BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik

Subject: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 01:53 PM

Rheinland-Pfalz (pronounced [ˈʁaɪnlant ˈpfalts]).

That is an example of the system which Wikepedia uses to show pronunciation. I've tried to find an explanation for it. No luck.

Does anybody know anything about these characters?

I call it a schtik because I consider it pseudo-intellectual to use a little-known set of characters and then fail to provide a key to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: Paul Burke
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 02:02 PM

It's the International Phonetic Alphabet in which each character has a single, agreed, sound value. Hence you aren't reliant on anybody's particular orthography.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: Bert
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 04:45 PM

Right on Lenia.

And Paul, how can anyone learn a single, agreed, sound value when we all pronounce things differently?

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 06:44 PM

The reason the IPA has been the standard in linguistics and anthropology for fifty years or more is that even though "we all pronounce things differently," the number of individual sounds in the world's languages is still finite, and all of then can be described by how they're formed by the organs of speech. IPA allows the printed representation of a pronunciation no matter how a word might be spelled, no matter the language or the alphabet used.

Cut to the (simplified) chase: IPA reprsents every speech sound in the world with a specific, unvarying symbol. (There are additional, super-technical symbols if you want an even more precise transcription.)

Example: "k" represents the initial sound in "cat," no how matter how it's spelled and no matter what language it appears in. "s" is the middle consonant in "recent." The upside-down capital "R" in the standard pronunciation of "Rheinland-Pfalz" doesn't exist in English, but you can hear it war movies when the Nazis speak German. It exists in other languages as well, including French.

Ever hear of the !Xun language of South Africa that uses clicks? IPA has symbols for those too. (Hint: "!Xun" is not a typo.)

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 10:34 PM

Reminds me of Henry Higgins writing and then reading back Eliza Doolittle's speech.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 11:57 PM

Yes, indeed, CL ~~ Shaw would certainly have known about the developments since the 1880s of the IPA, and when creating as a character a linguistician and analyst of pronunciation like Higgins in a play of the early C20 [1912], would have had him cognisant, and making use, of such available resources.

I have always been interested, btw, in Shaw's note that he uses an upside-down e throughout to represent the indefinite vowel sound, which as he says, though the most common of vowel sounds, has no letter in our alphabet to represent it. In fact, I worked out when I first read this about 70+ years ago, every one of our vowels can do so on occasion ~~ as in the a in 'formal', the e in 'system', the 2nd i in 'definite', the o in 'carton', the u in 'focus' ~~ and sometimes it is implied with no vowel actually appearing in the spelling, as in the sound between the h & the m at the end of 'rhythm'.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:35 AM

Would add that, when Eliza demands to see what Higgins has written, she remarks that she can't read it, as "that ain't proper writing, that ain't", which confirms that he would have been using IPA, or some variant of his own.

Also, re the indefinite vowel, in E Anglian dialect, even the final y, in standard English pronounced like ee, sometimes becomes the indefinite vowel: Harry Cox, of Catford, Norfolk, used for example to sing the line in The Shooting Of His Dear as "Off goes young Jimma with his dog and his gun" - though if asked to write it he would have written the name as 'Jimmy'.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 09:27 AM

Thanks for the explanation, Paul. I studied the article for a while, then concluded that I would need to take a course before I could follow the explanation.

Still, it's good not to feel completely excluded when coming across something in IPA.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 09:47 AM

You're at a party and you notice this guy over against the wall that is just standing there. People come up and he begins talking but after a very short time they all back away and he is again alone. Finally another guy you had noticed doing the same thing on the other side of the room approaches. These two each begin talking at the same time........each talking and neither listening. They continue happily in this manner for almost an hour after which they stand together smiling.

One is an Anthropologist and the other a Linguist.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 10:39 AM

Like when Elvis says "baybuh."

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 11:20 AM

MtheGM, the vowel you describe is, I think, referred to as the schwa.
(IPA an upside-down e) I studied phonetics as an 'extra' at Edinburgh Uni, and adored it. One of our tasks was to transcribe many of the speeches in 'Pygmalian' into IPA. We were also played several languages (short phrases) and asked to transcribe them. The Oral exam consisted of lists of IPA phrases, some including 'clicks' which we had to pronounce. Putting various clicks between vowels was tremendous fun. We also had cocoa powder sprayed inside our mouths, whereupon we made a plosive sound (eg 't' or 'g') and a camera was put in there to photograph where the powder had been rubbed off. We could see whether the tongue had touched the alveolar ridge, or teeth etc. Absolutely fascinating! I can still pronounce all the major 'click' sounds common in languages of Southern Africa.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:04 PM

IPA is so detailed that it can represent two schwa-like sounds in English. The upside-down "e" when the syllable is unstressed, and a upside-down "v" for the clearer sound when it is.

Compare "but"(stressed) and the final syllable of "system" (unstressed). In a word like "rubber," the final vowel is so indistinct that a third symbol is often used: a dot under the "r" (when the "r" is pronounced.

It takes practice to hear some of these distinctions, but eventually you wonder how you could ever have thought the sounds were identical.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:30 PM

Schwa, indeed, Eliza ~~ from Hebrew, a language I happen to know, tho a bit rusty these days [as what isn't! - and note the שְׁוָא at end of 'isn't'!]. It is written, as are all Hebrew vowels when used [tho often omitted as unnecessary for adult fluent readers], as a vertical arrangement of two dots, rather like a colon ~ :. It is under the letter שְׁ above, but probably too small to read clearly. This letter is the first of the word - the sh sound, as Hebrew reads right to left.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:35 PM

Sorry ~ phrase omitted in above post: I meant to point out that Hebrew vowels, when used, are printed underneath the consonants; tho most adult Hebrew readers dispense with the cnsonnts, bt stll mng t ndrstd th wrds th r rdg...

מיכאל

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:48 PM

Out if interest, "Shtick" is derived from the Yiddish word shtik (שטיק) ['piece']. Yiddish is a mixture of Hebrew & German, using mainly Germanic words but with some Hebrew interpolations, all printed in the Hebrew alphabet, though with a vowel system whereby the vowels are represented by letters included within the word, unlike the system I described above in Hebrew, where the vowels, where used, appear under the consonants. In the word above, e.g., the 'i' vowel is represented by the letter י , which in Hebrew is pronounced as a consonontal 'y'.

~ מגמ ~

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 12:53 PM

Silly me ~ in last but one post, I meant f crse tht t ws th vwls dspnsd wth

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 01:33 PM

SPaw:

You're getting brilliant in your old age!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 01:40 PM

Phonetics was invaluable for me, as I was studying French and Linguistics. It really makes you listen extremely carefully, and helps no end in reproducing the sounds you have heard, which may not exist in English. When you have to record in IPA some sounds in, say, Hindi, you start to notice the reflexed plosives and can then correctly pronounce them. We were also shown X-ray films of people's mouths. It's horrifying just how enormous the tongue actually is! I used to go into their Phonetics 'lab' and watch Africans on film speaking all the myriad languages, and try to copy them. Little did I know that one day I would meet my dear husband (who speaks Malinke, a Senoufo language) and thus have my very own 'subject speaker' to study!

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 03:28 PM

schwa, as printed, is German derived from Hebrew (as stated by MtheGM), in turn probably from Syriac. And no, this is just copying from a dictionary, personally I don't know any schwas, but perhaps a Swabian or two.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 05:35 PM

When I was nine or ten years old, I learned about the schwa in phonics class. I wondered why a word which meant "indistinct vowel sound with no real personality" had so much substance to it. Why not call the sound an Uh?

Another example of the illogicality of adults...

It is interesting to learn that the word comes from German and Hebrew. however. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 06:12 PM

I use my schwa to schtoop.........actually I don't but I like the sort of alliteration sorta' thing.....or in this case, illteration.


Spaw................Actually I use my shvantz

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 04 Apr 12 - 09:25 PM

MtheGM and Q, the background information about the schwa sound is interesting.

Eliza, I have often wished I could have studied linguistics.

As an elementary school teacher I became very familiar with the phonetic symbols used in dictionaries in the US, and I taught them to my students so that they could figure out how to say a new word. However, this was not the IPA, and there were at least two different phonetic alphabets. Which one was being used depended on which dictionary we looked at. Fortunately there was a lot of overlap between the two, and I made sure the children could understand the pronunciation key in case they looked in a dictionary that used the less familiar phonetic alphabet.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 10:53 AM

Hello, Spaw. It's nice to know that somebody else out there doesn't take the IPA seriously. No doubt it's effective for people who have taken courses in it, but for the general public - forget it.

I wonder how they deal with the many R's of the various dialects of English.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 03:22 PM

Go down to R and see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA

This is a good site because you can actually hear the sounds.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 05:12 PM

That's a useful-looking chart. When I tried to play the sounds, my computer wanted to know if it should conduct a search for software to play them, but I said no, not knowing what wilderness it might wander into.

It's interesting to see how many R's there are.

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: Paul Burke
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 05:53 PM

leeina- ervyone nkosw ther aer 3 r's

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 06:38 PM

In West Virginia there are FOUR R's........Reedin', Ritin', Rithmatic, and Route 33 to Ohio.


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 12:10 AM

Paul's post just above reminds me of a fine moment in one of F R Leavis's Cambridge lectures in 1954, where he said of a passage in some work he was analysing, "Note that very interesting ambiguity ~~ of course there are far more than 7 types of ambiguity: he was just being modest."

~Michael~

Any who read English in the middle of last century, in those far-off days of pre-Structuralist ingenuousness and the New Criticism, before the likes of Barthes & Derrida had reared their hideous heads and spoilt everybody's innocent fun, should see the point of this anecdote. Any others who don't get it, but might conceivably be interested, will find helpful info in the wiki entries on F R Leavis, and on Seven Types Of Ambiguity (William Empson).

Subject: RE: BS: Wikipedia's pronunciation schtik
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 06:24 PM

Yes, but could he be ambiguous seven ways before breakfast?