Enabling a pop-up (for example) for the IPA prononciation would be a big plus as far as I am concerned. I've never quite got my head around it, but can see its usefulness. This is particularly useful when the word is of non-English extraction: I find it an added benefit to see the word in its original form (spelling and script), notably when there is a local version of the word which has completely transformed the native version (e.g. Londres from London, Maroc / Morocco from المغرب).
Alexandr Dmitri 2010/4/22 Keegan Peterzell <keegan.w...@gmail.com> > On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 6:19 PM, Gerard Meijssen > <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>wrote: > > > Hoi, > > A lot of so called IPA out there is created by Americans for Americans > and > > expect that certain sounds can be expressed by the ordinary Latin > > characters. The consequence is that such polution makes the whole of IPA > > hard to use. > > > > Consequently I argue that in order to save the usefulness of IPA at all > we > > HAVE to be academically correct in how it is expressed. > > Thanks, > > GerardM > > > I disagree to an extent of the first part of you post, and agree with the > second part. I actually answered an email about this situation, the ticket > can be found here if you have access < > > https://ticket.wikimedia.org/otrs/index.pl?Action=AgentTicketZoom&TicketID=4739987&ArticleID=5383349&ZoomExpand=0#5383349 > > > > The correspondent wasn't very, how shall I say, nice in the initial email > or > the reply to my response, but here's what I wrote: > > > "The Wikimedia Foundation projects, which include the English Wikipedia, > are > aimed > at and have a broad global appeal. In fact, many of our contributors are > not > native speakers of English but use the project as a way to enhance their > knowledge > of English and providing translations. We actively encourage that. > > The "gobbledygook" is the International Phonetic Alphabet, contrived and > maintained by an international collection of linguists over a hundred years > ago as > a method, based on Latin characters, to phonetically pronounce even > unfamiliar > languages. This method of adoption across our projects allow people from > around > the globe to understand a pronunciation no matter their language. > > We are sorry that this is inconvenient for you and diminishes your interest > in > Wikipedia. We do hope that you can learn the IPA from our language guides > available- it's actually pretty quick to catch on to and is a common sense > approach to phonetics. > > You can find more information about the IPA here > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International Phonetic Alphabet> which > includes > external links to educational tools in learning the system! > > Again, we do appreciate your concerns about the usability of Wikipedia." > -- > ~Keegan > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
