Help talk:IPA/Italian

Diphthong notation

Out of the several help keys for Romance languages, this is the only major one that transcribes falling diphthongs with the same symbols used for plain vowels (e.g. [ˈkauzi]), instead of going along with the symbols used for rising diphthongs (e.g. [ˈkwaːzi]) or applying the [◌̯] diacritic; the only other exceptions are Sicilian and Venetian. So I was thinking that it would make more sense for Italian IPA to use [j] and [w] in all diphthongs (e.g. [ˈkawzi]) as for the majority of the Romance keys. For reference, here they are:

• • Astur-Leonese
  • Catalan
  • Insular Catalan
  • Emilian-Romagnol
  • Franco-Provençal
  • French
  • Galician
  • Ligurian
  • Lombard
  • Neapolitan
  • Occitan
  • Piedmontese
  • Portuguese
  • Romanian
  • Romansh
  • Sardinian
  • Spanish

What do you guys think? ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 20:29, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I don't see why not. While we're at it, we could also stop the spontaneous use of ⟨.⟩ to indicate hiatus, which is unusual if not outright OR (the syllable break is present for either all syllables inside a transcription or none in literature I've seen). Nardog (talk) 10:16, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I still think the dot might be helpful to readers who are unfamiliar with IPA, so I’m not sure about ditching it entirely, at least not for languages where it can help identify the stressed vowel more clearly (e.g. Spanish [ˈri.o] vs [ˈrio] which some might mistake for [ˈrjo]) . I don’t mind a lot for Italian specifically though, given that in stressed syllables the job is already done by the length marker ([ˈriːo]). ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 10:31, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

I haven't dug into the diphthong question seriously, so this should be taken as on-the-fly comment only: if [ˈkawzi] is meant to represent 2 sg pres ind It. causi, I wonder how truly accurate the same [w] as [ˈkwaːzi] really is for most speakers. // The syllable break may be unnecessary in e.g. Italian rio for those in the know, but aside from the clumsiness of [ː] and [.] together in transcription, I can't come up with a good reason to suppress it. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:15, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Note that my idea comes from a strictly “graphic” place; I just want IPA to be more intuitive transcription-wise, by aligning it with related keys. How accurately the [w] symbol represents the phonetic quality of either sound is something that I don’t think can raise any problems for ordinary readers coming here to find help. We are still talking about two closely related semivowels that do not contrast because they occur in different contexts. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 20:31, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

Right. I hear ya. Often a choice to be made between accessibility/ease-of-comprehension and accuracy, and which should rule -- sometimes easy choice, sometimes not. Is what seems to be the usual [ˈkaʊ] for English cow both accessible and accurate?

What to do with Italian causi, pausa, etc. seems to be located down near the 'not so easy' end of the ease-of-choice scale. Phonetically, Italianists seem to opt more for transcription [au̯], though [aw] can certainly be found. While (IMO) neither is ideal, there are two glitches in [aw]. Accuracy: even without considering [w] used for the quasi type, [w] misrepresents or at least obscures the vocality of pausa. Consistency: considering the [w] in quasi, [aw] more than implies that the features represented by [w] in quasi and pausa are identical. Forced to vote, I'd have to opt for the blend of accuracy and consistency. (And re ease of comprehension for uninitiated readers, I'd be somewhat comforted by comparing the difficulty of deciphering [au̯] with, for example, this from the article Proton: "Protons are spin-⁠1/2⁠ fermions and are composed of three valence quarks".) Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 16:19, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

This is still not an essay on the exact phonetic value of Italian diphthongs. I think what you are misrepresenting is the very core of the question: do we want to align the symbols of the Italian key with those of related keys – not the precise values the might or might not represent – or we don’t? Hardly anyone who isn’t trained in phonetics can distinguish Spanish Laura from Italian Laura, and yet we choose quite distinct transcriptions. What you seem to say is it’s more of a priority to tell the reader “look, there’s a stark difference between the i in piano and the i in daino”, when there really isn’t. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 16:35, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

What I'm saying is that Job One of an encyclopedia is to inform readers who are trying to find information, e.g. in the case of phonetic transcriptions reporting pronunciation, look, here's how /n/ of inferno is normally pronounced, and here's how the /n/ of incontro is normally pronounced. One with [ɱ], the other with [ŋ]. Telling them otherwise is misinforming them.

Fully agreed that if the language-specific keys need adjustment to bring them in line with the norms of the non-language-specific International Phonetic Alphabet, they should definitely be adjusted. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:57, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Using [w] instead of [u̯] is not misinforming the readers. Both are viable transcriptions of the same sound. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 18:32, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the vocality of pausa"? Nardog (talk) 05:13, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

I've always thought that the most proper way to represent descending diphthongs was using diacritics, that is [Vi̯] and [Vu̯], but for simplicity the diacritic has always been omitted in Italian phonetic transcriptions. I don't think that using the symbols we use for ascending diphthongs, [j] and [w], would be either more accurate or more intelligible for readers. In effect Italian phoneticians normally consider real diphthongs only descending diphthongs, while ascending diphthongs are rather seen as sequences of approximants and vowels. If a change in the pronunciation key must be made it should be the addition of the syllabicity diacritic under the second vowels, not the replacement of vowels with approximants. I even suggest to replace the approximants used in the phonetic transcriptions of the other languages spoken in Italy and related to Italian, such as Sardinian. Junghiano (talk) 22:24, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Junghiano, well said: "If a change in the pronunciation key must be made it should be the addition of the syllabicity diacritic under the second vowels, not the replacement of vowels with approximants." Nardog, see Junghiano's entire post. Have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_labial%E2%80%93velar_approximant, and then toss in consideration of the reader inexperienced in IPA who's trying to make sense of [w] being used in both quasi and pausa. Maybe just for fun: using [w], try phonetic transcription first of English few in isolation, then of fewer, or wow and wowee. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 03:14, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

The reader inexperienced in IPA who's trying to make sense of [w] being used in both quasi and pausa – like in almost every other help for Romance languages, like I said at the very opening of this talk? The phonetic difference between Italian diphthongs and diphthongs in sister languages is barely noticeable, if there’s any. The only one who seems confused here is you. Let’s change [au] to [aw]. I hate when conversations go on forever like this without new arguments because none can be provided. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 09:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree with your intention stated above, "I just want IPA to be more intuitive transcription-wise", in which case [Vu̯] (with diacritic]) would seem to be the obvious solution. [u̯] recognizes and symbolizes articulatory and acoustic vocality overtly and precludes conflation of the differences between quasi and pausa. All readers can recognize the vowel in [u̯], and neophytes to IPA who are curious can chase down what the diacritic symbolizes, perhaps finding examples of Spanish and Italian [au̯], [eu̯], [ɛu̯] here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthong#Difference_from_semivowels_and_vowel_sequences -- although the Catalan and Portuguese examples there may be a bit puzzling, as well as e.g. the phonemic-phonetic distinction of /wa/ [u̯a] for French, thus I fully agree with you also that keys should be coordinated when possible. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 17:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

So the more obvious solution per the final point is actually [w]. Readers are not interested in that level of phonetic detail when they see a different treatment of Italian as opposed to e.g Spanish. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 17:17, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Good grief. Festina lente. Take another look at Spanish and Italian in the Diphthong article, under Examples: Sp. [au̯] pausa, It. [au̯] auto, etc. -- no different treatment. Armed with that understanding, hit up some first-rate experienced phonologists specialized in Catalan, Portuguese and French to explain those in the same article. Once all that is sorted out as best as possible, adjust keys accordingly where necessary. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 18:45, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

“Hit up some phonologists” I’m sorry but that is an utterly ridiculous statement. I did not open this discussion to debate the phonological features of Romance diphthongs, I did it to pick a symbol for the help page. And related help pages have a different convention than this one. Period. Good grief for real. This will be the last time I repeat myself in this conversation. I’m done talking to a wall. I’ll be waiting for someone else to give some new input before I proceed with the changes. ~ IvanScrooge98 (talk) 19:15, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Good. Reaching the goal of picking appropriate symbols for representing Romance diphthongs phonetically doesn't seem all that promising if understanding the reasons for their considered use by experienced specialists is deemed a ridiculous notion. But I agree that bickering, rather than reasoned discussion of evidence and argumentation, is pointless. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 20:08, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

The difference between the semivowels in quasi and pausa is phonetic and is barely noticeable. You're making it sound as if Italians pronounced those words [ˈkβaːzi] and [ˈpao̯za], or similarly, i.e. implying a far greater difference than the one that exists in reality, if it's at all perceptible. I'm all for the change to ⟨j w⟩. The first one is a non-syllabic palatal semivowel/approximant, whereas the latter is a non-syllabic velar semivowel/approximant with lip-rounding. These are ⟨j w⟩ in IPA, with ⟨i̯ u̯⟩ being an alternative transcription. Everyone involved in this discussion should know that, or take a look at the Handbook of the IPA and how it defines ⟨j w⟩ in relation to the vowels. While we're at it, I'd automatically support the change in any other key with this transcriptional issue. Sol505000 (talk) 22:51, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

[fjʊw], [fjʊwɚ], [waw], [wawi]. What about them? ⟨Vj, Vw⟩ are indeed common ways to transcribe high tense vowels and diphthongs of English, see e.g. ANAE and CUBE.

As Ivan and Sol505000 point out, ⟨j, w⟩ and ⟨i̯, u̯⟩ both represent the same categories of sounds (voiced palatal/labial–velar approximant = non-syllabic close front unrounded/close back rounded vowel), which are phonologically consonants and phonetically vocoids. So ⟨j, w⟩ are clearer than ⟨i, u⟩. Nardog (talk) 03:47, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

/h/ as a marginal phoneme

The current page only provides an unsourced comment saying that "/h/ is usually dropped". Per the discussion at Talk:Margherita_Hack#Pronunciation, this claim should be improved and made more specific. Please find reliable sources which detail the /h/ situation.

(This does not mean that it should be kept as part of the IPA on that page so long as this page is undecided; just because there is a possible marginal pronunciation of someone's name does not mean that it should be detailed when there are not any reliable sources suggesting that people use it.) ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 12:53, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Note that that article and likely many more showing Italian pronunciation are using the non standard IPA [(h)] instead of [h]. International Phonetic Alphabet indicates the parentheses should have a different meaning than what we use them for here. This help page doesn't explain what they mean either. Moyogo/ (talk) 04:39, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

It would probably be more 'correct' to list both pronunciations side-by-side, or else use /broad transcription/ and dispense with the (round brackets) entirely (/h/). Of those two, I prefer the former because otherwise the natural reading of the IPA for anyone who hasn't examined this page is to pronounce an [h] that might be silent.

With that said, I doubt that there's more than one or two uses of "indistinguishable utterance" in the whole of Wikimedia. Round brackets are widely used to indicate that phones are optional and it would probably be more practical to just allow them to have that meaning too. It's pretty obvious when one is used over the other (listing a general pronunciation vs describing specific speech). ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 15:11, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

The footnote isn't wrong "per se", it's possible to forcedly pronounce /h/ (and /x/, and /θ/) in Italian for foreign words and names, but normality is just dropping it (like in French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc...). Only /ʒ/ is regularly pronounced, because it's just the voiced version of /ʃ/ which is an Italian phoneme. Here the mistake is interpreting that "/h/ is usually dropped" as it meant "in all cases of foreign names and words where a <h> is originally pronounced /h/, Italians can always pronounce it depending on their will and this is considered a correct pronunciation in Italian"; the correct interpretation is that "/h/ is a sound that might be pronounced in certain specific cases, depending on the speaker, while in others it'd be considered a mispronunciation". The case of Margherita Hack showed that the footnote could be misinterpreted, either in good or in bad faith. ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 15:09, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

This makes perfect sense to me. Can you provide some reliable sources that we could use in the article? Neither of the further readings list /h/ even as a marginal phoneme. ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 15:20, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Luciano Canepari’s DiPI uses it in several pronunciations, like hac with 3 "modern" pronunciations on DiPI Online: [ˈhaʔk], [ˈhak], [ˈʔak], or the previously mentioned hobby and hertz with the modern [ˈɔbbi] and [ˈɛrʦ] and the "tolerated/intentional" [ˈhɔbbi] and [ˈhɛrʦ]. L. Canepari’s earlier Manuale di pronuncia italiana (1992) also lists regional or foreign phonemes which includes [h], it also has a paragraph about it (p. 82):

Nella pronuncia intenzionale (indicata con «↑» nel Pronunciario) di parole e nomi stranieri, in particolare inglesi e tedeschi, si può avere il fonostilema /h/, approssimante glottale − o laringale − non-sonor (lene, F 3.7), per avvicinarsi di più alla forma originaria (anche se le vocali, soprattutto, restano quelle italiane):
Hitchcock, Hegel
/ˈ(h)iʧkok, ˈ(h)ɛɡel/.

--Moyogo/ (talk) 18:59, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

How do we render the Tuscan /h/ in words like casa? --Trovatore (talk) 22:22, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

This help page is about Standard Italian. Tuscan dialect has a native /h/ sound. ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Right: the use of /h/ sound by an Italian speaker can indicate either a more "precise" pronunciation or a more "ignorant" pronunciation of foreign names and words; normally, in common speech, it's just "dropped". ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Canepari, Luciano. (1992). Manuale di pronuncia italiana. Zanichelli. p. 82

• What does (lene, F 3.7) refer to?
• I think this is more than enough evidence to change the /h/ note to something like "/h/ can be used in the intentional pronunciation of foreign words and names which have /h/ in their original languages". This is probably best exemplified by the DiPI entry for Hugo, which lists variation depending on whether the name is from French, English, German or Spanish.

DiPI

• Does [ˈʔak] mean that we need to add a mention for [ʔ]?
• I had a go at looking for example words to see if there are any underlying patterns:
  • The following mark a ↑ h (intenzionale):
    • Hitchcock, Harry, Haarlem, Hobbes, hamburger (/h/ in English), hertz, Hegel, Hitler, hitleriano, Hoepli (/h/ in German), Habib (/h/ in Arabic surname)
  • The following are marked with ↓ h (trascurata):
    • habanera (/h/ in English but not Spanish)
  • The following don't mark any sort of /h/:
    • Hebron, Harar, Hegiaz, Hamdanide, Hasanide (old Arabic cultural things or cities: /h/?), Hinaut, Hector (no /h/ in French), Hun (historical people?)
• This seems to show that ↑ h is always used for English and German names and words, ↓ h is used for some old Spanish terms (I couldn't find any others though...), and everything else drops the h. There's something weird going on with the Arabic terms, because they don't all neatly fit the definition given above. Please do add more examples if you think they would be useful.

^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 12:26, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

So, is there any argument to remove the phoneme /h/ from the "Non-native consonants" list or can we agree that it "has" to stay there among the others? ~2025-36706-78 (talk) 18:36, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

I'd say that it should stay there yes. All we need to do now is detail the bit I've put in bold. Margherita Hack's surname is not pronounced with [h] except in its origin, so that page should not include (h) - unlike Hoepli, of whom the German pronunciation seems to be more usual. ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 16:03, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

The detailed definition is: "/h/ is dropped in foreign names and words unless the speaker wants to show off his culture" (source: DiPI's short guide). About "Hack", no reliable source proves that it may be pronounced with /h/, can we remove the "(h)" added by User:IvanScrooge98 (or even the whole IPA)? ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 13:50, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Citation unneeded, Moyogo, and Trovatore: ~2025-38931-93 (talk) 13:01, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I suggest changing the note to "/h/ can be used in the intentional pronunciation of foreign words and names which have /h/ in their original languages, though it is often dropped" citing both Canepari, Luciano. (1992). Manuale di pronuncia italiana. Zanichelli. p. 82 and DiPi's short guide. The IPA in "Hack" should have its '(h)' removed. ^{[citation unneeded]} (talk) 13:14, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

The 2 phonetic dictionaries cited as external links are sources themselves: they certify the possible use of /h/ in specific names and words of foreign origin; so, /h/ (and /x/, and /θ/) can be pronounced in Italian while, for example, /q/ can't. ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 14:21, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

We’ve mentioned examples of /h/ in DiPI (or we can easily find examples of /x/ like jota or /θ/ like thank you). Do we have examples of /h/ (or the others) in DOP? --Moyogo/ (talk) 06:26, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

An example for /h/ in DOP is "hitleriano". ~2025-35356-71 (talk) 20:21, 23 November 2025 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2025-35905-61 (talk)

I have no dog in this discussion, I came to fix lint errors. But now I'm curious about this. I went to Google Translate, entered some English, translated into Italian, and pressed the speaker button to hear the Italian spoken. I can hear the "H" sound in the translations of "President Harry Truman" and "Adolf Hitler", but not "Hertz rent-a-car". —Anomalocaris (talk) 07:01, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "A"

The pronunciation of "a" is too vague. Simplify it more, please. ~2026-30952-14 (talk) 02:40, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

On User:Junghiano's bizarre transcriptions of heterosyllabic consonant clusters (+more)

User:Junghiano, for whatever reason, goes around Wikipedia pages modifying Italian IPA transcriptions treating [st] and similar heterosyllabic clusters as if tautosyllabic.

A recent offence was chaning User:Galicijac's Special:Diff/1364963747 Italian: [presˈtjanni] to their Italian: [preˈstjanni] Special:Diff/1366095649.

This user's transcriptions are completely incoherent as they do seem to know that words like "Valentìna" have a long [i]

• Valentina Soggiu; Special:Diff/1351483744 Italian pronunciation: [valenˈtiːna]

While words like "tèsta" do not have a long [ɛ]

• Gianluca Testa; Special:Diff/1357013269 Italian pronunciation: [ˈtɛsta]

The length of these vowels, as outlined for example in Gemination^[permalink], is explained by the fact that Italian vowels are long when stressed and in an open syllable followed by a syllable in the same word beginning in a consonant. The syllables in "Valentìna" (hyphenated in writing as Va-len-tì-na) are indeed [va], [len], [tiː], [na], and thus the [i] is long. However, the syllables in "Tèsta" (hyphenated in writing as Tè-sta) are actually [ˈtɛs], [ta], because the consonants in [st] and similar clusters are always heterosyllabic, and thus the [ɛ] is short.

This was already mentioned in Special:Diff/1364600937+Special:Diff/1364601600, which the user duly ignored and reverted silently with no message, and in the warning I left on their page following their multiple (multiple times, on multiple pages) silent reverts: User talk:Junghiano#Warning: Reverts and edits regarding Italian IPA transcriptions.

Following the warning, they seem to have decided to send me 3 private e-mails (2 copies of the same one, followed by another one later). They decided to share the last e-mail with the public through a comment, posted using an alt account, in User talk:Emanuele6#Email.

In this e-mail, they basically try to frame the incoherence in their transcriptions as Wikipedia transcription not being overly precise rather than an incoherence, and somehow try to insist that this is a rule in Wikipedia Italian IPA transcription, despite, whatever this is, not being mentioned or previously discussed anywhere in Help:IPA/Italian or Help talk:IPA/Italian.

From the aforementioned Special:Diff/1366095649, one may even think that it is a personal initiative rather than a rule, that one is supposedly breaking by coherently using [sˈt], as claimed.

In that e-mail they weirdly also mock transcriptions like [sˈkakki] as completely irrational and self-evidently incorrect.

It is actually quite relevant that [sˈk] is a heterosyllabic cluster in Italian.

• "Briscola players play briscola" (lit. the players of briscola play at briscola) «I giocatori di briscola giocano a briscola»

  Italian: [i dʒokaˈtoːri di ˈbriskola ˈdʒɔːkano a bˈbriskola]

• "Chess players play chess" (lit. the players of checks plays at checks) «I giocatori di scacchi giocano a scacchi»

  Italian: [i dʒokaˈtoːri di sˈkakki 'dʒɔːkano a sˈkakki]

The heterosyllabic [s] will merge with the syllable of syntactic gemination-triggering preposition "a" preventing Syntactic gemination, yielding [a s'kakki] rather than [a s'skakki].

The user also comments on my removal of the long vowel in stressed hiatus ['ria] in the transcription of word "Marìa" in Valentina Soggiu from their [maˈriːa] to [ma'ria].

I, of course, provided argumentation for my change in Special:Diff/1364603731 and have also mentioned the fact that the vowel in a stressed hiatus is never long but at most half-long, which I have seen Italian phonetician and linguist Luciano Canepari transcribe with «ˑ», the half-long IPA symbol which per Help:IPA/Italian is not to be used by Italian IPA transcriptions.

In their comment, they provide an alternative explanation for me wanting to remove the long vowel in the context of that transcription, as if I provided no explanation so they had to guess (or as if they didn't read my comment while it seems quite obvious they did), and tell me that without a doubt [maˈriːa] is the correct transcription, while repeating back to me that technically «ˑ» should be used rather than «ː». If they really did not learn about this fact regarding the usage of the «ˑ» symbol, with which they seem to agree regardless, from me telling them or from Luciano Canepari, I would like to know where they got it from, given that the esteemed phonetician mentioned, in his works, transcribes words like "scàcchi", even at a phonemic level in his renowned w:it:Dizionario di pronuncia italiana pronunciation dictionary, in the supposedly self-evidently wrong way:

• Luciano Canepari. "Scacchi". DiPI Online (in Italian). Retrieved 4 August 2026.

Now, having presented the transcription decisions that cause controversy with this user, I ask you kind users to please discuss how you would prefer the transcriptions of heterosyllabic consonant clusters to be handled:

• Always [sˈt] (my choice)
• Always [ˈst]
• [sˈt] in the middle of words, but [ˈst] at the start of words; in such case, how would you handle names like "Totò Scacchi" vs "Totò Sala"? [toˈtɔ ˈskakki] vs [toˈtɔ sˈsaːla] even in that case, or [toˈtɔ sˈkakki] as exception?
• Something else

…and how you would prefer the transcription of stressed hiatuses to be handled:

• [ˈria] (my choice)
• [ˈriːa]
• Introduce [ˑ] and use [ˈriˑa] (I would not find this a bad decision either, and am willing to support it if someone else chooses this option and is OK to introduce a new symbol)
• Something else

I ask you to provide argumentation for your decisions. Also, please do not suggest to consider whichever of these options valid, as that does not address the problem at all.

Having agreed upon the transcriptions to use, we will add mentions of the final decisions in Help:IPA/Italian so that they will actually become rules that users can know about. Emanuele6 (talk) 20:34, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

We discussed this (or at least the word-internal /s/) six years ago in /Archive 3#Syllabification of /s/ + consonant, followed by an RfC, whose result was In as much as there's a preference it leans to heterosyllabic. So absent a new explicit consensus (e.g. new RfC outcome), we best stick to it, and edit-warring will be pointlessly disruptive in any case. (We've always written [toˈtɔ ˈskakki], [toˈtɔ sˈsaːla] and I don't even recall anybody advocating otherwise, as the former is how we write it in isolation and the latter is not, the [ss] being the result of syntactic gemination.) Nardog (talk) 22:23, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I see, thank you for bringing this to my attention! So, if I am understanding correctly, there has already been a formal discussion which resulted, in spite of what User:Junghiano thinks and enforces because uninformed, in [s't] being declared the transcription which should be used on the English Wikipedia word-internally, correct?

I don't blame them for not knowing about the result of that discussion or the discussion in general, as I did not either. I would really like this to be mentioned in Help:IPA/Italian if possible.

If the concern regarding how stressed hiatuses should be transcribed could be cleared up as well, that would be great! Emanuele6 (talk) 22:44, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Junghiano was one of the participants in the RfC (and the only one dissenting from what became the result after I changed my mind). I don't disagree the guide can be improved by incorporating this result, though. Nardog (talk) 23:03, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Ah, wow. Emanuele6 (talk) 23:12, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm Junghiano, I can't access my usual device right now so I'm writing as an anonymous user but I'll change the signatures as soon as I am able again to access it. I'd like to remind my accuser what's Wikipedia and how it works:

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (so it isn't a phonetic manual for insiders);
2. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone who respects its rules, so a user can't start making massive edits on his own just because he doesn't agree with the status quo;
3. Wikipedia users should discuss, for edits, about edits themselves, not about users whose opinions differ from theirs, more so with personal attacks.

Allow me to reply to my accuser first by describing the situation: there was a status quo about this matter ([sC]) which this user, who had hardly ever edited Italian phonetic transcriptions before, started looking for and modifying in March. My edits consist almost always in correcting Italian phonetic transcriptions, they've been rarely furtherly modified or reverted by other users. I don't deal with [sC] clusters so often, mainly it's when there's a wrong phonetic transcription to correct and, coincidentally, a [s'C] cluster inside, but also when a user changes an existing ['sC] to [s'C] or adds a series of wrong or inappropriate phonetic transcriptions among which there's also a case of [s'C]. After restoring to the previous version in a pair of this user's edits about this matter, he not only reverted my restoration but also scrolled my edits to find similar cases to revert. Nothing similar had ever happened to me before in years I've been editing Wikipedia. Also, I've been discussing sometimes both in users' talk pages (and by emailing other users, a licit, legitimate and lawful way to communicate on Wikipedia) and in this help talk page: I hadn't found such an uncooperative attitude ever before. Wikipedia users' attitide should be like "I have a point of view differing from other users about a certain matter, let's talk with them and let's see if I can change their mind and the status quo", not like "I'm right and other users are wrong, so I have to do everything in my power to enforce what is right", am I wrong? Well, no offence but, as far as I can tell after reading the messages he's written to or about me during the last days, his attitude is more similar to the second than to the first, in my humble opinion.
Let's get to his request. He didn't know that there's already been a discussion like this years ago. If I'd told him maybe he wouldn't even started this, my bad. Well, now he knows: in that discussion very few users took part, among which me and Nardog and, after a first draw, Nardog changed his vote from tautosyllabic to neutral. This isn't what we call "consensus". In fact, the closing admin himself wrote: "Making large scale changes on the basis of this would be unwise, though, as it would almost certainly lead to drama based on this lightly attended debate". That's exactly what's happening because of my accuser. That's what should be avoided. Personally, I've never made large scale changes in the opposite direction, just to be clear. Let me add a few example of inaccurate or wrong (factually, not arguably like in this case) conventions about Italian phonetic transcriptions used in Wikipedia which nobody changes because all users agree with: fortis written [CC] instead of [C:]; affricates written [ts] instead of [t͡s] or [t͜s] or even [ʦ]; fortis affricates written [tts]; Italian /a/ written [a] instead of [ä]; Italian /r/ always written [r] even when pronounced [ɾ]. And so on. Aren't these much more "bizarre" transcriptions than this? Don't they deserve specific discussions more than this case does? Are we really making such a huge discussion about where to put the stress symbol in [sC] cases? Do we really need to complicate our lives (and both editors' and readers' too) to change massively something which almost nobody would even notice nor care about and which had already been discussed without reaching a consensus for a global change? Let's be serious.
Now that I've made this issue clear, considering my accuser's actions, I'm inviting him one more time to restore the consensual versions of the phonetic transcriptions in the pages where he modified them, according to that admin's directions which he's being ignoring so far and which still apply. This doesn't include the edit I made on July 26th because there was no previous tacit consensus altered by him. This include his last edit to the phonetic transcription of Elly Schelin's name which had been unchanged for years. I'm reminding him, who continues "warning" me, that what's against rules are massive reverts of consensual and uncontested versions like his, as well as personal attacks. I won't be able to reply to further comments immediately but I will when I have time. ~2026-43301-43 (talk) 13:17, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I forgot to write down my opinion about his proposals: I think that for Italian the best phonetic transcription of stressed [sC] clusters is ['sC] which is by far the main version which has been used on Wikipedia; I don't "think", because it's a matter of fact, that in Italian the sequence ['V.V] "is" pronounced and written ['V:V], and I'm sure that nobody will agree with introducing the half-long symbol which would be the only acceptable alternative. ~2026-43301-43 (talk) 13:31, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Very quickly, for Wikipedia purposes. /s.C/ is inherently the structure. Somewhat idealized Standard Italian, yet quite real in neutral registers: if preceded by vowel, phonetic realization is [s.C] [lasˈkaːla]; post-pause [sC] [ˈskaːla] (Test yourself with Trastevere, Pistoia, Pescara.) Maria, pizzeria, trattoria, etc. [iː] as citation form. Barefoot through the chollas (talk) 21:53, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I really do not understand how they can insist that [VːV] is undoubtedly correct while continuing to mention that it is half-long. If it is agreed to use [ː] in spite of the fact that it is not the same duration, that is fine, and was given as an option. Let's mention whatever is agreed on the page so that users can know what to do. Emanuele6 (talk) 22:04, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

If you want more information regarding why I warned you, it is because Wikipedia suggests requesting blocks whenever a third revert would be necessary in lieu of reverting again, and the form to request a block suggested to warn the user before requesting a block Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring; you will notice comments from the request form in my warning to your talk page User_talk:Junghiano#Warning:_Reverts_and_edits_regarding_Italian_IPA_transcriptions.

I once again remind you that you did in fact completely disregard any comment made in my edits you reverts, twice, and made sure to revert them manually with no comment, which does not inform the user of the revert.

As @User:Nardog said, it has already been agreed upon in a formal request for comment that [s'C] is to be used in transcriptions. They said that this does not need to be discussed again.

Indeed, if there is a convention I am more than happy to follow it, and in this discussion I precisely asked to clear up the contentions you personally seemed to have and expand the page so that editors can know what should be done in such cases. As you said, if I knew there had been a discussion regarding this already, I would not have started this discussion, one asking users to once again give their opinion on the matter: I would have rather requested to mention the decision of the previous discussion in Help:IPA/Italian.

After learning there had already been a discussion and its result, I initially, I guess stupidly, even said that I did not blame you for thinking that maybe ['sC] was the conventional transcription given that that guide does not mention explicitly how that should be transcribed, and for some reason you don't see the complete incoherence in transcribing those cluster that way while also transcribing long vowels.

I said that because I did not notice that you took part in that RfC, which really left me bewildered when it was pointed out, and in fact you were the only one disagreeing with the decision there.

In spite of what you are trying to say in this message, as shown by for example Special:Diff/1364963747 Italian: [presˈtjanni] to their Italian: [preˈstjanni] Special:Diff/1366095649, you seem to be in fact monitoring newly added Italian IPA transcriptions performing edits which only have the purpose of changing what should be the conventionally correct transcription as agreed to what you frame as the rule editors should follow (in private; I am also a bit perplexed by you claiming to have e-mailed other users to inform them of this, you seem to have done this quite a few times ignoring the decision, I was not expecting this).

Honestly: you sent me e-mails with the excuse of wanting to use Italian, as you said, so not to be seen by administrators, in which you told me I am supposedly breaking a rule which you are not willing to show as if you are telling something unarguable and giving a bunch of very bizarre this? really? really? argumentation for my concerns. One should expect you already knew it was already agreed upon to use [sˈt].

Personally, I indeed really do not think this is "legitimate", and I have this opinion with regards to taking discussions on these topics off-site, or even worse to private conversations, in general; and such examples really show why one should be sceptical of such attempts. Emanuele6 (talk) 22:42, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm taking seriously into account the possibility to report "you" to admins, for the reasons which I've written before. During all the years of my activity here I've never lived such an experience with another user, even before becoming an extendedconfirmed. Now allow me to reply to your last message.

• There were stable versions (from "years" ago) with ['sC] not only in "State highway (Italy)" and "Autostrade of Italy" but also in all the pages where you reverted my edits on July 18th. It's "you" who started, I've just tried restoring the stable versions. The first reverts of past edits are yours, so "you" should stop not to be reported to admins, not me. "I", not you, would have to revert your edits a 3rd time to restore the stable versions, while you've already made 3 reverts in at least 2 pages, even if not in less than 24 hours. As you see, it's useless that you continue "warning" me, I've understood that you know Wikipedia less than I do.
• I see that I have to explain that I'm not used to manually revert other users' edits, I don't search histories to find the edits to revert by clicking "undo", I make an edit directly inside the page which may consist in a "manual revert". I've written you by email (because we speak the same language, and it isn't the language we're using now!) and then pasted the text in your talk page, where I also invited you to restore the stable versions of the pages which you modified. You can't say honestly that I tried to sneak around.
• As I've already said, the admin who close the previous discussion wrote: "Making large scale changes on the basis of this would be unwise, though, as it would almost certainly lead to drama based on this lightly attended debate". That's exactly what you're planning to do, even if his directions still apply.
• In the past discussion, where 1 user changed his vote from tautosyllabic to neutral, 2 voted for tautosyllabic, 3 voted for heterosyllabic, a consensus to change the status quo wasn't reached, all we can say is that there was 1 more user for [s'C] than from ['sC], which is not a "consensus" for [s'C]. I'm not saying at all that this mean that all the [s'C] clusters have to be changed to ['sC], this would be absurd. I'm saying that what most users have always done in Wikipedia is writing mostly ['sC] than [s'C], so claiming to create a specific rule in this way (or in the other) is just a big waste of time with no real usefulness for us, editors and readers. You're free to create new phonetic transcriptions with [s'C] and nobody will modify them, as well as I'm free both to correct wrong phonetic transcriptions including the [s'C] cluster by changing it to ['sC] in the edit and to revert a user who changes a previous ['sC] to [s'C] like you did in "State highway (Italy)" and "Autostrade of Italy".
• In the 2nd email which I've pasted in your talk page I said that I should have been the first to write to you when I saw your first edits. The same goes for the past discusison, I should have told you about it so that you could have known from the beginning that the [sC] case had already been discussed by very few users with a very slight preference for [s'C] than form ['sC] which is not enough to talk about a consensus. But now you know. I've already said that we don't need a specific rule for such a little point, we don't even have a specific rule for the use of secondary stresses, or for the notation of unstressed hiatuses, simply both forms are acceptable.
• The past discussion again... There was another user who voted for tautosyllabic even if Nardog changed his vote to neutral. I hope that we can move on.
• I don't understand why you want me to repeat thing which I've already said. I'll quote myself twice: "but also when a user changes an existing ['sC] to [s'C] or adds a series of wrong or inappropriate phonetic transcriptions among which there's also a case of [s'C]"; "This doesn't include the edit I made on July 26th because there was no previous tacit consensus altered by him.". What does this mean? It means that I came across a series of edits by a user who inserted inaccurate Italian phonetic transcription, among which there was that page, "Prestianni". In handsight I'd had better, as things stand, leave it as it was instead of giving you, a user whose ideas about [sC] clusters diverge from mine, another edit to challenge. But it means also that I'm not going to restore my edit in that page, it can remain as it is, rest assured.
• Frankly, I don't allow you to tell me that "wanting to use Italian" is an excuse, I've done it with other Italian users in the past and nobody ever talked like that to me. Period.
• And if you really are sure that I've done something "illegitimate" by sending an email to a user who set an email address for his account, then report me for sending you an email before being told by you that you don't want me to. Or stop accusing me about using emails illegitimately!

My first reply wasn't addressed to you specifically, but in general, to anyone, so I've restored the column and fixed the replies. This reply is to you, so I added 1 more colon than yours. Please don't modify it again. Again, as long as this discussion is open and unless a clear consensus to change the status quo is reached, I invite you to restore the stable versions in the pages where you modified it. I won't change any stable versions in the opposite way, either. I also invite you to change the title of this discussion (and any link which you've added out of here) to "On transcriptions of heterosyllabic consonant clusters (+more)" because "bizarre" isn't a neutral (NPOV) word to use in a title and because it isn't "me" who make those edits because most of the phonetic transcription in Wikipedia use ['sC] (even in other languages, not only in Italian). Actually, the most proper title should be "On transcriptions of [sC] clusters (+more)", because the discussion itself is about considering them heterosyllabic "or" tautusyllabic. What would have you said if "I" had opened first this discussion and entitled it "On User:Emanuele6's bizarre transcriptions of tautosyllabic consonant clusters (+more)"? These are the reasons why I'm not sure that I won't report you to admins. By the way, I'm still waiting to know from you, who care so much about accuracy of phonetic transcriptions, why you don't open new discussions about all the inaccurate conventions I wrote above (fortis, affricates...), and also why, if you care about accuracy of phonetic transcriptions to the point of opening a discussion about [sC], removed the [-j V-] addition from 2 pages. I'm not sure that my questions will be answered, but they're not so important here. ~2026-43254-64 (talk) 11:29, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

I have already said that I think placing the ['] symbol the way you do is not something I consider a matter a of precision, but completely incoherent with the decision to also transcribe vowel length, so that is why I don't see why you keep framing that transcription decisions as if it is also merely about precision.

Some of the proposals you brought up in this discussion also seem incoherent with that framing because while trying to say that [s'C] would be more precise than ['sC], it is also being said that [CC] should "according to all" be transcribed [Cː]: that would lead to having "càco" ['kaːko] vs. "cacò" [ka'kɔ], "càsco" ['kasko] vs. "cascò" [kas'kɔ], but "càcche" ['kakːe] vs "caccóna" [ka'kːoːna] rather than ['kakke] vs [kak'koːna].
You make that out to be a completely different case, but even in the case of "càcche", the syllable with the [a] is not open, and as such the [a] is short, not a long [aː].
I think that the decisions made on how to transcribe something should be consistent with each other. If Italian vowel length is shown, [Cː] is not a compatible decision just as much as ['sC] is not.

And it was said that ['sC] over [s'C] should not be up for discussion here per /Archive_3#Requests_for_comments.

Regarding what would I do if I were asked about my edits by someone, I am pretty sure that in that case I would have responded and tried to understand what the problem was. In this case, I created the discussion precisely because you did not do it yourself as suggested, ignoring the fact that I have always explained why I made changes, and you ignored it with manual reverts, leaving me clueless about what was even your problem. Also I did in fact invite you to create a discussion on this very page to discuss my edits on multiple occasions, but you never did and said you would revert my edits once again in spite of my warning if I did not revert them myself. I am not sure how much I am supposed to read into this hypothetical scenario regarding someone asking in such a way about my edits, I do not think I edited in the same way you did, so it would seem a different case.

As I noticed reverting your silent revert again would have meant that I applied the same edit three times in for example Special:History/Italian_resistance_movement (is that productive?), and seeing that you went out of your way not to say anything on your various reverts, I tried to look for someone else to talk about the problem caused by your behaviour. I guess you are trying to say that in spite of receiving no feedback I actually really had no reason to warn you about your reverts with no explanation, that that was uncalled for, and that I should have let you revert silently one more time(?), that if I had reverted your edit a third time, you would have finally decided to talk to me.(?) And that I should have taken heaps of multiple silent reverts ignoring my remarks as fair game.

I want to clarify that I did not mean to say that using the e-mail feature, which I have used myself in the past, is illegitimate, but rather that hiding discussions on these topics form the public especially given how you did in fact hide the RfC discussion while continually contesting its result, and given how you presented your e-mail as clearing up my doubts and informing me of a rule. And there really is something to be said about entertaining the possibility that you would have interacted following a new revert, as that surely would have been privately via e-mail as you have implied.

I don't know how to respond to the concern about me not knowing the report rules, I did think that asking someone's help was a good decision at the time, and @User:Marchjuly also kindly proposed me to do that in such cases, on my talk page yesterday. User_talk:Emanuele6#WP:TALKHEADPOV

Indeed, about WP:TALKHEADPOV, I was informed yesterday, I will keep it in mind and I commented what I think about changing the header in this instance there. I guess I will avoid user names in headers in the future, but this discussion indeed talks about your edits, and the decisions have been describe that way because they seem strange due to their inconsistencies.

I cannot earnestly say that you are not the only user (I guess persons given the multiple accounts) making edits like the ones shown as I do not have example for other people, but I can say that I am of the opinion that it would not be OK for any user to revert silently enforcing a supposed hidden rule multiple times making sure not to send notifications in the process.

In this specific case, I guess I can now even say that there is no such rule that justifies the what you enforce. I hope you will not try to again say this is about stability of a page, as if that justifies contesting a RfC result in which you were the one disagreeing after years and hiding it, given I have already pointed examples the likes of Gianluca Prestianni multiple times.

Regardless of that, if there are rules about a specific Italian IPA transcription method to use on the English Wikipedia, despite incoherences, whatever the convention may be, it should be stated in Help:IPA/Italian.

You brought up the fact that @User:Guy advised against changing existing transcriptions for that mere reason en mass in closing the RfC, but I do not see how this can be spun into justifying you for silently undoing edits of users who change them, and, to this day, adding yourself brand new ['sC] transcriptions in spite of the agreed upon decision you participated in.

As you have proposed keeping the current "status quo" presented as grey area in various occasions in your comment on these cases, disregarding my invitation not to do that in my original comment (which I guess your comments are not a response to now⁉), I once again insist that that does not address the problem at all.

Users should be informed of what rules they are breaking. Emanuele6 (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

In this last reply of yours you've just confirmed the attitude towards me which you've shown in the previous, both in this discussion and in your talk page. There's enough material between personal attacks and accusations of bad faith for me to report you to admins, at least in order to ask them how legitimate is this attitude towards me, even if you hadn't actually violated any rule of Wikipedia. I've warned you twice, this is the 3rd time I do. I'll have to look for the most proper place to report your actions and words and I'll have to write an exhaustive report, so you have still time to prove that you aren't biased against me and that you want to follow the rules of Wikipedia... I invite you, again, to: 1st, change the title of this discussion, as Marchjuly has alrady told you to do, instead of just saying "I'll take these directions into considerations for the next time I open a new discussion but I'm leaving this as it is"; 2nd, restore the previous versions in the pages where you modified phonetic transcriptions and reverted my restorations, because if an edit is challenged we have to get back to the last stable version while waiting for a "consensus" (which isn't a mere "50%+1" of votes in a survey) before accepting the new edit, which is what I'm doing for the case of "Prestianni" as you can see. If you collaborate, like I've tried doing since the beginning (maybe not succesfully), I'll avoid reporting you despite your attacks and accusations. Please, prove yourself cooperative like Wikipedians should be, possibly also by telling me why you wanted the [-j V-] alternative (included in the key) to be removed from phonetic transcriptions if you care so much about their accuracy. ~2026-43393-13 (talk) 13:25, 7 August 2026 (UTC)