Help talk:IPA/Serbo-Croatian

Do SC distinguish an affricate dž from a stop-fricative sequence dž ? Most Slavic languages make a distinction in the orthography, but that wouldn't be possible in this case. kwami (talk) 14:56, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes it does (e.g. nadživjeti "to outlive", compound of nad "over" + živjeti "live" where subsequent affrication would obscure the meaning), and also between the sequence /nj/ and /ɲ/ which are both spelled as 'nj' (e.g. in injekcija "injection"), and also /lj/ and /ʎ/ (of which some orthographies claim there are no phonetically ambiguous examples of, but these have been disputed recently in some chemistry terminology such as metiljantarni [1]). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Additional letters and transcriptions

Bulgarian

• [dʒ] = дж = dzh
• [j] = ӣ = i, y
• [ɲ] = нь = ny
• [ʃ] = ш = sh
• [ts] = ц = ts
• [tʃ] = ч = ch
• [ʒ] = ж = zh
• [ə]/[ɤ] = ъ = a/ă

Macedonian

• [dz] = ѕ = dz
• [ɟ] = ѓ = ǵ/gj
• [c] = ќ = ḱ/kj

That's a basic overview of the differences between them and Serbo-Croatian. BalkanFever 08:46, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Would Slovenian be too divergent?

So, the Macedonian C's, the Bulgarian schwa, plus orthography.

We could put in extra switches. Or we could have several templates (SC, Bulg, Slov.) which all link to this IPA key. kwami (talk) 09:02, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Not really AFAIK. It contains [ə] which is written <e> (so is [ɛ]) but that's about it. Other points:

• in Sl and Mk <lj> generally represents a [lj] sequence rather than [ʎ]
• in Mk and Bg, [v] = в = v , rather than [ʋ]
• in Sl, Mk and Bg, there is no [tɕ] or [dʑ]. BalkanFever 09:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I think it would be easier with different templates (e.g. Macedonian pronunciation: [{{{1}}}] etc.) leading to the same page, WP:IPA for South Slavic rather than one complicated template. BalkanFever 09:20, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Slovenian

• e, o, ə
• dz
• ɣ
• tone differences?

kwami (talk) 11:53, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Tone marks are, according to de Bray's Guide to South Slavic, grave accent for short falling, acute accent for long rising and some form of inverted breve for long falling. BalkanFever 04:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, pretty similar, but it would require an extra column in the tone table for the grave and the SH tones missing in Slovenian. kwami (talk) 06:40, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

vowels

Vowel examples need some reworking because of the lengths and tones. In some of the SC examples the vowel is short where on the corresponding English word it's long and vice versa. Also is the problematic <ije> sequence which is pronounced as [ie] only when it is a jat reflex (and not in words such as dijeta "diet"), and it has dual pronunciation when following /n/ and /l/ of both palatalizing and nonpalatalizing (e.g. mlijeko as [mljeko], [mʎeko] and even as [mlieko] according to some grammars which in practice is never spoken tho). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

request

I've templated all unformatted IPA I could find in the March 12 dump, with just 9 articles to go. 3 of those are SC: Mirijevo, Novaci (Ub), Vukašin Brajić. Could s.o. here template them with IPA-sc, and fix up the transcription if needed? I'd do it myself, but I have no idea what the accents would be. — kwami (talk) 10:43, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. No such user (talk) 14:09, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 20:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Tone

How to hell do we use the rising and falling tone marks? Are those caron+circumflex, or breve+upside-down breve? Using combining marks is rather inconvenient, but it seems to be the only especially with symbols like ɔ or ɛ. When I use combining breve with ̆ɔ it looks good in the edit window (DejaVu Sans Mono for me):

̆ɔ 

̆ɔ
...but look offset on the text (Vector skin+Arial+Firefox). No such user (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I think maybe your edit-window font doesn't display it properly. What you coded here is the breve over a space, followed by the bare vowel. (And, BTW, for IPA it should be an angular caron for rising tone, ‹ ̌›. Below the edit window the order is bottom tone ə̏, rising ə̌, falling ə̂. The breve is for a short vowel.) Here's what I get for those vowels, w/ and w/o IPA templating:

• with {{IPA}}: ɛ̂ ɛ̌ ɔ̂ ɔ̌
• without: ɛ̂ ɛ̌ ɔ̂ ɔ̌

— kwami (talk) 20:51, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Your examples look correct both in my edit window and in the page proper. I tend to forget that the combining marks must come after the letter, which is rather counter-intuitive (because when typing, one usually first hits a prefix key, then a letter). Not sure why DejaVu shows the first example above "correctly" for me (although I typed it incorrectly). However, it also shows your examples well. Still, it would be convenient if we had combining diacritics in the symbol palette when editing. No such user (talk) 07:40, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Mid or open-mid?

The article Serbo-Croatian phonology seems to say that /e/ and /o/ are realized as mid vowels, and uses the symbols [e] and [o] everywhere. This IPA guide, however, uses the symbols [ɛ] and [ɔ], suggesting they're in fact open-mid vowels. Which is right? — AdiJapan 08:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

They're mid, or somewhere in-between (see the space at Serbo-Croatian phonology#Vowels). I think that we should really switch to using <e> and <o> symbols everywhere because 1) they're not wrong 2) we already have a mixture across articles, so we could standardize to a simpler version and 3) we often attach rising/falling IPA diacritics, and there are no precomposed <ɛ> and <ɔ> glyphs with diacritics, so it is quite impractical to type. More opinions are welcome, we could initiate an informal RFC on WP:PHONETICS No such user (talk) 11:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

What does the literature typically use? I imagine it's e and o, since they're typographically easier, but I haven't checked. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:51, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

There is a mixture. Moren uses <ɛ>, <ɔ> and I've seen <e>, <o>. I concede that <ɛ> and <ɔ> are more accurate representations, but the burden on practicality is just too much for my taste. As far as I know, Spanish and Hebrew have essentially the same vowel quality, but WP:IPA for Spanish and WP:IPA for Hebrew use <e> and <o>. No such user (talk) 06:43, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

If it's just a matter of ease of typing, we can always clean up with a bot or AWB. And we could of course add them pre-combined to the edit window; the only question is how many languages can we do that for before it becomes overwhelming.

Personally, I like to use the more precise letters, but I'm not familiar with SC so I don't really have an opinion. — kwami (talk) 07:28, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Is there still a desire to add vowel–tone combos to the edit window? Figure we might want, ɛ́ ɛ̀ ɛ̂ ɛ̌ ɔ́ ɔ̀ ɔ̂ ɔ̌ ɪ́ ɪ̀ ɪ̂ ɪ̌ ʊ́ ʊ̀ ʊ̂ ʊ̌ ə́ ə̀ ə̂ ə̌, not just for this lang but for others too.

I'm finding a fair amount of <e, o>, and it is more accessible as well as being in the phon. article, so I'm switching over. — kwami (talk) 05:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Needs tone

Could s.o. add tone to Belgrade? — kwami (talk) 07:06, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

And Kosovo#Name, Serbia, Serbs, please? — kwami (talk) 05:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Done. Still having problems with those pesky diacritics though. No such user (talk) 16:17, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

If you want to continue (there are lots of articles without tone, though most aren't very important), you can tell me and I can type them up. I created a keyboard to enter the diacritics directly, so it's easy for me. — kwami (talk) 22:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Also Bosniaks. Serbian Christmas traditions (multiple, many with just the {{IPA}} template). And Hudi Bitek looks like it might be a mix of systems. — kwami (talk) 08:54, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Labiodental fricative vs labiodental approximant

In standard croatian language, the letter V is labiodental fricative, and not labiodental approximant. That means, it's articulated with both lower lip and upper teeth! Ivan.milicic3510 (talk) 18:49, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

If you have a source for that, and people prefer it, then it would be a more straightforward letter to use. It contradicts our phonology article, though, and v does not behave as a fricative. It doesn't become [f] before p, t, k, for example; likewise, f does not become [v] before b, d, g. That is, SC v and f do not form a fricative pair the way z and s do, or ž and š. — kwami (talk) 04:28, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is fricative only on surface, as Móren pointed out; actually, [v] and [ʍ] [ʋ] are allophones, and/or in complementary distribution: the former in syllable onset, and the latter in coda position (or along these lines). Personally, I don't have a preference for either. No such user (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Russian /v/ is similar. While it can be devoiced itself, it's transparent to voicing assimilation, making it act a lot more like a sonorant.

As long as we're consistant, I'm fine with either, but I'm not very familiar with the language's phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Um, I don't think so (concerning Russian): IIRC e.g. ковточка 'sweater' is ['koːftɐt͡ɕkə]; Russian also exhibits final devoicing: здоров 'healthy' [zdə'rof]. No such user (talk) 09:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, those are examples of /v/ devoicing. How does that contradict what I said? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 00:17, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

You said that it's "transparent to voicing assimilation", which I interpreted as "does not devoice in contact with voiceless consonants", which I then disproved. Are you saying I did not understand you well? No such user (talk) 14:33, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

No such, do you mean [w̥], or [ʋ̥]? I didn't realize it devoiced at all. But if the voiced allophone truly is [v], then I don't know why we'd transcribe it [ʋ]. (And also, if it's [v], why did so many of our articles have [v̞]?) And if it devoices, we should indicate that too, IMO. — kwami (talk) 01:54, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I meant [ʋ] (aka [ʋ]), sorry for confusion (typed from a device without that glyph, so I mis-copied). I admit I don't follow you 100%, but I'll try to answer: it never devoices to [f]. When it is in "strong" position, it is not as fricative as e.g. Russian one, hence it could be written [v̞] (e.g. visok ['v̞isok], 'high'); when in "weak" position, it is [ʋ] (e.g. čavka ['t͡ʃaːʋka] 'jackdaw', krov [kroʋ] 'roof'). In our articles, pronunciations including [v̞] were inserted mostly by a couple of friendly IPs, though I'd argue it's too much level of detail. Personally (maybe due to influence of my mother tongue), I don't perceive much difference between [v] and [ʋ], so I'm not sure if my allophone observations are quite accurate, but you get the gist.
I guess, if you ask a native speaker, "what's the 28th letter of the alphabet?", you'd get the answer: [və]. However, since it behaves like an approximant, I think it's slightly better to stick to [ʋ], lest we get questions like "how it's possible to pronounce [vk] in ['t͡ʃaːvka]?" No such user (talk) 09:34, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

You mean the devoicing ring was the typo? It does not devoice to [ˈt͡ʃaːʋ̥ka]?

Since I'd normally read [v̞] to be an approximant, I'd take it to be essentially the same as [ʋ]. Are you saying it's a light fricative, halfway between a fricative and an approximant? I agree that's too precise a transcription. We don't bother with it in Spanish, for example, though we do describe it in a footnote, as well as in the phonology article. — kwami (talk) 15:15, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, basically it's a light fricative.

Now I'm confused -- who introduced that devoicing ring? My only typo in this thread was [ʍ] instead of [ʋ]... Ah, I see what you mean: [w̥] is an alt symbol for ʍ. Yes, that was a typo. No such user (talk) 15:25, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Oops, my bad.

So, it's a light fricative in initial position, and an approximant in coda position? I'll add a note. — kwami (talk) 15:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

That's likely my OR. Bruce Morén (2005), Consonant-Vowel Interactions in Serbian: Features, Representations and Constraint Interactions (PDF), Center for Advanced Study of Theoretical Linguistics, Tromsø says,

Second, [v] is usually described as a phonetic fricative in Serbian. However, its

distribution and phonological behavior are consistent with that of a sonorant, not an obstruent - e.g. it does not participate in voicing alternations with [f]. Therefore, I assume, with Browne (1993), Baric¤ et al. (1997) and Miller-Ockhuizen and Zec (2003)

that it is a phonological sonorant (i.e. /V/) despite its surface fricative property.

No such user (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

In that case, since this is a phonetic transcription, I propose replacing it with ⟨v⟩ in initial position. We can leave ⟨ʋ⟩ in coda position. Or is it phonetically [v] in all positions? If so, IMO we should replace it with more accurate (and more accessible) ⟨v⟩ across the board, and leave the adherent behaviour to a footnote. — kwami (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It is the same phoneme throughout, so we should use the same symbol, whichever it is. I slightly favor [ʋ], because it is phonologically accurate, and phonetically good enough, and because it is used by Moren, Browne etc. There is a note in the phonology article and this key, so that shouldn't be a problem. No such user (talk) 08:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Brown uses ⟨ʋ⟩, but Morén uses ⟨v⟩. Also, this is a phonetic key, and we don't use the same letter throughout for other phonemes. "Phonologically accurate" is also a theoretical claim, whereas phonetically accurate is an empirical claim, and phonetically it sounds like it's basically [v]. — kwami (talk) 11:40, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Tone descriptions

According to the now removed (though more thorough, I guess) pronunciation guide in Serbo-Croatian phonology, 'è' isn't a "short vowel with rising tone" (which would mean that the tone rises within the short vowel and probably stays more or less level outside), it's a short vowel with low tone that rises on the succeeding syllables (the reverse of what the current description suggests). Analogically for 'ȅ'. Native speakers' attention appreciated. 89.231.125.218 (talk) 00:28, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

è is called "short rising", though it's actually short vowel with high tone that stays (about) the same on the succeeding syllables. Here's a rather succinct overview, [2] which should be entered in the article. Full text here (free), and this article seems spot on, but it's preview only. We really need some sound recordings, though, which is something which I've planned to do for several years. No such user (talk) 07:22, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Problem

The help page isn't correct. Though you acknowledged "t" and "d" as dental consonants and "nj" and "lj" as alveolo-palatal ones, there are still some problems. Consonants "s", "z" and "c" are also dental (first and second - sibilants; third - affricate) and in no way alveolar. This is supported by all language textbooks issued by Board for Standardization of the Serbian Language. 178.221.193.240 (talk) 17:45, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Since it's ineffective to cite these books because you can't see them, take a look at this. I cite:

• зубници (дентали): д, т, з, с и ц; on English: with teeth (dental): d, t, z, s, c

178.221.193.240 (talk) 17:52, 3 March 2013 (UTC)