Wikipedia talk:Simplified phonetic transcription for Lithuanian

I have to question both the merit and actual usefulness of a separate transcription system for Lithuanian. IPA is more or less fully supported by Wikipedia by now and is a very detailed and generally accepted transcription system. Adding yet another system will only confuse matters. For the most part, having a separate transcription system will result in that only people who already have a good deal of knowledge of Lithuanian pronunciation will know how to properly decipher the system.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:15, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. This is actually a more complex phonetic transcription for Lithuanian since you still probably have to know IPA to understand what certain things like diphthongs and palatalization are. AEuSoes1 23:42, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Currently there seem to be six articles which use this system and they also seem to have some sort of approximate pronounciation in English. People who can understand either of these are highly likely to be able to understand an actual IPA, and in anycase, they would have much better resources to look for good information on IPA. So I propose we switch to IPA. Stefán Ingi 16:49, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll add my support to doing away with this system. All it does is confuse the situation. The page also seems to suggest that this system was created solely for use on Wikipedia, in which case it really has no justification for being used. --Red Newt 06:29, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

response

I see the idea to make this transcription system was criticized throughly. I accept all arguments above, but your argumentation doesn't move the question towards a solution. The main problem is that, applying IPA transcription, we should have to know how to do it properly.

However the situation is following: Lithuanian linguists use a relative table of sounds, that is similar to what in Russian phonology is called the phonological approach (or saying just "phonologically"). And there's no published source (at least i don't know), that contains adopting this relative table to IPA. So, if anybody from as tried to introduce IPA for Lithuanian, he'd stop, or he'd have to make something, that's very similar with a personal research.

But spelling of the Lithuanian language is different from spelling in English, and it's sufficient reason to introduce some transcription, when many words in Lithuanian are included to the text of Wikipedia. This idea is intended to help readers of Wikipedia, to know at least that words in Lithuanian are spelled differently than in English. Would this be better than no information about spelling at all? I' think it would.

Thats why i made some kind of transcription that encompasses the main phonologic features of the language, that has been accepted by linguists. The transcription wasn't intended to be a substitution for IPA, it is less precise than IPA at least. But it's just we need here, because when we use IPA, we must give phonological data precisely, but if we can't do it precisely, it's better not to use IPA at all (as it's better to avoid information than to give information that's very probably wrong). So, the idea to make the transcription was intended to help readers but not to mislead them.

But it evidently has no precedent, so it was met with some scepticism. Some Lithuanian users suggested to insert pronounciation in sound files instead. It was another partial solution, to do it, so we doubted and didn't continue to introduce the transcription everywhere. That's why it 's used in few articles only (It's not an argument against the transcription, but it tells that we just know the problem).

Now, i suggest to look at the situation once more, as well as a more formal approach, that the transcription doesn't fit with rules in Wikipedia, isn't very productive here. We can try to disuss this more throughly, i think. Linas Lituanus 11:52, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Vowel table for the Lithuanian language

We may try to use something like the following. Perhaps this won't seem so unreliable?

Note: the following may be considered a personal research.

Vowels:

• 'a' long: near-open central vowel, ɐ
  • 'a' short: shift from the near-open near-front unrounded vowel to the near-open central vowel, ??? to ɐ (no IPA sign)
• 'e' long wide: near-open front unrounded vowel, æ
  • 'e' short: shift from the near-open near-front unrounded vowel to the near-open front unrounded vowel, ??? to æ (no IPA sign)
• 'e' long narrow: close-mid front unrounded vowel, e
  • 'e' short narrow: (possible in the system but almost not used, no sufficient data)
• 'i' long narrow: close front unrounded vowel, i
  • 'i' short: shift from the close central unrounded vowel to the close front unrounded vowel, ɨ to i (no proper IPA sign)
• 'o' long (narrow): close-mid back rounded vowel, o
  • 'o' short: shift from the close-mid central rounded vowel to the close-mid back rounded vowel, ɵ to o (no proper IPA sign)
• 'u' long: close back rounded vowel, u
  • 'u' short: shift from the close central rounded vowel to the close back rounded vowel, ʉ to u (no proper IPA sign)

Diphthongs:

• ai (1): ???i , (2, in accented syllable only): ɐi (??? are for the near-open near-front unrounded vowel)
• au (1): ???u , (2, in accented syllable only): ɐu
• ei (1): ???i , (2, in accented syllable only): æi
• eu: ???u
• ie (1): ɨe , (2): ie
• ui (1): ʉi , (2): ui
• uo (1): ʉo , (2): uo

Accented syllables:

• Vowels (any vowel can be accented) in accented syllables became half-longer (ɐˑ, æˑ etc.)
• Diphthongs have one part half longer in an accented syllable. Variants (1) have the later part longer, but variants (2) have the first part longer. Note: in fact both parts of a diphthong became longer under the accent, but the length of the another isn't fixed. ( ɐˑi, ɨeˑ, iˑe etc.)

Any questions? Linas Lituanus 14:46, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with using one of the two IPA tables at Lithuanian language#Vowels? Maybe the second one. The fact that accented vowels are slightly longer than non-accented is probably secondary and can be ignored. Stefán Ingi 20:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Which one? :)

Taking dynamics, pitch and length as the main aspects of an accented syllable, dynamics is insignificant for stress in Lithuanian (differently from many other languages), but both pitch and length are meaningful. Which of the two, pitch or length is more significant, the question is still disputed. Linas Lituanus 17:08, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The second system incorporates both the length contrast and the contrast in place, e.g. [i:] vs [ɪ]. One of these may be superfluous and non-significant but that is not a problem. Does anybody claim that e.g. long /i:/ is not more close or front than short /i/ and instead maintain that they are pronounced at exactly the same place and the only contrast is in length? If not, then the second system is undisputedly more accurate. Stefán 17:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)