Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)
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This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here, and Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Before making any major changes to these guidelines, please use the discussion page to ensure that your changes reflect consensus. |
Pronunciation in Wikipedia is generally indicated using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For ease of understanding, fairly broad IPA transcriptions are usually used.
See also
- IPA chart for English and the more detailed International Phonetic Alphabet for English — a good place for English-speakers to start learning IPA
- Pronunciation respelling for English — compare IPA with other pronunciation transcription systems found in English dictionaries
- International Phonetic Alphabet#Types of transcription — explains phonemic/phonetic/morphological and broad/narrow transcriptions
Contents |
[edit] Other transcription systems
Some articles have in the past used SAMPA (or X-SAMPA), which is a way of indicating IPA without using the special IPA characters. The need for SAMPA has essentially disappeared since the introduction of Template:IPA (see below), which works around the broken display of IPA text in Internet Explorer. SAMPA is generally much less familiar to potential readers, and current practice is to replace it with IPA where possible.
Pronunciation transcriptions based on traditional English spelling are deprecated. Forms such as pro-NUN-see-AY-shun may be misinterpreted by people who speak a different dialect or whose first language isn't English. They can however be used in addition to the IPA version so that it's easy for people who don't know the IPA to understand them. It may also be helpful to add comments such as "rhymes with..." or "stress on the first syllable".
If a language is not normally written using the Latin alphabet, an official Romanisation may exist. For example pinyin for Mandarin Chinese or the Royal Thai General System of Transcription. In that case both this romanisation and the IPA rendering may be given.
[edit] IPA style
When using IPA provide an explanation, for instance by using Template:IPA notice, or just by linking to one of the articles describing the IPA codes, for instance:
([[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA pronunciation]]: {{IPA|[aɪ pʰiː eɪ]}})
Which yields:
- (IPA pronunciation: [aɪ pʰiː eɪ])
Don't link the IPA text, because the link underlining may make IPA characters difficult to read. When you link an audio sample, make sure you use {{Audio-IPA}} or {{Audio-IPA-nohelp}} so that the IPA text does not get underlined.
IPA style recommends the use of square brackets around pronunciations. The use of slashes is permitted in cases where the pronunciation represents only phonemes. Slashes should only be used if the distinction between phonemes and phones is important in the context at hand. For example the English word pull would normally be shown in a phonetic transcription as [pʊl], but if a more detailed phonetic transcription is also included, such as [pʰʊɫ], emphasing the aspirated allophone of /p/ and the "dark" allophone of /l/, then the phonemic transcription could be /pʊl/.
[edit] Distinction between British, American and Australian pronunciation
- (This is currently being discussed at Talk:International_Phonetic_Alphabet_for_English#Pronunciation_guides_in_Wikipedia_articles.)
[edit] Foreign names
When transcribing foreign names, you may write two transcriptions: the native pronunciation and English pronunciation. When a foreign name has a usual English pronunciation (or pronunciations), include both the English and foreign-language pronunciations, and the English transcription must always be first. If the native name is different from the English name, the native transcription must be after the native name.
For example:
([[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]: {{IPA|[ˌvɛnəˈzwelə]}};
[[Spanish language|Spanish]]: ''República Bolivariana de Venezuela'',
[[International Phonetic Alphabet|IPA]]: {{IPA|[reˈpuβlika βoliβaˈɾjana ðe βeneˈswela]}})
which gives:
(IPA: [ˌvɛnəˈzwelə]; Spanish: República Bolivariana de Venezuela, IPA: [reˈpuβlika βoliβaˈɾjana ðe βeneˈswela])
Transcriptions should always have a label identifying what language they are transcribing.
In the case of there being two different standards for a single language, you should choose the most appropriate. E.g., write [beneˈswela], according to Latin-American Spanish, not [beneˈθwela]; that is European standard pronunciation.
[edit] Technical issues
Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows doesn't automatically use a font that contains specialized IPA characters. Passages of IPA text should be placed into Template:IPA, which tells Explorer to choose the correct font. More detailed documentation is at Template talk:IPA. Even in Firefox, which will look for font containing the missing character, not using the template may cause some characters to be rendered in differing fonts.
An example, placing a phonetic rendering of the word characters in Template:IPA:
{{IPA|[ˈkæɹəktə(ɹ)z]}}
In your browser:
| without template:IPA: | [ˈkæɹəktə(ɹ)z] |
| with template:IPA: | [ˈkæɹəktə(ɹ)z] |
You should not see a difference between the two, unless you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer on Windows, or you have a custom stylesheet for IPA.
[edit] Entering IPA characters
Many IPA characters cannot be typed with a regular keyboard layout, but there are various ways to enter them.
- Beneath the edit box on Wikipedia is a character map.
- Just click the one you want, and it’ll be added at the insertion point in the edit box.
- Copy and paste them from elsewhere (other articles or websites, for example)
- Many of the familiar Latin letters can be typed with a normal English keyboard layout. Also,
- Regular punctuation can serve for the special symbols
- ( : ) colon for length
- ( ' ) typewriter apostrophe for primary stress
- ( . ) period for syllable separator
- On Mac English keyboard layouts, a few special characters can be typed:
- alt-c for ç
- alt-o for ø
- alt-q for œ
- alt-' for æ
- Enter them using a special character utility
- On Mac OS X, use the Character Palette: choose the "Phonetic Symbols" category and double-click on a character to enter it
- Type them with a custom keyboard layout
- For Mac OS X, download the IPA-SIL keyboard layout
[edit] Numeric entry
The following methods require you to know the Unicode code point of the character you wish to enter: for example, the IPA symbol [ɒ] is represented by the hexadecimal value U+0252. See the resources links below for reference charts.
- Enter them using a numeric keyboard input method
- On most Windows keyboard layouts, type alt-0-2-5-2 for ɒ
- On Mac OS X, use the Unicode Hex Input keyboard layout, type option-0-2-5-2 for ɒ
- Enter them into wikitext as HTML character entities
- Entity reference: enter æ for æ
- Numeric reference (decimal): enter ɒ for ɒ
- Numeric reference (hexadecimal): enter ɒ for ɒ
[edit] Resources
- SIL: Some tools and resources for character input
- UCL: The International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode
- Unicode chart for IPA extensions
- Unicode chart for IPA spacing modifier letters
- Unicode chart including IPA combining diacritical marks
- Unicode-HTML codes for IPA symbols: Tables of symbol names and HTML codes at PennState.
- IPA Unicode "keyboard" for point-and-click entry of IPA characters
[edit] Related templates
- {{IPA}}, it allows proper display of IPA characters.
- {{IPA2}}, a variant with a link to International Phonetic Alphabet.
- {{Audio-IPA}}, which links to an audio file for pronunciation
- {{Audio-IPA-nohelp}}, a variant without the help link
- {{IPA notice}}, a message that warns the reader of the usage of IPA characters
- {{Cleanup-ipa}}, a request for inclusion of IPA pronunciation.
