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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Iuscaogdan (talk | contribs) at 07:30, 4 February 2019 (→Help:IPA pages to which the labiodental nasal should be added). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/WikiProject used

WikiProject
Linguistics
Task forces

Welcome to the talk page for WikiProject Linguistics. This is the hub of the Wikipedian linguist community; like the coffee machine in the office, this page is where people get together, share news, and discuss what they are doing. Feel free to ask questions, make suggestions, and keep everyone updated on your progress. New talk goes at the bottom, and remember to sign and date your comments by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thanks!

I have collected several articles with linguistics-related links to DAB pages, which need expert attention. If you can solve any of these puzzles, remove the {{disambiguation needed}} tag, and add {{done}} to the list below.

Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 07:16, 17 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I have collected a bunch of pages which contain links to DAB pages relating to language- and linguistics-related topics which need expert attention. (I am pleased to be able to report that when I reviewed my bookmarks just now, 2/3 of the problems had already been fixed.)

These problems remain. Search for 'disam' in main text and for '{{d' in edit mode. If you can solve any of them, post {{done}} here, and remove the {{dn}} tag from the article.

Thanks in advance, Narky Blert (talk) 00:08, 14 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any information on Wikipedia about the topic Escher sentence -

... this kind of sentence (is it a sentence?) has a peculiar property: at first people seem to think it is grammatical and means something. Given a few moments to think, though, they soon realize that it is just plausible-looking English-style gibberish. It seems to be an intelligible sentence of the language but it is just masquerading. McCloskey has no explanation for this. Neither do I. And more people have tried to find one than we have. - http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000860.html

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000862.html -

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/000860.html -

https://curiosity.com/topics/escher-sentences-make-sense-even-though-they-shouldnt-curiosity/ -

https://rationalhunter.typepad.com/close_range/2004/05/escher_sentence.html -

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=39477 -

https://academic.oup.com/jos/article-abstract/35/3/543/5065172?redirectedFrom=fulltext -

https://linguistics.stanford.edu/events/flexible-repair-escher-sentences -

Could someone please create a stub about this, or make the redlink direct to any existing information that I may have missed?

Thanks - 189.122.238.134 (talk) 13:18, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've mostly just heard this referred to as the "comparative illusion". Sometimes "Russia sentences" since that's the famous example (even if the original one was Berlin). Are there so-called "Escher sentences" which aren't based on a comparative? Is that a common term in the literature? I'd recommend "comparative illusion" be the title unless people have strong thoughts. Oh and also I'm pretty sure there isn't already an article about this on Wikipedia btw. I might start working on a stub draft tomorrow if no psycholinguist takes up the cause. Umimmak (talk) 14:33, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've started a draft: Draft:Comparative illusion. And while it's in the draft stage, you're not supposed to have articles wikilink to it or to add categories, but I'd appreciate if people had good ideas for how to make this not immediately an (almost) WP:ORPHAN upon creation or what good categories would be. Feedback in general on the draft is welcome as well -- it's very much in early stages. Umimmak (talk) 10:45, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
IMHO a very nice start. Kudos - 189.122.238.134 (talk) 12:09, 3 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I've moved it to the main article space (Comparative illusion) and submitted it for a DYK. There's definitely more which can be said, but I'm not sure what level of detail is needed -- particularly since research is still fairly nascent. Umimmak (talk) 23:24, 24 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Editors in this WikiProject may be interested in the featured quality source review RFC that has been ongoing. It would change the featured article candidate process (FAC) so that source reviews would need to occur prior to any other reviews for FAC. Your comments are appreciated. --IznoRepeat (talk) 21:38, 11 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One of your project's articles has been selected for improvement!

Hello,
Please note that Siri, which is within this project's scope, has been selected as one of Today's articles for improvement. The article was scheduled to appear on Wikipedia's Community portal in the "Today's articles for improvement" section for one week, beginning today. Everyone is encouraged to collaborate to improve the article. Thanks, and happy editing!
Delivered by — MusikBot talk 00:05, 26 November 2018 (UTC) on behalf of the TAFI team[reply]

WikiJournal of Humanities published first article

The WikiJournal of Humanities is a free, peer reviewed academic journal which aims to provide a new mechanism for ensuring the accuracy of Wikipedia's humanities, arts and social sciences content. We started it as a way of bridging the Wikipedia-academia gap. It is also part of a WikiJournal User Group along with Wiki.J.Med and Wiki.J.Sci. The journal is still starting out and not yet well known, so we are advertising ourselves to WikiProjects that might be interested.

Editors

  • Invite submissions from non-wikipedians
  • Coordinate the organisation of external academic peer review
  • Format accepted articles
  • Promote the journal

Authors

If you want to know more, please see this recent interview with some WikiJournal editors, the journal's About page, or check out a comparison of similar initiatives. If you're interested, please come and discuss the project on the journal's talk page, or the general discussion page for the WikiJournal User group.

As an illustrative example, Wiki.J.Hum published its first article this month!

  • Miles, Dudley; et al. (2018). "Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians". WikiJournal of Humanities. 1 (1): 1. doi:10.15347/wjh/2018.001. ISSN 2639-5347.

T.Shafee(Evo&Evo)talk 09:30, 26 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Greek letter templates

Folks here might be interested in a discussion I've opened at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2018 December 3#Greek letter templates. I believe at least one of these was used for IPA stuff. Please feel free to notify any other pages that might be interested as well. Thanks, –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 03:01, 3 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sámi vs. Sami vs. Saami

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see: Talk:Kildin Sami orthography#Requested move 21 December 2018 – multi-page RM primarily about diacritics in an endonym.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:22, 21 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nasal allophones inconsistency/incoherence in some Help:IPA pages

Hello, I'm here in the Linguistics talk to point out a little problem in some Help:IPA pages and to submit a request to Wikipedians who're experts in linguistics. The subject is the different dealing with 2 nasal allophones of /n/ or /m/ in Italian language and a few minor languages or dialects related to Italian. The phonemes I'm talking about are [ŋ] and [ɱ]. Both of them are just allophones of a nasal before a velar ([k] [g]) and a labiodental ([f] [v]). Both of them don't exist in Italian but before those sounds. But in the Help:IPA pages the first has his own place in the phoneme list while the second is wrongly transcribed as [m] with just a note in parentheses saying that for simplicity ⟨m⟩ is used instead. I think this is a nonsense: which one do we want between simplicity and accuracy? Personally I'd rather accuracy (i.e. both [ŋ] and [ɱ] in the list), but if simplicity is preferred let's make simplicity then (i.e. neither [ŋ] nor [ɱ] but just [n] or [m] with explanatory notes)... Let's just make a choice! Leaving the list as it is now, with the correct phoneme (allophone before velar) [ŋ] but without the phoneme (allophone before labiodental) [ɱ], is absolutely senseless. There're languages where [ŋ] has his own phonemic value while [ɱ] hasn't (a lot) and languages where [ɱ] has his own phonemic value while [ŋ] hasn't (a few); in these cases such a distinguishment could be justified. But the case of Italian is different, both lack of an intrinsic phonemic value and can exist just as allophones of [n] or [m] before certain consonants. So: why don't we choose consistency/coherence and make a definitive choice between simplicity and accuracy? I hope lots of you will reply to this discussion, and if any of you wanted to contact me in private use my talk page (I've registered this account to be easily contacted). Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:09, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This has been discussed at length (e.g. Spanish, Italian) and a part of the justification is that /ŋ/ is a phoneme in many languages, including English, while no language has a phonemic /ɱ/. [ɱ] would thus be akin to using a dental diacritic for Spanish stops. Even if it is more phonetically accurate, there's a balance between detail and accessibility that we are trying to strike. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:52, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. But if the [ŋ] in Italian is just a "transparent" allophonic shift of [n] before a velar or labiodental, like [ɱ] is of [m] in the same positions, then there's not a phonemic rationale for using [ŋ] for Italian any more than there is for using [ɱ]. Iuscaogdan's right that it's unnecessarily and possibly confusingly inconsistent. As with Help:IPA for English, we need not try to capture every tiny nuance of pronunciation, especially since it will vary by dialect (including in Italian and the various related dialects and/or languages of the region, however one prefers to classify them), especially if the reader's own brain is going to perform the velarization of the nasal on its own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)
You've got it slightly wrong. [ɱ] is an allophone of /n/ (or, if you'd like, an archiphoneme /◌̃/ unspecified for place of articulation), not of /m/. The phonemicity rationale is more specifically for English speakers. Unless someone is a speaker of Italian, a reader won't have the kind of intrinsic understanding of a language's phonology, so the phonemicity of a sound is something we don't really consider.
Also, the (English-speaking) reader's brain will not necessarily automatically velarize the nasal before a velar, since English doesn't have the automatic nasal assimilation that Italian and Spanish do.
There isn't a confusing inconsistency between how we treat the assimilation process between the two environments. We are already indicating that there is assimilation going on by changing /◌̃/ to [m]. We're just not parsing the distinction between [m] and [ɱ] because that wouldn't be a meaningful distinction to anyone. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:12, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also Spanish has the same allophonic issue? I'm not expert enough of Spanish phonology, but if it's as for Italian then Help:IPA for Spanish has the same problem as Italian and those other dialects (while other Latin languages and dialects, as far as I know, nasalise the previous vowel instead of pronouncing a nasal consonant). Well, the point is: this distinguishment is totally arbitrary. We aren't sources ourselves, and since no source exists reporting such a distinguishment in the representation of [ŋ] and [ɱ] (either they always use /n/ like phonetic Italian vocabularies do, or they use both [ŋ] and [ɱ]) this is an arbitrary decision taken by one or a few more users. I don't even understand this hostility for [ɱ]. This isn't a little simplification such as using [n] in place of [n̪], or [tʃ] in place of [t͡ʃ], or [ss] in place of [sː] (these are examples of balance between detail and accessibility). This is using a wrong symbol representing a different phoneme (bilabial nasal in place of labiodental nasal) just because tht symbol is considered..."difficult"? With all the "difficult" symbols existing in the IPA? Then why don't we do it also for [β] by replacing it with [b] since it's its allophone when preceded by vowel or not nasal consonant, or even with [v] since it's a quite similar phoneme? Come on, this should be an encyclopedy! If [ɱ] is really unacceptable, and I don't think so at all, then also [ŋ] should receive the same treatment as they behaves the same way, in Italian and in half a dozen of other languages... If a note is enough for explaining the replacing of [ɱ] with [m] then it should be enough also for replacing [ŋ] with [n]. Iuscaogdan (talk) 19:08, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This insistence that we treat [ŋ] and [ɱ] the same isn't convincing to me. I've explained how they're different and that difference can justify different treatment. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:44, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In English. A language where [ŋ] has its own phonemic value, to distinguish for example "sin" from "sing", while [ɱ] hasn't. In Italian, Spanish and some others [ŋ] has no phonemic value exactly like [ɱ], so different treatment isn't justified at all. Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Actually you "don't" treat [ŋ] and [ɱ] the same currently. Logic "does" suggest to do it. A different treatment can be justified just in a personal opinion based on a personal reasoning. But this is a world encyclopedy, not a personal blog. Such an instrument should be based on relevant sources instead of on personal opinions and reasonings. No source suggests to treat [ŋ] as a separate phoneme no matter what and [ɱ] just when it's phonemic. It's a personal opinion, legitimate but personal. Indeed no objective arguments have been brought in support of this opinion, just a personal reasoning which isn't an objective argument. I don't think it's so difficult to understand. However I'd like to hear the opinion of other Wikipedian linguists, so far one agrees with me and another one doesn't; unfortunately one of this talk playgoers whom I'd tried pinging preferred asking admins to investigate me for sockpuppetry than replying, and after I was confirmed to be clean he just disappeared. If I didn't know any better I'd think that both changes to old conventions and new users proposing them aren't exactly seen eye to eye by some of the more veteran Wikipedians... But I'll assume good faith instead and keep hoping for an agreed solution. Iuscaogdan (talk) 17:20, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Incredible, I can't literally believe it... Nar_shameonyou_dog has asked again admins to investigate me for sockpuppetry (without even notifying me)! Since last friday, when I was confirmed to be clean, I haven't made any more edits, but he wants me out of this project, one way or another. Can you believe it? If I didn't know any better I'd think I'm in some kind of candid camera, or in a social experiment: instead it's just a matter of bad faith about me. I was wrong to assume good faith, this last clear ostracising attempt in order to get rid of me is the smoking gun I was so wrong about his good faith... Anyway, so far there're 2 users agreeing about the use of both [ŋ] and [ɱ] or none of them and just 1 disagreeing; since nobody else joined the discussion, the only user opposing the restoring of consistency/coherence in these Help:IPA pages will have to accept the new consensus. Iuscaogdan (talk) 08:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Iuscaogdan: 2 vs. 1 is hardly a clear consensus.
[ŋ] isn't phonemic in either Spanish or Italian. It's an allophone of /n/, just like [ɱ], [n̪] and [n̠]. The last two appear before dental and postalveolar consonants, respectively. Why haven't you brought them up? If we can transcribe them broadly with ⟨n⟩ then we can also transcribe the bilabial and labiodental nasals with ⟨m⟩. An alternative transcription of [ɱ] is ⟨m̪⟩ (⟨m⟩ with a dental diacritic). If ⟨n⟩ can cover alveolar, dental and postalveolar nasals depending on the context then ⟨m⟩ can cover bilabial and labiodental nasals depending on the context.
There are more broad transcription features in these guides, such as ⟨a⟩ for what is an open central vowel [ä] or ⟨t, d⟩ for dental stops which are more narrowly transcribed as [t̪, d̪]. I think you're being a bit picky. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:42, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, Kbb2, it's what I'm trying to say. Why has [ŋ] got a special treatment if he works exactly as [ɱ] in Spanish, Italian and the others I've said? It's all right to transcribe [ŋ] as [n] if it's all right to transcribe [ɱ] as [m] too. There's no valid reason to keep the narrow transcription for the nasal velar allophone and a random broad transcription for the nasal labiodental allophone. We should choose one kind of transcription and apply it to both phonemes in such languages. Iuscaogdan (talk) 10:55, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: I'm saying something different. I'm saying that there's no reason to insist on using ⟨ɱ⟩ for the labiodental nasal if the dental and postalveolar nasals are transcribed with ⟨n⟩, same as the main allophone of /n/ which is alveolar in both Spanish and Italian. We can transcribe the labiodental nasal the same as [m] while keeping [ŋ] distinct. The rationale for that has been described above by Aeusoes1 and I largely agree with him, although I wouldn't protest if we decided to transcribe the labiodental nasal with a separate symbol after all. Consider me to be mostly neutral. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Although on second thought, insisting on using ⟨m⟩ may lead to comical/forced pronunciations with a bilabial nasal (worse: an elongated bilabial nasal) before labiodental fricatives, which would probably sound non-native. What are your thoughts on that @Aeusoes1, Nardog, and SMcCandlish:? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I didn't understand well. Well, you're right again, infact I didn't open this discussion to get users to "insert [ɱ] in the phoneme list", I did it to "obtain consistency/coherence in the choice of the breadth of phonetic transcriptions". Do we want to use a narrow transcrption? Let's use both [ŋ] and [ɱ] (and the even narrower transcriptions you said) then! Do we want to use a broad transcription? Let's do it for both the velar and the labiodental (and the other) nasals then! The reason why I didn't talk about [n̪] and [n̠] is because they're actually even more narrow, because they aren't simply symbols of the IPA symbol list but are symbols modified with diacritics for the narrowest transcription possible. I could be wrong but I think that the phonetic values of [ŋ] and [ɱ] are the same as (for example) [β] and [ʃ] and not the same as [n̪] and [n̠]... Anyway, we can decide to use even these transcriptions, or not to use "any" of the narrow transcriptions listed here. But on your opinion is there a "valid" reason to treat the sole [ŋ] in a different way from all the others? I already know the other users' opinions: Aeusoes1 thinks that such a "privilege" is all right, SMcCandlish thinks like me that it's wrong, Nar_shameonyou_dog thinks I'm a disruptive vandal sockpuppet that admins should block or something like that. Iuscaogdan (talk) 11:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Kbb2: I think you nailed it there. The fact the IPA provides a dedicated symbol for a labiodental nasal is almost a coincidence. If we really wanted to be consistent, it wouldn't make sense if we didn't also use e.g. ⟨n̠⟩ before [tʃ, dʒ]. To focus on ⟨ɱ⟩ is arbitrary. Nardog (talk) 11:35, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Err... "The fact the IPA provides a dedicated symbol for a labiodental nasal is almost a coincidence."... Source? Yourself? You and consequently your opinion aren't sources. Let's talk about facts. Example: if we transcribe the linguolabial stops with [t̼] and [d̼] in a language, then we have to transcribe the linguolabial nasal with [n̼] too; if we transcribe the stops with [t] and [d], then we transcribe the nasal with [n] too. Clear enough? Now: if we transcribe Spanish and Italian velar nasal (allophone before [k] and [g]) with its narrow transcription [ŋ], then we have to transcribe the labiodental nasal (allophone before [f] and [v]) with its narrow transcription [ɱ] too; if we transcribe the velar with a broad transcription such as [n] (or [m]), then we have to transcribe the labiodental as [m] (or [n]) too. Nobody is focusing on [ɱ] here, perhaps who decided in the past to transcribe the labiodental nasal with the symbol [m] made a choice of inconsistency/incoherence by focusing on [ŋ] which has to be privileged for some reasons... Kbb2 said well: using a bilabial nasal before a labiodental consonant (and at the same time a velar nasal before velar consonants) could confuse the readers. But if we decide to use broad transcriptions, I'll agree to use [n] before velar consonants too. Iuscaogdan (talk) 12:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because the symbol was added 60 years before it was reported to be distinctive in the Kukuya dialect of Teke despite the IPA's phonemic principle.[1] And it is still the only language a labiodental nasal has been reported to be distinctive in. Nardog (talk) 12:09, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You do know that the IPA Chart isn't static but has been modified a lot of times since it was created, don't you? Nowadays is better than before, more precise and accurate. Nowadays it contains symbol [ɱ] too which is used not only for its phonetic value in Kukuya and Teke but also as an allophone of /n/ before labiodental consonants. What could be a "valid" (I underline this adjective again) reason not to use it while using [ŋ] in languages where they're both mere allophones of /n/ before specific consonants? Iuscaogdan (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan and Nardog: Apparently a long [ɱː] (presumably contrastive with bilabial [mː]) can be the realization of /nv/ in some Sicilian dialects - see Help:IPA/Sicilian. There's no source for that statement though, and there's room for improvement for that guide. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:13, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think you nailed it there. In Sicilian (one of the minor languages or dialects I've spoken about at the beginning) we would currently transcribe "anveci" (instead) as [amˈmɛtʃi] with a completely wrong transcription because the correct one should be [aɱˈɱɛtʃi]... Thank you for pointing that out! Iuscaogdan (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Nardog: How would you comment on the possible confusion of [ɱ] with [m] in pronunciation? I think pronunciations such as [amˑˈfiβjo] for anfibio would sound rather obviously non-native (as would a forceful [m] for a labiodental allophone of /n/ in English or any other language). There's no similar problem with the dental/alveolar/postalveolar nasals as they have very similar coronal articulation. Bilabial and labiodental nasals, on the other hand, have more differing articulations which may lead to forceful (elongated) bilabial pronunciations where a short labiodental one is called for as that's the assimilated form (the unassimilated form is alveolar). Now I'm not sure whether using ⟨m⟩ for both sounds is the best idea. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:49, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
But how many people know what ⟨ɱ⟩ stands for, and how many people actually use it? If there's enough literature using ⟨ɱ⟩ for Italian or Spanish in IPA transcriptions, I can get behind. If not, I think it'll just confuse readers. Nardog (talk) 11:55, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Nardog: Good question, which I'll try to answer (if others won't beat me to it). Another question is: who transcribes the labiodental nasal with ⟨m⟩ when it's an allophone of /n/? Because I think that nobody does, except us.
Other languages which would make use of this symbol are Catalan and Dutch, which have nasal assimilation rules that are very similar to Spanish (at least Dutch does, I'm not 100% sure about Catalan). In German and Danish, on the other hand, the articulation is more variable and so ⟨n⟩ is overall a better transcription in those cases. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, ⟨n⟩ is another option and if literature prefers it, so should we. Nardog (talk) 12:10, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In Dutch, German and Danish (I don't know about Catalan) [ŋ] has an intrinsic phonemic value, so we couldn't even chose to transcribe it with another symbol with an intrinsic phonemic value such as [n]. Instead, [ɱ] has just a phonetic value like in Spanish and Italian because it's a nasal allophone before labiodental consonants. In these cases, it isn't pointless to treat these phonemes in different ways: we can choose to use either narrow or broad transcription for [ɱ], while [ŋ] "must" be transcribed this way. As you see we're talking about a different issue regarding a few languages. Iuscaogdan (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: There are phonemic analyses of German and Danish that analyze [ŋ] to be phonemically /nɡ/. Remember that it's often the case that there's not one correct way to analyze the phonemic structure of a language. Rather, the analysis depends on who's doing it.
Anyway, I'd like to narrow the scope of this discussion back to just the labiodental nasal. Using ⟨ɱ⟩ in German and presumably also Danish (though I'm not sure about the latter) is not the best idea because nasal assimilation in these languages (or at least in German) is a more variable phenomenon than in Dutch. Not to mention the fact that not a single pronunciation dictionary of German uses the symbol ⟨ɱ⟩ in their normal transcriptions. This is perhaps to increase readability for those native speakers that don't do the schwa assimilation in words like offen ([ˈɔfn̩] in prescriptive Standard German but more often [ˈɔfɱ̍] in normal spoken Standard German of Germany and Austria) and pronounce them as [ˈɔfən] instead. This happens in Switzerland, Luxembourg and I think that it also occurs in Belgium and parts of Germany itself. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Also for the reasons you said we shouldn't use [ɱ] in Dutch, German and Danish, you're right. We should use it in Spanish and Italian as long as we use [ŋ], we could use a broader transcrpition for the labiodental if we do it also for the velar. Let's not get off the topic. Iuscaogdan (talk) 13:29, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: Only in German and Danish. In Dutch we should do that and I'll explain later why.
I can't comment on this condition we could use a broader transcrpition for the labiodental if we do it also for the velar as I don't fully understand where you're coming from. I'm working on finding sources to back up the possible addition of ⟨ɱ⟩ to some of our guides. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:31, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean? Where do I come from? Or where do my considerations come from? Please focus on the matter: in these few languages, where both [ŋ] and [ɱ] aren't phonemic, why are we use the narrow phonetic transcription for [ŋ] but the broad phonetic transcription for [ɱ]? Do you know any "valid" reason for such a choice in such languages? Iuscaogdan (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: See the definition no. 5.
What is looking for sources if not focusing on the matter? Your questions have already been answered by Aeusoes1. You should ask him for clarification if anything he said wasn't clear enough to you. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 14:03, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need to mock me. I come from [iˈtaːlja] if this is what you need to know. Thanks for looking for sources! They musn't be about English (such sources would probably be using [ŋ] but not [ɱ] for the same reason I've explained for Dutch, German and Danish) but about the languages whose help pages have this inconsistency/incoherence. I've found an example in a pair of Italian dictionaries using IPA: [2] [3]. Both of them treat [ŋ] and [ɱ] in the same way: broad transcription, replaced by [n]. The Enciclopedia Treccani, instead, uses the narrow transcription for all its examples in the "Enciclopedia dell'Italiano" (sometimes examples also concern Italian dialects or minor languages): [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]. In both cases there's no distinction in the treatment for [ŋ] and [ɱ]. This is what I managed to find out. I've spent a lot of time today for this issue, I have to do other things and I don't know how soon I'll be able to join back the discussion. Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: Apologies for the misunderstanding and possible offense. By "where you're coming from" I meant "what caused you to think the way you do" - again, see the fifth definition here.
Thanks for the links, they are useful. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome, and no problems for the misunderstanding (in that page there's also this example: "My parents came from Italy.")! What caused me to think the way I do (about my "we could use a broader transcrpition for the labiodental if we do it also for the velar") is that I'm not interested in which type of transcription (narrow or broad) is used in the encyclopedy but rather in the consistency of such a choice. Either narrow in both cases, or broad in both cases. Reading Italian IPA transcriptions such as, for example, [ˌuŋ komˈflitto] makes me turn my nose up as if it was [ˌun koɱˈflitto], it's an inaccuracy I'd like to be fixed, and coherence would just improve Wikipedia. I hope I've answered your question. And... One more thing: the new request to admins to check me again was declined, but they found out that IPA editor himself was one of the already blocked socks! Very interesting, what he's done in the few days of his existence was done only to create confusion and quarrels among normal users, right? Somebody should learn to discern better between constructive and destructive users and edits... Iuscaogdan (talk) 18:59, 12 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Nardog and Iuscaogdan: This is from the Handbook of the IPA alone:
  • Croatian (which presumably extends to all four standards of Serbo-Croatian) uses [ɱ] as an allophone of /m/ before labiodentals
  • Czech uses [ɱ] as an optional allophone of /m/ and /n/ before labiodentals
  • Galician uses [ɱ] as an allophone of /n/ before labiodentals
  • Persian uses [ɱ] as an allophone of /m/ before labiodentals
  • Slovene uses [ɱ] as an allophone of /m/ and /n/ before labiodentals
To me, this means that ⟨ɱ⟩ can be safely ignored in transcriptions of Serbo-Croatian, Czech and Persian since pronunciations with the bilabial [m] would sound perfectly native - unless there are other sources which say that [ɱ] can also occur as a usual allophone of /n/ before labiodentals.
In the case of Galician and Slovene, IMO we should probably use the symbol - unless, again, there are sources that say something different than the Handbook. AFAICS it doesn't mention the labiodental nasal in the cases of Catalan and Dutch. This is rather strange as these languages have patterns of nasal assimilation that are very similar to Spanish. Wheeler (2005:168) mentions that the labiodental nasal appears in contexts similar to the Spanish ones so we probably should list it in Help:IPA/Catalan (unless I'm missing something).
As far as Dutch is concerned, I think that my memory has failed me. Verhoeven (2005:244) says that [ɱ] occurs only as an allophone of /m/ before labiodentals, whereas Collins & Mees (2003:78) say that the labiodental pronunciation of /m, n/ before labiodentals is a mere possibility (although on pages 214 and 215 they list a number of other assimilations, so [ɱ] may actually be a pretty normal realization). Gussenhoven (1999) doesn't even discuss it. I'm gonna ping @Rua: in case she knows something more. The online dictionary woorden.org doesn't use the symbol, but Uitspraakwoordenboek written by Heemskerk & Zonneveld does. It might be one of the very few pronunciation dictionaries (or dictionaries in general) that use ⟨ɱ⟩ in their transcriptions. According to Gussenhoven (2007) that's a mistake as this assimilation is confined to fast speech (although I'm sure that there are numerous examples of it occuring in normal speech, just as in Spanish and Italian).
In Spanish, the assimilation of /n/ to the following labiodental is mandatory, at least in the Standard European variety (Martínez Celdrán, Fernández Planas & Carrera Sabaté (2003:258)). The same claim is true of Mexico City Spanish (Avelino (2018:224)). In any case, we can safely use the symbol ⟨ɱ⟩ since this sound appears only in contexts in which /m/ and /n/ are neutralized.
In Italian, the assimilation of both /m/ and /n/ to [ɱ] is categorical, also when external sandhi processes are involved (as in in vetta) (Bertinetto & Loporcaro (2005:134–135)).
In the case of Urban East Norwegian (and likely also other Norwegian dialects) Kristoffersen (2000:319–327) says that /m/ is often labiodental before labiodentals, but /n/ is only possibly assimilated to [ɱ] in that position. It's probably best not to transcribe it then.
None of these sources use ⟨m⟩ for the labiodental nasal. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:00, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
In my own Dutch speech, as far as I can tell, both /m/ and /n/ are realised as bilabial before a bilabial consonant, and as labiodental before a labiodental consonant. So the distinction between the phonemes disappears altogether. But I can't say if this is the same for all varieties of Dutch. Rua (mew) 13:32, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's a lot of information, Kbb2, thanks for your research. But I think I haven't understood exactly your thesis derived from such information. My proposal was about Italian and some other languages, where neither [ŋ] nor [ɱ] have a phonemic value because they exist only as allophones of a nasal before certain consonants, and it was the following: "let's use either both [ŋ] and [ɱ] or none of them but let's not leave the current scheme with [ŋ] and [m]". What's your proposal based on such new information? Perhaps I may agree. Iuscaogdan (talk) 15:39, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: I focused only on whether we should add ⟨ɱ⟩ based on the articulatory difference between it and the bilabial [m] and on whether the alveolar/dental /n/ is also assimilated to [ɱ] before labiodental consonants. I haven't taken the velar nasal into any consideration. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So your considerations aren't exactly related to my point, but since, if I didn't mistake your information, Italian and Spanish are among the languages where we should use [ɱ], I agree with your conclusions (also about the other languages). Iuscaogdan (talk) 16:09, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: Only because I don't buy that we shouldn't use ⟨ŋ⟩ when we don't use ⟨ɱ⟩. My point is that using ⟨m⟩ instead of ⟨ɱ⟩ may lead to strange pronunciations and that no source I'm aware of writes ⟨m⟩ instead of ⟨ɱ⟩ when the labiodental nasal is an allophone of /n/. If it's just an allophone of /m/ then we can safely write it with ⟨m⟩. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Then it's a good thing that we agree on this conclusion even if we star from different points. Out of curiosity, would you say the same if in place of [ɱ] your sources had said the same for [ŋ]? Iuscaogdan (talk) 16:54, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Kbb2: I'm familiar with one instance where someone was confused by the symbol ⟨ɱ⟩ despite our page describing it and a thread of other editors trying to explain it. But this might be atypical. I suspect as long as we have a good English approximation, we can avoid confusing most readers. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 19:39, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's what Help:IPA pages exist for. I'm afraid readers would be more confused by a bilabial nasal before labiodental consonants. Iuscaogdan (talk) 21:42, 13 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
By "confused" I'm talking about readers literally wondering what sound the symbol is supposed to convey. There's no way that this would happen with ⟨m⟩. Based on context, it sounds like you're talking about the chance that readers will pronounce Italian words with a bilabial nasal before a labiodental consonant, which is a fairly low-stakes risk. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:46, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Should a reader be confused by the labiodental nasal symbol, he would click the IPA transcription and be moved to the Help:IPA page where he'll find an example such as a"n"fibio and a note. Iuscaogdan (talk) 07:29, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. That's what I said. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
So, if we use [ŋ] before [k] and [g] and [ɱ] before [f] and [v], should a reader be confused by the labiodental nasal symbol ([ɱ]), for example in [aɱˈfiːbjo], he would click the IPA transcription and be moved to the Help:IPA page where he'll find an example and a note. If that's what you said why are e still discussing? We agree, let's add [ɱ] to the symbols list where [ŋ] has already its own place! Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
You can't completely avoid confusion. But if we were to include ⟨ɱ⟩ in transcriptions, what you describe would be the best way to go about it. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:30, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Using the most correct phonetic symbol for the nasal allophone before velar consonants and a less accurate symbol for the nasal allophone before labiodental consonant does create confusion. If you think it's all right to write a note explaining the improper use of [m] then why would don't you think the same about inserting directly the symbol [ɱ] in the phonemes list be? I can't really believe you think the second solutions would be more confusing than the first! Iuscaogdan (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm dubious about your assessment of what is more and less confusing, but neither of us have anything to go by except my one anecdote. It's probably not significantly more confusing one way or another. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:36, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Then let's not talk any more about confusion. If I had to say something to go by I'd report the fact that both in Italian and Spanish Help:IPA talk pages there were users who raised questions about the properness of the choice to transcribe [ɱ] as [m]. Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeusoes1: What about a possible epenthetic [p] between [m] (i.e. an [ɱ] which would then turn into [m] before [p]) and [f]? Voiceless labiodental affricate and voiced labiodental affricate report the existence of such a phenomenon only in some central-south dialects of Italian, which presumably doesn't even mean Standard Italian. The amount of languages I've mentioned in my list is much longer. I'd imagine that English speakers wouldn't insert epenthetic bilabial stops after [ɱ] that occurs immediately before a stressed syllable that starts with labiodental fricative, but what about words like Dutch aanvang [ˈaːɱvɑŋ] (perhaps there are even better examples)? The fact that ⟨ɱ⟩ isn't a common IPA symbol shouldn't be the deciding factor for not including it in our guides. ⟨ɵ⟩ is fairly rare, yet we use it on Help:IPA/Swedish and Help:IPA/Cantonese; there's also a good reason to use it on Help:IPA/Dutch instead of ⟨ʏ⟩ (though I won't get into it here). Transcriptions of the Upper Saxon dialect of German need that symbol and also ⟨ɞ⟩.
On Help:IPA/Danish, we use ⟨ɶ⟩ which I'm sure has lead to confusion of many readers (not to mention the confusion when you see that ⟨ɑ, a, æ, ɛ, e⟩ actually mean [a, æ, ɛ, e, ɪ]). Surely there are other examples of rare symbols that we use.
Also, I'm not sure if the risk of mistaking ⟨m⟩ for a bilabial nasal before /f, v/ is that low. As I said - when it occurs as an allophone of /n/, the reader risks sounding strange or even non-native if they overpronounce the nasal as bilabial. A pronunciation with [n] would just sound a bit pedantic but not non-native. Then again, there's the question of consistency. If we were to write the labiodental nasal with ⟨n⟩ when it's an allophone of /n/ and with ⟨m⟩ when it's an allophone of /m/, why write ⟨ŋ⟩ with a separate symbol? Assimilation is assimilation and these processes aren't separate from each other.
I've literally seen no source that writes the labiodental nasal the way we do (when it's an allophone of /n/). I understand that this isn't a case of a major OR, but still. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:28, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I quote Kbb2. Iuscaogdan (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say that the risk itself was low. Rather, the risk is low stakes in the sense that, even if it were to happen, it wouldn't be particularly marked mispronunciation. An exception would be if the bilabial nasal is preserved with an epenthetic [p] or [b], but I suspect that there will be risk of this even if we use ⟨ɱ⟩ because of the level of linguistic sophistication for lay readers is going to be relatively low.
I don't think anyone has argued that ⟨ɱ⟩ shouldn't be used because it's a rare symbol. Rather, the issue is that almost no language makes a phonemic contrast between [ɱ] and [m]. Transcribing [ɱ] as [m] is thus considerably less marked than transcribing [ŋ] as [n], which many languages (including English) contrast phonemically. That's also why it's different from ⟨ɵ⟩ and ⟨ɞ⟩. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That "transcribing [ɱ] as [m] is thus considerably less marked than transcribing [ŋ] as [n]" is (read carefully) "a_personal_though_legitimate_opinion_of_yours". No source, I underline, no source asserts what you assert (that [ɱ] can be transcribed as [m]), neither for the reasons you've exposed nor for any others. Have you understood this? Do you agree with me this is true? If you haven't understood or if you don't agree, just tell me which point you haven't understood or you don't agree with and we'll talk about it better. Currently you're the only one who's firmly opposing my proposal to make the transcription of nasal allophones coherent for Italian and those other languages (talking about that, you've never answered to my assertion about extreme Southern dialects like Sicilian where it's possible to find [ɱɱ] + vowel which would currently be transcribed as [mm] + vowel). There's no "rational" reason (tell me one, if I'm wrong, tell me one) to transcribe [ɱ] as [m] and at the same time [ŋ] as [ŋ] "in a language where both [ɱ] and [ŋ] can't exist but as allophones of /n/ (or /m/) before certain consonants which they assimilate to". Do you prefere a broad transcription? Do it both for [ɱ] ([m] or [n]) and for [ŋ] ([n] or [m]). Do you prefere a narrow transcription? Do it both for [ɱ] ([ɱ]) and for [ŋ] ([ŋ]). I repeat: no "rational" reason to transcribe the first as [ɱ] and the second as [ŋ]. Your assertions "most languages don't make phonemic contrasts between [ɱ] and [m]", "readers would be more cunfused seeing a rarely used symbol such as [ɱ] than the symbol of the bilabial nasal before a labiodental consonant", "distinguishing [m] and allophonic [ɱ] is meaningless to anyone while distinguishing [n] and allophonic [ŋ] is meaningful to anyone" aren't "rational" (objective) reasons supported by sources but just your personal (subjective) considerations denied by sources (see above my examples to Kbb2, the Enciclopedia Treccani and the phonetic transcriptions in Italian dictionaries, both treating [ŋ] and [ɱ] in the same way, either specifying both symbols or replacing them both with /n/). I'm done, your honour. I can't wait to read your reply and continue discussing about this with you and the others. Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It's a bit grating to hear you repeatedly call people irrational and subjective just because you disagree with them. I've explained the difference between [ɱ] and [ŋ] and your response has been to ignore this difference, focus on one manner in which they are similar, and then tell me I'm irrational/illogical for thinking they're in any way different. You're also creating a false binary between "broad" and "narrow" and acting like one must choose between using ⟨ɱ⟩ in our transcriptions or not using ⟨ŋ⟩. I reject that binary. ⟨ɱ⟩ is a slightly more narrow transcription than ⟨m⟩, but ⟨m⟩ is more narrow than ⟨n⟩. It's only slightly less precise and it's not clear that anything important is lost any more than transcribing Spanish dental stops without diacritics.
I don't know enough about Sicilian to know how different "extreme Southern dialects" are from the dialect we transcribe at Help:IPA/Sicilian, but we generally link transcriptions to Help:IPA (which does explain ⟨ɱ⟩) when they are for dialects with sounds not explained in the language-specific charts. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:30, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
About Sicilian, I've used the expression "extreme Southern dialects" to include not just Sicilian (spoken in Sicily) but also a few other dialects in the heel and the bow of the peninsula with the same phenomenon; anyway, why should we complicate our lives (and the readers') with a dedicated note in all those Help:IPA page when we could just include the symbol [ɱ] in such pages lists next to [ŋ]? About the rest, first of all I've never called you nor anyone else "irrational" or "illogic", and I've called your considerations "subjective" as they aren't based on sources (mine are, thus objective) (sources disproving your considerations, what's more), please don't feel offended for that. The difference between [ŋ] and [ɱ], in your opinion, is that (correct me if I'm wrong please) [ŋ] isn't merely allophonic in different languages so it has its own phonemic value in such languages, while [ɱ] is just allophonic in most languages and just rarely it has its own phonemic value in a language, am I right? This is true, but this is just a quantitative distinction, not qualitative, and more it's a distinction based on a personal yardstick. Who are "we" to decide on our own that [ŋ] deserves to be transcribed exactly like that "always" while [ɱ] just when it isn't a mere allophone? Who are we to decide ourselves where to draw a line? Are we noted scholars? Are we sources oursevles? No. In fact the sources I've brought about Italian and other minor languages related to Italian don't make any distinguishment in the use of [ŋ] and [ɱ], as I've explained twice. The "binary" you're talking about is just coherence: you want to use the most accurate transcription for the velar nasal "no matter what", and at the same time you want to use a less accurate transcription for the labiodantal nasal "every time it's allophonic". Do you really think this is reasonable? You may think that not using diacritics in Spanish is equally unreasonable: in that case I'll repeat that I have nothing against using also the diacritics for a completely accurate transcription, but also that diacritics are precisely "diacritics", glyphs added to letters in order to modify the basic meaning of specific letters. The [n̪] symbol is a more precise version of [n], while [ŋ] isn't a more precise version of [n] and [ɱ] isn't a more precise version of [m] but totally different phonemes, you can't put [n̪] on a par with [ŋ] or [ɱ] if anyone is thinking about that. Come on... Iuscaogdan (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: The [n̪] symbol is a more precise version of [n], while [ŋ] isn't a more precise version of [n] and [ɱ] isn't a more precise version of [m] but totally different phonemes, you can't put [n̪] on a par with [ŋ] or [ɱ] if anyone is thinking about that. Come on... Neither Italian nor Spanish contrast dental and alveolar consonants (they can be grouped together), just as they don't contrast bilabial and labiodental consonants which can be grouped together as labial. Actually, the dental [n̪] is as different from the alveolar [n] as the labiodental [ɱ] is from the bilabial [m]. It does make sense to treat them the same. At the same time though, I still support using a separate ⟨ɱ⟩ symbol so consider this message to be pretty much a case of me playing a devil's advocate. I consider both approaches to be more or less valid. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 19:46, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, now I've understood what you mean. Bilabials and labiodentals are both "labials" as palatals and velars are both "dorsals". This has sense. My argument instead was based on the IPA chart where [ŋ] and [ɱ] have their own places in the consonants list while symbols such as [n̪] are grouped in the diacritics list: the first are, let's say, "standard" while the second are "subsidiary" (so the diacritics over the symbols may also be omitted). But I have to admit that I'm not as well-versed as my interlocutors in this subject. However, I'm glad you support the use of [ɱ] for the allophonic labiodental in the languages I've proposed. Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: why should we complicate our lives (and the readers') with a dedicated note in all those Help:IPA page when we could just include the symbol...? Because it's one fewer symbol for the reader to learn.
I've called your considerations "subjective" as they aren't based on sources (mine are, thus objective) This is exactly what I'm talking about. You're explicitly saying that your opinion is objective. Opinions are always inherently subjective. That you point to some sources doesn't suddenly make your opinion not an opinion. You've made your case and I'm not convinced.
Who are we to decide ourselves where to draw a line? We are the people determining the conventions for Wikipedia transcriptions. We have a lay readership to consider that many sources that use ⟨ɱ⟩ don't because they are for a specialized audience. We get to decide for ourselves because no one else is in our particular position. This doesn't mean that we don't consider what sources say and do but we don't need to be firmly rooted in sources and we can make our own conventions if we decide that it suits our purposes.
The "binary" you're talking about is just coherence I deny that using ⟨ɱ⟩ instead of ⟨m⟩ makes our transcriptions any more coherent, no matter how you define "coherent" in this context. If you mean that we be consistent in the level of detail, then I repeat that the community has agreed that we should avoid excessive detail. Using ⟨ɱ⟩ would be more consistent with an excessively narrow transcription than with the level of detail we're trying to go for. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:36, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
"Because it's one fewer symbol for the reader to learn." Who decides it? You? Nobody else here is pushing for continuing using [m] in place of [ɱ]. If I were the only one wishing the symbol [ɧ] was removed by Help:IPA pages because it's one fewer symbol for the reader to learn should we replace it by a note as for [ɱ] because I think so? Seriously? "This is exactly what I'm talking about..." Well... You say the Sun turns around the Earth because you see it every day; I say the Earth turns around the Sun because scientists have written so in their reports (i.e. there're scientific evidences). For you my opinion isn't objective or yours isn't subjective. Got it. Please... No source justifies your considerations about the different treatment undergone by [ŋ] and [ɱ] when both allophonic; the sources I've brought about Italian prove scholars consider [ŋ] and [ɱ] in the same way (and in my same way). "We are the people determining the conventions for Wikipedia transcriptions..." All right, but... First, "we", not "you", are the people determining etc... Second, we shouldn't base conventions on our (Aeusoes1's and Iuscaogdan's) personal liking but, when and where possible, on external sources (Enciclopedia Treccani and so on). Third, again, it isn't about using or not using [ɱ], it's about using a wrong (less accurate, as you say) [m] in place of [ɱ] and at the same time [ŋ]; I do believe that in English transcriptions of English words and names [ŋ] is used and [ɱ] isn't, but we're talking about Italian, Spanish and the others I've said where writing [ŋ] isn't more senseful than writing [ɱ] (in fact sources about Italian don't make any distinguishments in their treatment). "I deny that using ⟨ɱ⟩ instead of ⟨m⟩ makes our transcriptions any more coherent, no matter how you define "coherent" in this context." Again (again), the consistency/coherence isn't about using [ɱ] in place of [m] at all (of course it isn't!), but about either using both [ɱ] and [ŋ] or replacing them both by [m] and [n]. It's just "you" who don't consider their different treatment inconsistent/coherent, the other users who expressed their opinion about this issue said that [ɱ] should be used in the cases I've proposed to use it (along with [ŋ] obviously), not to talk about the sources I've brought. Is using [ɱ] in Italian and Spanish transcriptions too detailed? Very well: let's replace it with [m] and let's replace [ŋ] with [n]! I'd agree if you accept this broad solution. But, if we don't think that transcribing the allophonic [ŋ] in Italian is excessively detailed, we'll have no problems in transcribing the allophonic [ɱ] too. You're the only one who wants to keep the narrow [ŋ] and the broad [m] in these languages, even sources don't justify this distinguishment. For the last time (let's hope). Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm starting to get the sense that we're talking in circles here. Most of your points I've already responded to.
Nobody else here is pushing for continuing using [m] in place of [ɱ] We as a community decide it. It can be as arbitrary or logical as we'd like. As a member of this community, I'd think that my stance matters, particularly as we have a policy of consensus rather than majoritarian decisionmaking.
If I were the only one wishing the symbol [ɧ] was removed by Help:IPA pages because it's one fewer symbol for the reader to learn should we replace it by a note That's something we could do for Swedish, which is the only language it's used for and is extremely imprecise phonetically. You would need to get a consensus to change that, since there's already a pre-existing consensus to keep it. Because you're new, you might not be aware of how this all works, so take a look at WP:CONSENSUS if you need to.
Very well: let's replace it with [m] and let's replace [ŋ] with [n] Again, the phonetic imprecision of using ⟨n⟩ for a velar nasal is much greater than using ⟨m⟩ for a labiodental nasal. ⟨m⟩ is not broad or phonemic. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 03:37, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, actually I'm not seeing all this "community consensus". Probably there was in the past, in the present talk there's no more. But most important: are you talking about a "community consensus" in "not using the symbol [ɱ] at all" or just in "not using it for language X"? Because it's hard for me to believe that there have been discussions about this matter for every single Help:IPA page, even harder than believing that one big discussion just about crossing out [ɱ] from all Help:IPA pages was held in a big project page like this. However, currently there's no (longer) "we as a community", you have to admit that you're the only one who's speaking totally in favour of the previous consensus you're talking about, users older than me think that [ɱ] should or could be used anyway (as well as [ŋ]), albeit for reasons different from mine. I'd like both [ŋ] and [ɱ] to be listed together in the Help:IPA pages I've said, or both of them to be replaced by a "simpler" symbol, since they're both only allophonic in such languages (if there're other languages where this happens, I'd like this solution to be adopted for them too). Perhaps you're right about the fact that, phonetically, there's more "distance" between [ŋ] and [n] than between [ɱ] and [m] if we compare them in the IPA Chart. Nevertheless, there's no source using [m] in place of [ɱ], all the sources where [ɱ] is replaced use [n] instead, which is as "improper" as replacing [ŋ] with [n]. That's why the solution I prefer is [ŋ] and [ɱ] although [n] and [m] are all right for me. Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:36, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeusoes1: Hmm, perhaps I overestimated the wrongness of the bilabial pronunciation. I won't press the issue anymore, though I hope that my research will help in future discussions about the labiodental nasal. Maybe someone will come up with better arguments than me. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:41, 16 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not caring much which symbols are used, as long as we're consistent (i.e., stop implying that n and m are treated radically differently in this language when they are not).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:59, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As long we're consistent, right? If we were, since there isn't a phonemic rationale for using [ŋ] any more than there's for using [ɱ] for Italian, we'd use either both [ŋ] and [ɱ] or none of them for Italian (and the other minor languages or dialects). If this is what you meant I agree with you. Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:21, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: We're not using phonemic transcription in the case of Italian (in fact, AFAIK, we're not using it in the case of all languages except English). If we were, we couldn't transcribe vowel length and perhaps some of the non-native consonants (the phonemicity of which may be questionable, at least in some cases). AFAIK syntactic gemination would also have to be omitted. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:18, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All you've said is right. Since we're using phonetic transcriptions in the case of Italian, why are we transcribing only the allophone [ŋ] "phonetically" (i.e. with its exact IPA symbol) while we're transcribing the allophone [ɱ] "phonemically" (i.e. with a symbol actually representing a different phoneme but making no real difference to Italians' ears)? All I'm asking for is consistency. Iuscaogdan (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but you're wrong there. Using ⟨m⟩ in this context is not phonemic. Both ⟨m⟩ and ⟨ɱ⟩ are phonetic. Both are narrow. The latter is slightly more narrow than the former. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 20:36, 18 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry but either I've undersood absolutely nothing about IPA or you're wrong there. [m] and [ɱ] are different symbols representing different phonemes both included in the IPA consonants list (exactly as [n] and [ŋ]). [n̪] is slightly more narrow than [n] (because it's included in a different table containing basic symbols plus diacritics) but the same can't be said for [ɱ] and [m] or we could say it also for, let's see, [β] and [b] (or [v]), or [ʃ] (or [θ]) and [s]. But I might have wrongly used the terms "phonemic" and "phonetic" in my last comment, that's true. Iuscaogdan (talk) 09:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Iuscaogdan: You're somehow conflating the lack of a separate symbol for a dental nasal in the IPA with it being a less legitimate consonant than a labiodental nasal. This is absolutely not the case. The fact that you need to use a diacritic to indicate the dentalness of [n̪] doesn't make it any less legitimate than a labiodental nasal. In fact, there are more languages which contrast dental and alveolar nasals than there are ones that contrast bilabial and labiodental nasals. It was proposed that the symbol ⟨ɱ⟩ be deprecated at the Kiel Convention (and from then on replaced with ⟨m̪⟩, an ⟨m⟩ with a dental diacritic) but the proposal was defeated.
Also, the IPA chart isn't a chart of phonemes but of phones (sounds). Phonemes are abstract, language-specific entities. Not to mention that any given scholar is prone to analyze the exact phonemic structure of any given language in a slightly different manner (or not - it depends). Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:02, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I didn't know anything about what you've explained. Then I'm taking back my affirmation about [n̪]. Thanks for your clarification. Iuscaogdan (talk) 14:11, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Help:IPA pages to which the labiodental nasal should be added

A week has passed an nobody had anything to add. So, can we say that, except one participant, we agree to include the symbol [ɱ] in the list of the languages I've said? Iuscaogdan (talk) 17:25, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the treatment should depend on whether we are indicating phonemes (with / /) or phones (with [ ]). If using phonemes, then of course only use symbols that represent actual phonemes. If showing subphonemic details, then use [ɱ] and [ŋ] as necessary. I'm not making any particular statement on whether phonemes or phones should be indicated. Rua (mew) 18:03, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't think it's inconsistent to use ⟨[m]⟩, enough people are in support of using ⟨[ɱ]⟩ that it seems like it's generally accepted by editors that we ought to use ⟨[ɱ]⟩ if it's warranted. The most obvious cases are Spanish, Italian, and Slovene, but there could be more. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 18:55, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
All right then, if there're no problems we can check which other languagues have both [ŋ] and [ɱ] as mere phonetic allophones of nasals. Italian and the related dialects (Sicilian, Corsican, Neapolitan, Emilian-Romagnol, Sardinian, Lombard) are the ones I was sure about since the beginning, in addition to them also Spanish was said to have the same feature. I've checked by myself just now and found the following languages too: Czech, Hungarian, Romanian (and Slovene that you added). Are they right for you? I've also seen that, for the previous languages, the links to the related Help:IPA pages containing a labiodental nasal allophone aren't many, there won't be much work to do anyway. Iuscaogdan (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me. There might even be a way to automate the process. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 04:07, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Except Italian, the pages with IPA transcriptions in other languages to modify are about 20 if I've checked correctly. But before that the Help:IPA pages have to be updated. If nobody has any objections I could try updating one of these pages, for example Spanish, and if it's set well I or somebody else can do the same with the other pages listed above. Iuscaogdan (talk) 18:18, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think you can see all the Italian ones in my recent edit history (specifically here: [12]) — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 21:10, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Tonight or tomorrow I'm starting with the Spanish Help:IPA page. Iuscaogdan (talk) 16:27, 29 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeusoes1 and Iuscaogdan: But do we want to use ⟨ɱ⟩ for languages that use this allophone for both /n/ and /m/ or also just /m/? I'd use it only for the former. I disagree with adding the symbol to the guides for Czech, Hungarian and Romanian until we check reputable sources for confirmation. We shouldn't rush this, especially given the fact that the Handbook of the IPA says that only /m/ becomes labiodental before labiodental fricatives in Czech.
However, we can add the symbol to Help:IPA/Slovak (per the JIPA article about Slovak) and we also should add it to Help:IPA/Catalan and Help:IPA/Slovene (which I can take care of).
Iuscaogdan, you should also remember that you should go through all the articles that use ⟨m⟩ instead of ⟨ɱ⟩ in Spanish transcriptions and change these instances to ⟨ɱ⟩. There should be no discrepancies between the guide and transcriptions, and the guide should be the last to be changed. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 09:23, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If we want to restrict ourselves to just when we have verification, that's fine, but I don't see why it's necessary to restrict to just when [ɱ] is an allophone of all nasals, rather than just /m/. Also, why do we need to wait until we've changed the pages before we change the chart. If anything, it should be the opposite. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 14:26, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Aeusoes1: Both sound logical (so we should use ⟨ɱ⟩ on Help:IPA/Czech, Help:IPA/Norwegian, Help:IPA/Persian and Help:IPA/Serbo-Croatian - in all of these it's an allophone of /m/). I've reverted myself on Help:IPA/Spanish. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't have preferences about using [ɱ] for languages where it's only an allophone of /n/ and /m/ or just of /m/, as long as in such languages [ŋ] is only an allophone of /n/ too. I agree with you about waiting and checking any possible sources about Czech, Hungarian and Romanian (I've added these languages because they have both [ŋ] and [ɱ] as mere allophones, according to what I've read in Wikipedia) before editing their pages too. For Slovene and Slovak I have no objections, but for Catalan I have one (in fact I've removed it from my list after checking better): [ŋ] is phonemic, for example in "banc" ([baŋ]) and "Samaranch" ([səməˈɾaŋ]), so [ŋ] must occur in Catalan phonemes list, while [ɱ] is just phonetic, it exists just as an allophone of /n/ (or /m/) before [f]; this is a different case from Spanish and Italian where both [ŋ] and [ɱ] exist only as allophones. I edited the page Help:IPA/Spanish this morning, I well know there're also Spanish IPAs to edit in several pages and I'll take care of it (if my edit isn't challenged by anobody) when I have enough time, unfortunately in these days I'm a bit busy but before the end of the week I'm going to fix it and to do the same for Italian and the related dialects, please have just a little patience. Iuscaogdan (talk) 16:14, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand why we would need to restrict it to languages where the velar nasal isn't phonemic. Phonemicity of other nasals isn't really a factor here. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 16:17, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Because the topic was "Nasal allophones inconsistency/incoherence in some Help:IPA pages", not "Let's add the labiodental nasal in every Help:IPA page". In languages where [ŋ] is phonemic, such as English, I agree with you that [ɱ] is a futile hyper-specification. But, since actually there's no real inconsistency/incoherence in indicating [ɱ] also in languages where [ŋ] is already indicated, and I'm quite busy at the moment, I won't insist if you want to add it also in Catalan, Norwegian and Persian (clearly, if there're sources testifying the existence of the labiodental nasal before labiodental consonants in such languages). Iuscaogdan (talk) 17:19, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think what the consensus here is that ⟨ɱ⟩ is not completely off the table for these language guides. Your belief that it should only be for cases when a language doesn't have a phonemic velar nasal is not something anyone has agreed to. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 17:55, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I said that I won't oppose the decision to include the phonetic [ɱ] where there's already phonemic [ŋ] (if there're sources testifying that). My aim was including it where both of them were allophones (Italian language and dialects, plus Spanish). The same for [ŋ] and [ɱ] goes for [N], for example, the fact is that I'd seen this inconsistency just in the previous languages which included just the previous allophones. You're free to add the labiodental nasal symbol in other lists as this won't cause further incoherence. Iuscaogdan (talk) 07:33, 31 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. I'll try to do more research myself and will post its results here. Although I agree with Aeusoes that we shouldn't consider the phonemicity of other nasals in this case. I'm not sure why you keep bringing it up. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There weren't so many pages to edit for Spanish... I've also fixed some minor IPA errors, but I have an off-topic doubt: for names from Latin America should we use the same criteria as for Castillan Spanish or should we change it? I think we should keep following the Help:IPA/Spanish indications, unless we specify that a certain pronunciation refers to Latin American Spanish. Iuscaogdan (talk) 08:50, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty much how we've got it set up. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 15:52, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Since nobody has challenged the changes to Help:IPA/Spanish, I'm doing the same for the Italian help page. Iuscaogdan (talk) 07:30, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Appositive or relative clause?

The sentence "Yewberry jelly, toxic in the extreme, will give you an awful stomachache." in Implicature#Conventional implicature contains what the source (Potts 2005:3) calls a nominal appositive. Is this correct? I'd have thought it was a reduced relative clause. --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 14:47, 3 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If it were appositive, you'd be able to use it by itself:
  • *Toxic in the extreme will give you an awful stomachache.
Utterly impossible in my own lect of English; thus my asterisk.
  • Yewberry jelly, which is toxic in the extreme, will give you an awful stomachache.
is grammatical; and within it, "which is toxic in the extreme" is a supplementary relative clause. But I haven't heard of this notion of a "reduced relative clause".
According to The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, "toxic in the extreme" in the original example is an AdjP supplement (see p 1359). -- Hoary (talk) 12:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Digital dependencies and global mental health

There is a lot of linguistic misunderstandings and scientific misunderstandings around linguistics in regard to the digital dependencies, specifically "addiction" vs "dependence", "social media addiction" as a "diagnostic category", "digital media use", and "correlates" rather than specifically saying "addiction" and several others are notable. I've made both the pages digital dependencies and global mental health and social media addiction in regard to them. I'd like some help and have RfC'd for comment [[13]] from your wiki project if that's OK, as well as from policies at social media addiction. I'd like anyone with a lot of experience with linguistic misunderstandings on Wikipedia to assist with the impasse. Many thanks to all involved contributors. --E.3 (talk) 04:24, 11 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

PCVC Speech Dataset

It would be great if interested editors could comment on the AfD discussion for this article at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PCVC Speech Dataset. Thank you. GermanJoe (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of eggcorns

Would List of eggcorns be a good plan?

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:29, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also, a category would maybe be good. Examples to be in this category could include: Toe the line and Potluck. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:36, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Maku people vs Maku language

A discussion of Maku people and Maku language is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation. Please join the discussion. Leschnei (talk) 19:40, 27 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Macrolanguage

A discussion related to ISO classification of "Serbo-Croatian" as a macrolanguage is taking place here. Please, feel free to join the discussion. Sorabino (talk) 10:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation of Allah

Could someone who knows a bit about Arabic take a look at the section Allah#Pronunciation_of_the_word_Allah? I have heard enough Arabic to pick up on the difference between the pronunciation of "Allah" vs what might be expected to be the same consonant in "bismillah", but I would feel less dubious about the passage if some professional phonetics terminology or sourcing could be incorporated. There is also something a bit 'Wikihow' about a sentence like "In order to pronounce the word Allah correctly, one has to focus on the second “l”" appearing in an encyclopedia. Absolutely ideal for this section would be to illustrate the point being made through sound samples, which would include a hypothetical pronunciation of "Allah" without the special articulation, or whatever it is that's happening here. Note there is some discussion of this already in the talk page archive. Beorhtwulf (talk) 18:00, 30 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious "consensus" claims on "Serbo-Croatian" linguistic controversy

Hi, can anyone produce any reference for dubious claims that there is some kind of "consensus" on Serbo-Croatian linguistic controversy? Several linguistic sources that prove the non-existence of such "consensus" are mentioned here. Sorabino (talk) 08:45, 1 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Māori vowels

Forgive me if this is not the right place for this. The Māori language and Māori phonology articles do not agree on the realizations of /a/ and /aː/, and the latter is missing most of the realizations found in the former article. They also disagree on the diphthongs found in the language. I do not have access to the sole source of the latter article, so I am unable to verify which information is correct. Perhaps someone here does and can make the appropriate corrections? Thanks, ARR8 (talk) 03:40, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

They don't quite contradict, since the phonology page is talking about phonemes and the language article is talking about phonetic detail, but I can see how it would be confusing. If you feel up to it, I'd say you should edit one of the articles to present the information that's at both articles and see if anyone objects or alters your synthesis. Once you get to a stable version of this presentation, transfer it over to the other article so that they more transparently agree with each other. — Ƶ§œš¹ [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:09, 4 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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