Zelda Wiki talk:Pronunciation Guide

Symbol modifications
New to the wiki, and these are some of my first edits and comments. :) That said, I have a full decade of wiki experience and I am a linguistics enthusiast. I propose making some minor modifications to the IPA being used here, for the sake of those of us native English speakers who are not necessarily American or even from England. They are mostly for distinctions that tend to be lost to most Americans and most southern English. Also, IPA convention calls for the use of periods  to mark syllable breaks, though this may be omitted if the following syllable is already marked with primary or secondary stress such that  would be redundant.  So, basically  instead of the awkwardly broken up   . - Dermot Mac Flannchaidh 08:43, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * → in general, though I only propose this one only lukewarmly as it's mainly what they prescribe and semi-enforce at Wiktionary.
 * is still very much distinct for a lot of us, and should be included in the consonant table. For a respelling symbol, I recommend wh.
 * → . The actual articulation of the  component varies wildly by accent.
 * → . Same deal as above.
 * → separate and, for speakers without the horse-hoarse merger, including Scottish English, Irish english and scattered swaths of the eastern United States including African American Vernacular English.  This distinction is mostly easy to predict: "short"  is in border, born, for, horse, morning, or, and "long"  is boarder, borne, fore, four, hoarse, mourning, oar, ore.  There are some less obvious exceptions: "long"  is some words like fort, pork, sword, but this is not usually relevant for fictional proper names.  Even where it may be relevant, and is overlooked on a good faith basis, it can also be corrected or supplemented on a good faith basis.  For respelling symbols, I recommend awr for , and oar or perhaps ohr for.
 * In respelling symbols for and, I suggest something different from what's being used now.   should be ŏŏ or perhaps uu (this one is prescribed by Wikipedia:Pronunciation respelling key), and  should be more simply oo instead of bolded oo.
 * For, I suggest a respelling symbol identical to : i, not ə.
 * for the reduced vowel that varies by accent between and  in words like geographic or Octorok.  For a respelling symbol, I recommend o, as it cannot be confused with the always-shut vowel  o.
 * for the reduced vowel that varies by accent between and  in words like the unstressed clitic to.  This would be  in words like document.  I recommend the respelling symbol for  be the same as what is used for  (see above).
 * An even bolder suggestion might be to change and  respectively to  and, as these are the IPA symbols prescribed by the Oxford English dictionary for these particular archiphonemes.  The symbols are admittedly not officially adopted by the International Phonetic Association for standard IPA, but exist as intuitive symbol modifications for intermediate articulations that standard IPA can only precisely describe in any of several possible presentation forms made up of standard symbols with added diacritics:  and , respectively.  However, this bold suggestion is not absolutely necessary &mdash;  and  are used often enough for reduced vowels in English IPA transcriptions as to be clear in context.
 * for the reduced vowel that varies by accent between and  in words like the unstressed clitic to.  This would be  in words like document.  I recommend the respelling symbol for  be the same as what is used for  (see above).
 * An even bolder suggestion might be to change and  respectively to  and, as these are the IPA symbols prescribed by the Oxford English dictionary for these particular archiphonemes.  The symbols are admittedly not officially adopted by the International Phonetic Association for standard IPA, but exist as intuitive symbol modifications for intermediate articulations that standard IPA can only precisely describe in any of several possible presentation forms made up of standard symbols with added diacritics:  and , respectively.  However, this bold suggestion is not absolutely necessary &mdash;  and  are used often enough for reduced vowels in English IPA transcriptions as to be clear in context.


 * First of all, welcome! =) Wow, you really know your stuff! I'm not staunchly against any of these changes, but there are a few things to keep in mind. For example, as you yourself stated, mostly of these changes would be lost to most Americans and most southern English. I'm not averse to making this wiki exceptionally accessible to a variety of people, BUT this is an American English wiki, and I think adding too many variables will only confuse things for the average person. This page is meant to be (perhaps a little too) simple, so that almost everyone can use it, and only subscribes to Standard American IPA for this reason. While I do especially like certain suggestions (For example, ), I think others are less likely to be useful when applying them to Zelda vocabulary (for example, I don't foresee much usage for the and  differentiation). That having been said, if everyone else likes the changing I'm not going to stomp my feet about it or anything. =)  16:38, 16 July 2013 (UTC)