Kbb2: Yes, we could do that. This means we add r-coloured vowels that are the result of erhua, doesn't it? And if so: Should we use non-standard symbols as in Erhua#Rules in Standard Mandarin, or standard symbols as in zh:兒化音#汉语兒化韻表 (with frequent use of unsyllabic [ɚ̯]) or in fr:Suffixe -er#Tableau synoptique (with the IPA rhotacized diacritic modifying the vowel that constitutes the syllable nucleus throughout)? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard anyone pronounce initial <r> as [ɻ]. It's always fricative, even if sometimes rather light. Where is this from? — kwami (talk) 03:31, 12 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I now notice a) that this help page uses ⟨ɻ⟩ for inital /ʐ/ rather than for rhotacized finals, and b) that consequently user:WP Ludicer may have referred to ⟨ɻ⟩ for initial /ʐ/ in the title. — I agree that [ʐ] is the usual pronunciation of initial /ʐ/, and that [ɻ] is not recommendable for Standard Mandarin. Which means that our current recommendation is plain wrong. And so is the footnote ("Also transcribed as ʐ in older literature."), because it erroneously suggests that current authors no longer use the symbol ⟨ʐ⟩. — Please note that the topic of this discussion is a) erhua and b) the rhyme of shi, zhi, chi, rather than initial /ʐ/. Wherever the symbol ⟨ɻ⟩ is used without the diacritic for syllabicity, a preceding vowel is mentioned—except for the title. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 04:03, 13 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

“[ɨ]”

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]