Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation: Difference between revisions

:::::::::::{{ping|IvanScrooge98}} All right, so are we in agreement now? If I re-add the pronunciation, you won’t revert again? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 08:21, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

:::::::::::{{ping|IvanScrooge98}} All right, so are we in agreement now? If I re-add the pronunciation, you won’t revert again? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 08:21, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

::::::::::::Yes, I guess we could remove the {{IPA|/h/}} here now. ~ [[User:IvanScrooge98|”'<span style=”color:#0096FF”>Ivan</span><span style=”color:#FFAC1C”>Scrooge</span><span style=”color:#0096FF”>98</span>”’]] ([[user talk:IvanScrooge98|<span style=”color:grey”>talk</span>]]) 11:14, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

::::::::::::Yes, I guess we could remove the {{IPA|/h/}} here now. ~ [[User:IvanScrooge98|”'<span style=”color:#0096FF”>Ivan</span><span style=”color:#FFAC1C”>Scrooge</span><span style=”color:#0096FF”>98</span>”’]] ([[user talk:IvanScrooge98|<span style=”color:grey”>talk</span>]]) 11:14, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

:::::::::::::I see you’ve done it already, thanks a lot! [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 12:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)

== Using Merriam-Webster? ==

== Using Merriam-Webster? ==

I would like to submit a petition regarding the usage of the International Phonetic Alphabet, abbreviated as the “IPA”.

I have observed that the Manual of Style prefers a plain text format of the IPA pronunciation of the subject’s title, which is beneficial for clarity and accessibility, however, those who may not be familiar or knowledgeable about the IPA may find the plain text format be cluttering the page.

Although there is a Footnote section on the IPA subpage that addresses highly technical and multiple IPA pronunciations, it does not extend to suggesting that main pronunciations also be footnoted.

I suggest that all pronunciations—whether they are common, uncommon, or multiple variants—be moved to footnotes. This approach maintains an uncluttered lead section with the detailed IPA information accessible via a footnote for those who seek further clarity.

This change balances the need for a clean, readable article while also providing detailed phonetic information for those interested. I welcome feedback on this proposal and am particularly interested in hearing about potential drawbacks or alternative solutions that might preserve both accessibility and readability. WorldClassChampion (talk) 10:25, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I second that petition, the IPA is cryptic and likely only readable by a minor fraction of visitors, while taking a top spot in the article. Though rather than a footnote (which are often cluttered), maybe having it moved to the info box for main pronunciation, and a subsection for the variants? Wkyx (talk) 07:28, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. A single IPA pronunciation is good to have, especially for names and foreign words where the pronunciation is often not obvious. It’s also not hard to learn. Therefore it’s fine for the first sentence in such cases, though in more complicated ones (such as with several possible pronunciations), a note may be more appropriate. Gawaon (talk) 08:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IPA is usually considered very hard to learn. The number of symbols alone is a barrier, and TBH even in the linguistics field, it’s not that easy: many of the pronunciations can require months of training with tutoring. And if your ears were never trained at a young age, you may never be able to get them right.

If wikipedia was primarily about linguistics, then yes, it would make sense to have IPA up there in a prime spot, otherwise english pronunciation respelling is more practical (it’s accessible to all visitors). Wkyx (talk) 08:39, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IPA is not harder to learn than any alphabet that seeks cover all sounds in all languages in the world would be, which naturally requires a lot of symbols – there is nothing hard when you are only trying to learn the symbols for those languages that concern you, which is what most people do. It can only be difficult for you if any new alphabet or spelling system different from the English one is difficult for you. If anyone ‘in the linguistics field’ finds it difficult, it is probably because they are just bad at languages in general and shouldn’t have got into linguistics in the first place.–Anonymous44 (talk) 23:15, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

While US dictionaries normally don’t use IPA, UK dictionaries normally do. So the fraction of visitors who can read it may be greater than you think.

Anyway, we often do have both pronunciation respelling and IPA, and in some cases they’re even both relegated to a footnote or the infobox (e.g. technetium, Łódź). The trouble is that there are some words where respelling doesn’t work very well (because English spelling is messy enough that there’s no unambiguous way to write a vowel), and of course it doesn’t work at all when it’s specifically a foreign-language pronunciation that is being presented. Double sharp (talk) 09:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, I am not a native English speaker and I was taught English at school using IPA, just as all of my English dictionaries used it. That said, the current ridiculous interdialectal transcription of English in use on Wikipedia seems to be the phonetic transcription of the accent of a highly mediocre non-native teacher of English, so I would gladly see it gone and it is the IPA for languages other than English that I would primarily defend.–Anonymous44 (talk) 23:15, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, too. IPA is only ‘hard to learn’ for most native English speakers inasmuch as everything foreign is ‘hard to learn’ for most native English speakers. It is not at all hard to learn for people who actually do have some interest in and experience of foreign languages, who just happen to be unusually few in English-speaking countries, probably because English speakers expect everyone else to speak their language instead. The English Wikipedia is far from being used only by native English speakers, English is a global lingua franca and many non-native English speakers, including myself, have been taught English with IPA. BTW, the proposal seems to have been implemented already in recent years before anyone was asked about it – I keep opening an article expecting to see information about the pronunciation and see it relegated to a footnote (at best), when it used to be in the lede years ago.–Anonymous44 (talk) 23:15, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just revisiting a discussion from a few years back (Archive 10#References): what are your thoughts on adding a small references section to this guide as a reminder of WP:Verifiability? Something along the lines of this:

Referencing transcriptions

Where they appear in an article, pronunciation transcriptions should be verified by a reliable source. Wikipedia has a selection of dictionary source templates that may be useful in formatting inline citations to reliable secondary sources. Appropriate primary sources for a pronunciation transcription include footage of a person pronouncing their own name and material officially released by a relevant authority, such as an organization documenting their name’s pronunciation.

—Muchness (talk) 04:37, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not referencing transcriptions

I would like to propose just the opposite. IPA transcriptions are virtually impossible to reference (go ahead: try to find references for a few random ones), and thus, unsurprisingly, almost all IPA transcriptions on Wikipedia are unreferenced. If we required what you suggest, almost all IPA transcriptions would disappear from Wikipedia eventually. Would that be a good thing?

I should mention that I have recently been involved in a discussion on this matter with some other users, one of whom objected to my insertion of a transcription into an article that he had created. I got the impression that some of the participants were not exactly conversant with language matters, and I think it’s important to get input from some users who are.

As I see it, a word’s or a name’s pronunciation is a matter of language (I am a “language person”; that’s what I studied at university, and I speak several languages), just like spelling, grammar, usage and punctuation. We do not require references for edits dealing with those things. For instance, if some user writes:

He done never seen them there results cuz he done croaked afore they come out.

Nobody – and I mean nobody – would demand a reference if another user changed this to read:

He never saw those results because he died before they were published.

We trust Wikipedia users to know the language that they are writing in all its aspects. Yes, some are a bit untrustworthy that way, and that’s why anybody can edit Wikipedia. If somebody encounters a language matter in an article, they can deal with it. We trust Wikipedians to use the right words, the right constructions, the right formatting, without the need to insert references to a dictionary, a grammar or some tome on good writing skills.

Why, therefore, should IPA transcriptions (or any other kind of pronunciation text) need a reference? Since we rely on Wikipedians themselves to provide language for the article text, image captions and other things that involve language from their own knowledge of such things, can we rely on them to furnish phonetic transcriptions, also based on their knowledge of such things as a word’s or a name’s pronunciation and the language that it comes from (and IPA script)? I say yes, why not? It seems to me that a broad exception is already made for language, and even that a kind of consensus already exists for leaving IPA transcriptions unreferenced, as the Wikipedians who do this are legion.

I would like a serious discussion about this, preferably with a good number of users who are knowledgeable in language, as I believe that blindly following the rules on the point of phonetic transcriptions would lead to Wikipedia becoming a less informative source. Kelisi (talk) 05:10, 31 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

​ “IPA transcriptions are virtually impossible to reference.” Why? I’ve used Collins and Cambridge online dictionaries as well as J. C. Wells’s Longman Pronunciation Dictionary to source numerous IPA transcriptions. In addition other sources give pronunciations that can easily be rendered in IPA in the spirit of WP:CALC. Along with editor transcription of audio sources (which is admittedly on shakier ground in terms of reliability), quite a number of pronunciations can be sourced and should be when idiosyncratic or counterintuitive (e.g. with Ray vs. Dave Davies). ~2025-32911-10 (talk) 08:58, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just added a sourced pronunciation here with minimal effort. It can be done. —  AjaxSmack  15:38, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’m asking the community’s opinion about an Italian IPA: Margherita Hack.
According to Italian phonology, it should be [marɡeˈriːta ˈak] because in Italian the sound /h/ isn’t pronounced. It may be forcedly pronounced in foreign names or words to underline their foreigness, but: 1) not for names of Italian persons (nor for stably naturalised words) even if of foreign origin; 2) a realiable source proving such a possible pronunciation must exist.
Instead, a user has been continuously adding a /h/ between parentheses for the surname Hack: [ˈ(h)ak]. His point was: every /h/ can be either pronounced or not pronounced in Italian. This is false, you can search all the articles of Wikipedia about Italian or the sources cited in the articles and you won’t find anything supporting this point. He based his assertion on a footnote of the help page (Help:IPA/Italian) where it’s said that “/h/ is usually dropped”, which clearly means what I’ve explained, not what he claims. Note that this sourceless footnote was added by him years ago (and recently modified but still interpreted by him at will), exactly as the /(h)/ added to the original IPA of Hack. But a user himself isn’t a source, much less a reliable source (and much less if banned from the Italian Wikipedia for his behaviour incompatible with Wikipedia itself…).
A reliable source is needed to prove that the pronunciation with /h/ is possible, but the user just added once a random YouTube video and a Forvo audio by a random person. Everyone could add any pronunciation of any Italian IPA if he goes cherry picking through the Internet to find an unreliable source which agrees with his POV. Reliable sources are for example the 2 Italian phonetic dictionaries cited in the help page, for example one certifies that “Heidi” can be pronounced with /h/ while “hotel” can’t.
All I’m explaining here is explained in a discussion in the talk page of Margherita Hack, where I invited any interested user to say his opinion about this matter (i.e. the Italian pronunciation of “Hack”, not the help page containing the foreing sound /h/). After the interested users who joined there had said that they disagreed with the banned user’s arguments, he decided by his own to fully remove the IPA which had been there for a decade. Such an attitude is precisely what caused his indefinite ban from Italian Wikipedia, as well as his temporary bans in English Wikipedia (one still active as of today). That’s why I’ve opened a new discussion here, to verify whether a consensus about the IPA of this Italian scientist can be reached and, overall, applied regardless of the banned user’s will.
I’d like to thank in advance any user who’ll join this discussion and say his opinion. ~2026-61325-0 (talk) 21:39, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@AjaxSmack, Kelisi, Muchness, Double sharp, Anonymous44, Gawaon, WorldClassChampion, Sol505000, Nixinova, and Wolfdog: ~2026-79308-5 (talk) 20:51, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Can’t help as I’m not that familiar with Italian, apart from general pronunciation rules and allophony. I don’t think bringing up Ivan’s ban on Italian Wiki (or his article ban regarding Luigi Mangione) is productive, let’s focus on the IPA. I’d err on the side of descriptivism. If hardly anybody pronounces it, let’s not transcribe it. Sol505000 (talk) 20:55, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, it all boils down to how Hack pronounced her own name. Do we know about that? I don’t speak Italian myself, but I was under the impression that the H is never pronounced in Italian and that its main function in Italian orthography was to show that a preceding C or G was hard before an E or I (for example in gnocchi or Lamborghini). If Hack was italophone, and not a German speaker from the South Tyrol or something, then she likely didn’t say /h/ at the beginning of her last name. Furthermore, I would be inclined to expect that some italophones would insert a superfluous vowel sound at the end of the name Hack because – correct me if I’m wrong – a final /k/ sound is not something that happens in Italian phonology. But I shall restate my main point: the defining pronunciation should be the one that Hack herself used. Can we find out what that was? Kelisi (talk) 21:11, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Guidelines also provide a path, here MOS:IPAINTEGRITY (“[I]f the language you’re transcribing has such an IPA key, use the conventions of that key. … Creating transcriptions unsupported by the key or changing the key so that it no longer conforms to existing transcriptions will confuse readers.”). Help:IPA/Italian includes /h/, but as a “non-native consonant.” Margherita Hack (and her parents) were Italian, so using a non-native sound for her name is a big stretch unless sources can be found where she uses that pronunciation herself or where it is widely and consistently used by other Italian speakers. —  AjaxSmack  21:33, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

“Hack” is not an Italian word, so we may simply not know how she and her family pronounced/pronounces it? Unless we have reliable sources indicating a specific pronunciation, we shouldn’t invent something, so omitting pronunciation information seems the best course of action here, I’d say. Gawaon (talk) 21:42, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The article says her father is of “Protestant Swiss origin”, which would suggest the German pronunciation /hak/. But of course, after coming to Italy they might have dropped the /h/. Or not. Without explicit information on this, we shouldn’t guess. Gawaon (talk) 21:51, 4 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

“Origin” does not necessarily mean “born” and the Italian article has a referenced statement of “Florentine of distant Swiss origins”. No mention of German is there. Just find a couple of videos like this and be done with it. —  AjaxSmack  03:32, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, that video certainly supports the pronunciation [marɡeˈriːta ˈak], as does this one. So unless there’s conflicting evidence, that’s the way to go. Gawaon (talk) 09:40, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you’d like to listen to Margherita Hack pronouncing her own surname you can hear her here: [1] (spoiler: she says [ˈak]; she doesn’t say [ˈhak]). Her surname might be of foreign origin but it’s been “italianised” since her family moved to Italy. Adding /(h)/ is just that vandal’s mental w…ell, you know. ~2026-61325-0 (talk) 21:00, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, that settles it in favour of [ˈak], I’d say. Links to the videos (especially that one) could be added as sources, if needed. Gawaon (talk) 21:11, 5 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’m glad to read that! Just a pair of problems: the page is protected so that only experienced users are allowed to modify it, but even if somebody who can do it adds the correct iPA the vandal will immediately remove it (as he’s been doing during the last weeks against the consensus expressed by all the other users who joined the discussion in the talk page). Isn’t there anything we can do to insert the “correct” IPA? ~2026-61325-0 (talk) 21:00, 6 February 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-84161-9 (talk) [reply]

Yeah, okay, call me a vandal with a mental illness. I supposed WP:PA has gone into the dustbin. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 21:57, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon, since when a user who’s been indefinititely blocked, even if not globally but just locally, can’t be called “vandal”? I suggest that “you” read Wikipedia:Vandalism instead. Now, is “nord” an Italian word? Is it read according to Italian phonology? And is it a French borrowing, right? Yes. So, according to your argument, we should transcribe it as /ˈnɔr(d)/ because in French the <d> isn’t read and the fact that we use this French word in Italian doesn’t mean that we must exclude the original pronunciation, even if Italian themselves pronounce it with the /d/. The same goes for “sud”. And, being in the English version of Wikipedia, the same goes for “water”: in Italian we use this word as a short form of “water closet” and we read it /ˈvater/. Guys, do you think that for this English borrowing in Italian we should transcribe both the English and the Italian pronunciation even if we Italians pronounce it only according to “our” phonology and we’d even laugh at another Italian who pronounces it in English? The vandal (pardon, the user who’s been indefinititely blocked on his original Wikipedia after a series of temporary blocks for: reiterated attacks, e-mail insults, abuse of project pages and talk pages, uncooperative behaviour, rejection of ArbCom deliberations; in short “clearly not being here to build an encyclopedia”) thinks so… What about you? @AjaxSmack, Kelisi, and Sol505000: ~2026-83667-7 (talk) 08:22, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Once more, please refrain from personal attacks or you might be the one to find themselves blocked. Also this issue was about one specific name and now broadening it to totally unrelated words is not helpful. Let’s stick to the original issue – the pronunciation of Margherita Hack – which is now hopefully resolved or close to being resolved. Gawaon (talk) 09:13, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’m sorry if I’ve gone too far, I thought that talking about “facts” wouldn’t be reprehensible. However, I’ve seen that the issue has been solved correctly, thankfully! I’ve got nothing more to say about it. ~2026-83667-7 (talk) 12:44, 7 February 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-84241-0 (talk) [reply]

Also, congratulations on carefully avoiding pinging me when I obviously should have been involved in this discussion. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for that, but it’s not too late yet! The case seems pretty clear though, since we have three videos all showing the same pronunciation. So that’s the one to use, right? Gawaon (talk) 22:01, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn’t directed at you, but at the one who opened this discussion, who is most likely the same guy who took it personally from the beginning. As I mentioned elsewhere, of course her own pronunciation is more relevant, but it doesn’t mean other pronunciations are wrong. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 22:03, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Well since it’s her and her family’s name, she and her family are calling the shots, right? Plus of course it’s the pronunciation one would expect based on the country she was born and lived in. As I pointed out in the discussion above, I too once suspected that maybe she insists on a German-style /hak/, but that conjecture was refuted. So one what basis could we show a pronunciation different from the one she uses herself? Gawaon (talk) 22:09, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it does make sense after all, it’s actually the only reasonable argument for excluding /h/ entirely. I’m just upset the anon tried to play some games to keep me unaware of this discussion. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 22:35, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Does this mean that you agree with excluding the /(h)/? No-one’s yet replied to my comment about possibly changing policy, but if consensus has been reached then there’s no need to go that far. ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 08:18, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not sure we should change policy, after all the argument in this particular case is that Hack’s name has been treated as Italian for a long time, unlike regular loanwords. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 11:17, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@~2026-61325-0: Indeed, you must not call editors in good standing vandals and you must inform the other people involved if you move a discussion elsewhere. May you learn and do better in the future! Gawaon (talk) 08:19, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@IvanScrooge98: All right, so are we in agreement now? If I re-add the pronunciation, you won’t revert again? Gawaon (talk) 08:21, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I guess we could remove the /h/ here now. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 11:14, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I see you’ve done it already, thanks a lot! Gawaon (talk) 12:50, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is a request to add an IPA pronunciation to Castilleja. So far I have been unable to find a source, it is not in Collins or Cambridge. There is a pronunciation guide in Merriam-Webster for the genus name, but it is not IPA. Is there a way to use M-W to make a standard IPA pronunciation or does that cross over to synth? Or does anyone have another possible source? 🌿MtBotany (talk) 01:22, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@MtBotany: It’s tricky to map “kastəˈlē(y)ə” into the set at Help:IPA/English, and there would, I’m sure, be ENGVAR issues. For example, I think I would usually pronounce the first part as /kæstɪl/, whereas I’m sure others would use /kɑːstə l/. So I think to produce IPA would be synth. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:30, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I suspected that would be the case, but needed to ask because I’m still learning about IPA. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 17:20, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There’s also an issue with the pronunciation of scientific names derived from personal names. Kniphofia is a notorious example. Some people try to pronounce such names as if actually (botanical) Latin, others closer to the origin of the name. See Talk:Kniphofia. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:26, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Since I know a little Spanish, like many Coloradans, I default to a more or less Spanish pronunciation of Castilleja, no idea of if I get close to “correct” since I’m sure I have a strong accent to my Spanish. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 21:14, 6 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For plant names, there a good many topical pronunciation guides out there. I have the 3d edition of A. T. Johnson’s Plant Names Simplified and Ross Bayton’s The Gardener’s Botanical and… they disagree. It reminds me of the Ashkenazi vs Sephardic pronunciation arguments I hear sometimes. Is mapping to IPA that difficult, though? I have boldly added these to the article. Change or remove them if you see fit. Let me know if you want a pdf copy of the latter ref which does not have the relevant page viewable on Google Books. —  AjaxSmack  01:40, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@AjaxSmack: I only have an earlier edition of Plant Names Simplified. Does the later edition actually have IPA versions? The earlier one doesn’t. Does the other source? Whether it’s WP:SYNTH to construct IPA from ‘respelling’ representations was the issue that started this thread. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:49, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I’d say it’s not really SYNTH if there’s a clear and unambiguous mapping from respelling key to IPA given somewhere (say at the start of the guide). If not, however, it would be problematic. Gawaon (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Whether a source uses the IPA has no bearing on whether we can use it as a source. Each publication has its own system of respelling, IPA-based or not. If converting a non-IPA respelling to IPAc-en is OR, so is converting an IPA transcription to IPAc-en because no one uses the exact same scheme as ours (see Help:IPA/Conventions for English, Pronunciation respelling for English). Nardog (talk) 11:22, 7 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]