User talk:Benjitheijneb

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Conlanging
Hi! I wanted to comment some on the use of IPA in the Conlang book. When I first edited that book, things were in a bit of a mess, with some overall global problems that I suspect were politically hard to resolve when the book was young (and, worse, in its earliest days it was being created by a bunch of people at a site off-wiki, a conlanging bulletin board, who seem to have had criticial discussions about the book there instead of here which effectively deprives Wikibookians of participation in, or even knowledge of, those discussions). So I tried to straighten some things out. I was very cautious about it, noting at the book what I had in mind and then giving it a week or two for anyone else to comment before I'd mae a move, and trying to keep clear records of what-all I did. And one of the things I did was standardize on Conlang X-SAMPA. Another conlanger remarked, as I recall, that the most important thing was to choose a standard and get the whole book using it consistently. After much labor we finally got it consistent, afaik, and there's an appendix, Conlang/Appendix/CXS.

From my own perspective, as a sometimes contributor to the book, I admit that using IPA would make the book relatively unreadable and (perhaps more importantly) relatively unwritable for me. But I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the matter. --Pi zero (discuss • contribs) 13:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi, apologies for the late response. I didn't realise it was standardised to an X-SAMPA variant, my mistake; the appendix certainly did explain a lot. I would certainly agree with the other conlanger, standardisation is a priority, and regardless of which system of transcription is used, that should always be paramount.


 * Now, you asked for my thoughts on the matter: I mince no words when I say I dislike X-SAMPA for a number of reasons, and I hold quite the opposite view to you in that I find X-SAMPA unreadable and IPA very readable. You probably know that the clear advantage of using X-SAMPA is the full compatibility with ASCII; this was especially relevant in the era when Unicode was just a wee baby without the full range of characters, and remains useful today in private mailing lists where ASCII is still prevalent, though nowadays I believe that almost everyone accessing any parts of the Wikimedia Foundation's projects has access to Unicode. This is especially true given that Wikipedia - undoubtedly the most well-known project - makes extensive use of Unicode characters unavailable in ASCII; Wikimedia projects are simply not mailing lists, and while X-SAMPA is definitely more appropriate for mailing lists, the same does not necessarily apply here.


 * The advantage of IPA is that it has a perfect symbol-to-phoneme ratio; every symbol represents a specific sound and nothing else. One does not have to interpret multiple characters to mean a single sound (eg. CXS v_X is very simply rendered in IPA as ⱱ); aesthetic disapproval aside, this can make it quite hard to identify phoneme boundaries when transcribing or interpreting written sounds. And there is little to no possibility of mistaking phonemes based on their majuscule/miniscule forms, as IPA only makes use of the unique "small caps" characters (eg. IPA ʀ and r show up as different characters, especially in search engines, whereas X-SAMPA R and r may not depending on the user).


 * Some may take issue with IPA's combining diacritics, but I believe these should be treated as any other characters (they are, indeed, combining characters), and I think they hold to the principle of one symbol, one phoneme quality. Yes, inputting them is a pain, especially if you don't want to remember alt-[numerical keypad] combinations or lack a numerical keypad altogether as many laptops do (mine included - I'm still hammering out IPA symbols with my trust Microsoft Word "Insert Symbols" option!), but ultimately a book of any kind, Wikibooks included, should probably focus on the reader's clarity rather than the writers' ease, and if IPA can be determined to be easier to read, I am of the opinion that that should be followed. Finally, I am of the belief that IPA is probably the most widespread and recognised transcription system today (thanks in no small part, I am sure, to Wikipedia's extensive use of it), with increasing volumes of literature using IPA or at least a system derived from it. For a conlanger looking into general linguistics, as most do for inspiration, IPA serves far more uses than X-SAMPA.


 * Ultimately, the use of an X-SAMPA is a throwback to the conlanging circles from whence it was started. Whether or not it should retain those qualities is, of course, a matter of discussion - though from a practical perspective, I would question why a Wikibook would be needed at all if it is still tied to the original conlanging circles; shouldn't it be accessible to the general public rather than a relatively insular community of committed conlangers?


 * Anyway, that's just my two cents on the matter of which system to use; it may be an interesting discussion to take to the rest of the contributors on the Wikibook's page, but for the moment I'm happy to keep discussing here until then. Thanks for your time, and for correcting me to the standard! Benjitheijneb (discuss • contribs) 22:42, 23 July 2015 (UTC)