Talk:Cotentinais

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[edit] Strength?

"It is one of the strongest dialects of the language on the mainland."

What is meant by this? The Jade Knight 20:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

That it is one of the most vibrant, probably in terms of numbers, visibility and media on the mainland. The sentence is a translation of the French language article. --MacRusgail 14:25, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subdialect characteristics

The phonetic descriptions given here are not IPA and are hard to follow. Some of them appear to have been added incorrectly, and are filled with question marks. The Jade Knight 21:13, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

This is partly because it was translated from the French language version using a computer, and then edited. It's still very much a work in progress. As for IPA, it may be "international", but only a handful of people internationally can read properly. --MacRusgail 14:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Most people with Bachelors degrees in the Humanities in the US have been taught IPA. It is the most commonly recognized international standard. I don't know how much it is used internationally, but most of my international friends also know IPA. While certainly many users don't know IPA, I think it is the least confusing way of presenting a phonetic depiction of speech. The Jade Knight 21:56, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The only IPA I'm much keen on is India Pale Ale. IPA least confusing? No way! Despite the fact that it is internationally standardised, it looks like gibberish to many people, and when it is used, should probably be in conjunction with some phonetic English equivalent. A friend of mine had a book on Scottish Gaelic with IPA in it. He said he only wanted to learn one complicated language. LOL! --MacRusgail 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This may be true, but the current pronunciations given in this section make very little sense to me, despite having studied Jèrriais, and speaking French and English and having training in linguistics. I expect it makes no sense at all to most English speaking visitors. I would attempt to fix them, but my knowledge of Cotentinais is too sparse for me to be of much use. I still feel that IPA would be helpful (if nothing else, it would be more helpful than what is currently given). The Jade Knight 03:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

BTW, I recommend you take a look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation). The Jade Knight 03:54, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Jade Knight, I consider IPA to be a variant on the Esperanto problem. It claims to be international, but is not widely known. --MacRusgail 14:26, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever IPA's problems, it is better than what the article is currently using. The Jade Knight (talk) 05:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

IPA has many problems. It should be included, with an English phonetic version, but it is frankly gibberish to the majority of English speakers. "Hieroglyphics" as a friend of mine called it, after he looked at a language course. --MacRusgail (talk) 18:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)