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Slashes and brackets

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Could the template detect if the text is surrounded by / / or [ ] to not add them itself? Currently we can have ugly things like /[rɪd]/ and French pronunciation: [/fʁɑ̃sɛ/]. -- Error (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As long as it's in the guide-linking mode (i.e. the first parameter is a language code), it should use brackets except for English, per MOS:PRON. Otherwise it could link a phonemic transcription to a phonetic key. Nardog (talk) 07:40, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would a div tag option be useful?

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Recently, an editor used this template to wrap a block of content that was already wrapped in <poem>...</poem> tags, which caused a Linter "span tag wrapping a div tag" error. I reverted because I didn't see a way for this template to emit div tags, and I didn't know if that would be useful.

I added a test case, since removed because I don't want to clutter up the Linter error reports, showing how the template was used in that case. If it would be useful and in conformity with the purpose of this template, a |div=yes option could presumably be added to the module code; that option would use div tags instead of span tags in this template's output. We inserted a similar option into {{Collapsed infobox section begin}} to fix Linter errors that cropped up in some situations. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You can just use {{IPA}} inside <poem>...</poem> instead of the other way around. Nardog (talk) 00:57, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

IPA for Brazilian Portuguese

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inputting {{IPA|pt-BR|...}} generates a text in incompatible fonts (seemingly with HTML sans-serif when I inspected it), when the same template with {{IPA|pt|...}} uses default fonts. Juwan (talk) 14:08, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

bumping and updating that this happens with every language with a country or region tag added. Juwan (talk) 23:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell from reading IETF language tag, this is a bug on the browser's part. Nardog (talk) 00:52, 12 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently it needs to be pt-Latn-BR-fonipa instead of pt-BR-Latn-fonipa. I'll deploy the fix once other pending bugs are ironed out. Nardog (talk) 05:34, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Nardog oh that's annoying. just to note that this is not actually a bug for just Brazilian Portuguese after all but for all [language code] + [country code] codes. good luck fixing that! Juwan (talk) 14:00, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I've already fixed it in the sandbox, I'm just holding off on deploying it to reduce the number of times the job queue is flooded. Nardog (talk) 17:34, 26 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Deployed. Nardog (talk) 10:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Category:Pages with Mari IPA is suddenly empty and it displays an error message: "Error: language code for "Mari" not found. Please see Template talk:IPA for assistance.". Should its history be merged into Category:Pages with Mari (Russia) IPA or is this a separate issue? ✗plicit 11:12, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's one of the things fixed. Just deleting it is fine I think, as the whole page is generated by the template. I've tagged it with C4. Nardog (talk) 11:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[und] should generate an error-tracking category

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ISO = [und] should probably never be used on WP, as it's unlikely we're going to ever have IPA transcriptions where our sources are unable to identify the language. [mis] should be used if there is no ISO code for the language, but if we just haven't worked out what the ISO code is, [und] is wrong and should be corrected when we figure it out. For that there should be an automatic error-tracking category that's generated whenever [und] is used. [In the unlikely event that [und] is actually correct, there could be an override.] Or perhaps we could use a bot to change all instances of [und] to a non-ISO substitute code like [xxx], and have that generate the tracking category for future cleanup. — kwami (talk) 07:48, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So what is the correct IETF tag for a phonetic sound regardless of the language in which it occurs? Nardog (talk) 09:56, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No idea. I only know ISO 639-3, and there's nothing for it there. — kwami (talk) 09:59, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
AFAICT from our articles, IETF is based on ISO, and none of the other ISO sets have a code for 'other coded language that we don't bother to specify'. — kwami (talk) 10:11, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That strikes me as odd. So there's no way to semantically notate e.g. "the letter ⟨A⟩, regardless of the language"? Nardog (talk) 10:15, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You would identify that as 'Latn' for Latin script in ISO 15924. But AFAICT that's intended as a suffix to ISO 639, which is only intended to identify actual languages. Maybe you could use its Unicode number, under ISO/IEC 10646, as it appears that's also part of IETF. But it would be rather redundant to ID the letter 'A' with the Unicode point for the letter 'A'. — kwami (talk) 10:24, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
{{IPA}} has used und for two and a half years now, you're just waking up to it. You may regard Category:Pages with undetermined IPA as an error-tracking category if you say so.
What is your source for the claim that "undetermined" means "the language this is a representation of has yet to be determined" rather than "this representation has no determined language"? Nardog (talk) 10:07, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I looked it up last time something like this came up, and verified that our description is correct, but we don't seem to have a ref in our article. I can ask the ISO Registrar. But ISO is intended to identify languages. It wouldn't make sense for it to have a code for 'I know what the language is, but I'm not going to tell you'.
We could choose one of the [Qxx] codes that are reserved for private use. — kwami (talk) 10:16, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then please find a published reliable source. Nardog (talk) 10:32, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I said, I'm asking ISO. But ISO codes are all identification codes. They all identify in some fasion. [mis] means 'no ISO code exists for this language.' [mul] means 'multiple languages are involved; it's not possible to identify with a single code.' [zxx] means 'this is not human language'. No ISO code means 'we can't be bothered to provide the ISO code'. That would just be silly. If you haven't looked up the ISO code for a language, then you don't identify it with an ISO code until you do. If we need something for that meaning on WP, then we need to use something other than ISO.
As far as just picking up on this, I remember saying something to this effect some years ago. This debate is oddly familiar. — kwami (talk) 10:58, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's not all of what are using und. A lot of them are "this sound/sequence of sounds in no particular language". Nardog (talk) 11:10, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But that's not an undetermined language, but no language at all. If there's no language, we shouldn't have a tag that 'maybe someday we'll discover what the language is'. I'll ask about that too. — kwami (talk) 17:45, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No particular language isn't no language. It just means any arbitrary language in which the sound is found. It would be a glaring omission not to have a tag for that. Nardog (talk) 12:08, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but [und] doesn't mean 'any arbitrary language.' None of the four special tags work for a sound divorced from language. We can't say there's no linguistic content, but it's also inaccurate to say that it's multiple languages or that it's a language but that we haven't figured out which one. I suppose if we had to choose, [mul] would be least wrong. But we can just create a tag from the private-use area.
For a grapheme, such as an IPA letter, we might use [zxx] for 'no linguistic content', but best not to give something a language tag if it's not language. — kwami (talk) 21:33, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
She just copied section 5.7.5 of the standard, where it describes 4 codes 'for special concepts' that 'do not designate identified individual languages or language groups' -
— “mis”: miscellaneous language (no language code element is assigned for this individual language or language group or included in the subset of the language code used by a given application);
— “mul”: multiple languages in the content;
— “und”: language undetermined;
— “zxx”: no linguistic content.
In most cases where we use 'und' the language is known, we just haven't looked up the ISO code.
I asked about using 'und' for recordings of pronunciations of IPA letters, and she just rolled her eyes. — kwami (talk) 01:36, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reverting all of these to IPA-xx. Many are on language pages where we have the ISO code sitting right there in the info box. Claiming such a language is 'undetermined' is ridiculous. In other cases the 'label' param identifies the language, also a ridiculous situation. Sometimes the language is even English, or other well known languages such as Hebrew. So [und] only means 'I can't be bothered to look up the ISO code,' which is not its proper meaning. Once someone does bother, we can delete the IPA-xx template. — kwami (talk) 22:58, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(1) As previously noted, personal communication is not a reliable source. (2) Even if your claim was correct, we could just code the module so that und outputs no lang="..." or a private tag we agree upon.
As Gonnym pointed out, your replacements were completely unnecessary. Now the transclusions have lost the benefits of {{IPA}} such as better wrapping and audio. Nardog (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed an error. It was worse than using IPA-all for 'other' when [all] was an ISO code, since when we did that we weren't using all of ISO. Now we are. [und] is a valid ISO code, and although it may be unlikely, it's possible that we may need to use it for its intended purpose. We shouldn't use it as a private non-ISO code. Yes, we can move all IPA-xx transclusions to IPA/xxx or something, since [xxx] has no defined value. Right now that would generate an error, but if you want to set up [xxx] as our 'yet to look up' error-tracking category, so that the IPA template recognizes it, I'll be happy to change IPA-xx to that, and we can delete IPA-xx — kwami (talk) 11:28, 2 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Of course we might decide to stop using und in the way we've been using it, but we could have just decided on what to use (no tag or a private one) and then replaced und with it. Mass editing without consensus is always a waste of effort. Nardog (talk) 09:53, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unless [und] is actually appropriate in some casesc Even if not, moving to [und] was also a waste of effort, as they'd all have to be moved again. — kwami (talk) 10:02, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was not moved to und. {{IPA}} and {{IPA-all}} have been using it for two and a half years.
You have yet to substantiate your claim that this to be an error with a reliable source, or to establish consensus to stop using it. I suggest you do at least one of them. Nardog (talk) 10:38, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed this when you mass-moved articles, moving articles that needed fixing without fixing them.
I gave you a source. [und] means the language is undetermined. The language, not the ISO code because you haven't looked it up. English is a known language. So is Portuguese, Hebrew, Russian and Pawnee. All languages tagged as [und]. Half the time with a language parameter identifying the 'undetermined' language. In none of those cases is it unknown what the language is.
Or we could go with Chomsky that all languages are underlyingly the same, and so tag everything as [en]. Could you come up with a source that that's incorrect? — kwami (talk) 11:01, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A consensus was reached to delete IPA-all, so I just replaced it with IPA|und, which is what IPA-all already produced. Replacing it with specific language codes where they can be identified is obviously better—I thought I made that clear already—but I couldn't possibly do that for all of the 1000+ transclusions.
But we have no consensus for what to do for transcriptions that refer to the sounds per se, in no particular language. That is the outstanding issue. Nardog (talk) 11:43, 3 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
und is perfectly fine. The language inside the IPA template is undetermined to us. You know what is a fake ISO code? xx is. There was a TFD which you could have participated in, you didn't. The consensus was to change the templates, including this one. The templates were listed in the holding area for quite a while. If you aren't going to revert all your bad changes, let me know so I will do it. Gonnym (talk) 11:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But we do know what the language is. If we don't, then the transcription fails verification and needs to be deleted. — kwami (talk) 22:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Articles in this category may use IPA|xxx for missing ISO code

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Moved from Category talk:IPA template errors
 – Nardog (talk) 04:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because {{IPA-xx}} has been deleted, yet again, without doing the work of fixing the underlying problem, I'm replacing it by using the letters 'xxx' with this template to mean 'I can't be bothered to look up the ISO code'. That adds articles to this category, where they can be tracked and fixed. [There are currently 169 of them, way down from the 800+ when I restored IPA-xx a couple weeks ago and people starting fixing these articles.] Some people have been abusing 'und' for incomplete IPA information, but 'und' is a valid ISO code that means that the language of the transcription is unknown. It's highly unlikely that we should be using IPA transcriptions on WP if the language cannot be identified. For one thing, we can't verify something that no-one knows, so if 'und' is actually appropriate, then in most cases the IPA transcription should be deleted as unverifiable. 'und' would be used if there were a RS IPA transcription where the identity of the language was lost, but there are very few situations where such information would be appropriate for WP. Maybe a list of vocab from unidentified extinct languages in South America, but usually that would not be in IPA.

The alternative is to delete all 'und' IPA transcriptions from WP; if someone can ID the info, they could restore it with proper sourcing. We need to stop abusing ISO codes because we're too lazy to do the work necessary for an encyclopedia. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, English is not an unknown language - it should not be given the ISO code 'und'. Any named language should be given its proper ISO code. If it doesn't have an ISO code, then 'mis' should be used. — kwami (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
und per iso639-2 standards and ISO 639-2#Special situations is exactly for these situations where the language code hasn't been identified by the user adding the code. These usages are then added to the category, Category:Pages with undetermined IPA, as you know. Editors wishing to then go over and try to identify these usages, can go through the category and fix whatever they know and leave the rest for others. What is an invalid language code is xxx.
To summarize the above:
  • und is a valid ISO 639 code.
  • Using und for these situations is valid.
  • xxx is not a valid code.
  • Using xxx for these situations is invalid.
If you wish to change these, you better start a discussion and get consensus to it, as currently you are edit warring and adding errors to articles. Gonnym (talk) 22:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
UND is a valid code. But it's only valid for its value. It's not the ISO code of English, or Portuguese, or any other identified language. To use it that way is to introduce false information into WP. Purposefully introducing false information is vandalism.
XXX is a placeholder. It lets people know that the template needs to be fixed. There are a couple other possibilities - [a] we could delete the IPA template, leaving the IPA unformatted, or [b] we could delete the IPA transcription altogether. Using false ISO codes is not a valid solution to you being too lazy to do the work needed. — kwami (talk) 22:12, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No one said und is used for English or Portuguese. It might be used for Portuguese if the person adding the template couldn't identify the language, which is what it is for. On the other hand, xxx for any text is incorrect. The only false IPA code is the one you are pushing for. Gonnym (talk) 22:17, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's not what it's for. It doesn't mean 'I can't be bothered to look up the ISO code'. It means the language is undetermined. If the language is undetermined, then it probably shouldn't be on WP.
Yes, 'xxx' for any language is incorrect. That's why it should be fixed. Not hidden under a spurious ISO code — kwami (talk) 22:22, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's your opinion. Get consensus for it. Gonnym (talk) 22:23, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's the definition. If you don't understand the issue, you shouldn't be editing. — kwami (talk) 22:25, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Again, that's another one our opinions. Which unsurprisingly, is also incorrect. Gonnym (talk) 22:27, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So if you understand that what you're doing is wrong, why are you doing it -- that is vandalism — kwami (talk) 22:53, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I could change them all back to IPA-xx if you prefer. That would leave a nice red link now that the template's been deleted — kwami (talk) 22:24, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You could, that would be called vandalism. Gonnym (talk) 22:26, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, purposefully adding false information, so that errors are not fixed, would be vandalism. Adding tracking so that the articles can be fixed is not. We went from over 800 articles without proper ISO codes to under 200, before some doofus interrupted the process by changing the remainder to spurious codes. — kwami (talk) 22:56, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As for edit-warring, if there's a dispute things should be reverted to the status quo ante, which is IPA-xx or IPA-all. There was consensus to delete those after they were no longer needed -- that is, after they were converted to the IPA template with the proper ISO code. That has not been done, because ppl like you keep adding spurious ISO codes to make it look the articles were fixed when they weren't. Just allow ppl who are willing to do the work do it, without interfering. Soon enough they'll all be fixed, as 3/4 of them already have, and we won't need to worry about it any more. — kwami (talk) 23:03, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
IPA-xx and IPA-all have been deleted per WP:TFD. That means that there was a consensus-building discussion to delete them and replace them with the new system. As this was completed, that is the current consensus. If you want to change it, you should start a discussion and get a new one that states whatever it is you want to achieve. Gonnym (talk) 09:31, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus was that they should be deleted once they were properly replaced with the ISO template. You have violated that consensus by using spurious ISO codes as a short-cut to doing the actual work. Are you truly unable to see that?
If you want to fix these, please go ahead and do so. However, if you're not willing to do the work, back off and let more responsible editors handle it. — kwami (talk) 18:47, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]


editors adding spurious ISO language codes to IPA

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Moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages
 – Nardog (talk) 04:51, 13 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have a problem with a couple editors adding spurious ISO codes to the IPA template.

There is recent consensus that the IPA templates for individual languages should all be folded into {{IPA}}. Two of these, {{IPA-all}} and its redirect {{IPA-xx}}, needed to wait -- they had been used for all languages that did not have individual templates [and individual IPA keys], and so did not have a one-to-one correspondence with ISO. By consensus, deleting them needed to wait until all transclusions had been fixed by replacing them with {{IPA}} and the correct ISO code. However, some editor short-cut the process by blindly replacing them all with the ISO code [und], which is intended for cases where the language cannot be determined -- say, the label fell off a cassette tape. Not something we'd normally see on WP. The -all and -xx templates were then deleted. As a result, we claimed -- on hundreds of articles -- that English, Russian, German, Portuguese etc etc were unknown languages, and their IPA transcriptions were not categorized correctly.

I recreated the {{IPA-xx}} template and switched all alleged cases of [und] back to it, and had it generate an error-tracking category. Several editors chipped in to help, and in a few weeks we had reduced the number of IPA transclusions without proper ISO codes from over 800 to 169. We were on schedule to resolve the remaining problematic articles fairly quickly.

However, before the process could be completed, @Gonnym: spuriously changed the remaining 169 articles back to [und]. Rather that recreate {{IPA-xx}} yet again, I changed [und] to the non-ISO code [xxx], which generated an error that could be tracked until we fixed the remaining articles, but Gonnym is edit-warring to keep the spurious ISO code. They don't seem to understand that [und] has a defined meaning in ISO, and that isn't 'I can't be bothered to look up the ISO code.' Portuguese, for example, should not be encoded as [und], but Gonnym insists that it should. It's annoying to argue with Randy in Boise. With an error-tracking category, all remaining transclusions of {{IPA-all}}/{{IPA-xx}} could be fixed in just a few weeks, and this issue will be resolved. — kwami (talk) 23:51, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The articles currently show up at Category:Pages with undetermined IPA. There should probably not be any articles in that category, as it's unlikely we'd want an IPA transcription if the language cannot be identified.

The smaller number of articles at Category:Pages with uncoded IPA should probably also be reviewed. Those should be for languages that don't have ISO codes. I've fixed some.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwamikagami (talk • contribs) 00:06, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

und is not for the label fell off a cassette tape. It is for when a language is undetermined by the person adding the template. If someone else does know, then they can change it. That is exactly what it is for. Also, can you stop with the WP:TALKFORK? This is the 3rd or 4th page you've started on the same thing. Gonnym (talk) 13:53, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But we do know. When we add the IPA we know. When we identify the language we know. [und] would mean that the language is undetermined in our source. To claim that an identified language is undetermined is dishonest. And if the language truly is unknown, then the IPA needs to be deleted because it cannot be verified.
As for forking, this is the forum to address your repeated disruptive edits. — kwami (talk) 18:11, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's as though you just said "The International Standards Organization defines a code that means Gonnym doesn't know what language a text is written in, as long as Gonnym is the person putting the template into a Wikipedia article, even if there are thousands of people who do know".
If you don't know what language some text is in, then you aren't the right person to be wrapping it in a language template at all. The purpose of the template, and its result in the generated HTML, is to inform the client software of the language that the text is in, not that an arbitrary Wikipedia editor knows or doesn't know what that language it is. Tagging it as [und] is like taking on the task of translating some text from a language you do know, but only somewhat, and translating the parts you don't understand as "blah blah blah", rather than concluding that you should leave the translation to someone else. Largoplazo (talk) 18:35, 12 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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