Talk:Maastrichtian dialect phonology

Vowel transcription

@Sol505000 I honestly don't know why it is so unnecessary to display the vowels /e, ɵ, o/ with their phonetically correct form as [e̠, ɵ, o̟]. In fact, the primary source Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999) doesn't even display them that way. They display them as <ɪ, ʏ, ʊ>. But then they explain further that that is not their true phonetic value which is [e̠, ɵ, o̟]. If this is how they explain their phonetic value, why should we not transcribe them as such? Fdom5997 (talk) 17:10, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

⟨ø⟩ is found in Peters's transcriptions of the Hasselt dialect, whereas ⟨o⟩ has been used for the Dutch short close ⟨o⟩ found in older types of Standard Dutch, where it contrasts with /ɔ/, as in Limburgish. See [1], page 66. ⟨e⟩ is slightly more problematic to source but Ripuarian (a closely related dialect group) features basically the same length distinction and you can find this transcription e.g. here, along with ⟨ø⟩ and ⟨o⟩.

Limburgish is seen as a separate language by some and as a distant Dutch dialect by others. Both can be traced to Middle Dutch which was not a homogenous language. This is why it matters how the close/open distinction among the short O sounds is (or was, it doesn't exist anymore) transcribed in Dutch. Plus, I can dig up many other sources which show the sounds we're discussing here analyzed as the short counterparts of /eː, øː, oː/. Those are mostly dictionaries of various Limburgish dialects.

You're mistaking cardinal vowels for Maastrichtian vowels. The symbols ⟨e ø o⟩ do not imply values identical to cardinal [e, ø, o]. As you can see on the vowel chart, these are not the only centralized vowels and most rounded "front" vowels are, in fact, central. You're singling out three vowels out of about 20, many of which are not exactly like the cardinal vowels.

I've changed ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ to ⟨e ø o⟩ in Limburgish because the former may incorrectly imply a 5-height system in Limburgish (which it does not have), no relation to /eː, øː, oː/ (again false, they're their short counterparts) or relation to /iː, yː, uː/ (also incorrect, /i, y, u/ are their short counterparts). Take a look at /ɛ/ and /œ/. Does their quality exactly match the quality of the long /ɛː/ and /ɶː/? No, because the latter are more open (which in fact is how we transcribe /ɶː/). Among those, only /ɛː/ is close to the cardinal [ɛ]. Sol505000 (talk) 17:30, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

And you're still edit warring instead of discussing here. Sol505000 (talk) 17:31, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I changed the transcription of the vowels to /e, ɵ, o/ only because it is a bit more user-friendly. It only makes more sense to display them as cardinal vowels. Having a separate “Maastrichtian vowels” transcription makes no sense. Fdom5997 (talk) 17:40, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

It's the only option that makes sense. IPA transcriptions are never about the cardinal values of symbols unless you specify that in the prose. Some symbols match their cardinal values, some don't. You explain that once and then ditch the diacritics later in the article/book/whatever. You should know it by now. Plus, ⟨ɵ⟩ is less user-friendly than ⟨ø⟩ because the latter is a Latin symbol represents a vowel that is far more common and recognizable in world's languages. And as I've already said, you're singling out one phonemically front rounded vowel, whereas ALL of them but the short /œ/ are phonetically central. This makes zero sense. Whether /y, yː, ø, øː, œ, œː/ are phonetically front or central is a phonetic detail that has no bearing on anything. Both realizations will be heard and understood as /y, yː, ø, øː, œ, œː/ by speakers of Limburgish. There are no contrastive central vowels in Limburgish (except /aː/ in some dialects, which contrasts with both /ɑː/ and /æː/). Sol505000 (talk) 17:47, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

@Fdom5997: This discussion is obviously not going anywhere so I just reverted to my version. Is there anything you want to add to this discussion instead of edit warring (also on Maastrichtian dialect)?! Sol505000 (talk) 19:07, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I think we came to a conclusion here. Let's just leave everything to the last stable version, and stop all the confusion. Fdom5997 (talk) 19:39, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

You still haven't addressed most of my points, so this can hardly be called a discussion (so we can't talk about "conclusions" or "consensuses"). I'm going to revert back to my version. If you want to revert it, please address the points above. You can't just revert me by saying "I disagree with you", open a discussion and then ignore what I say. That's not how this works. If this is outside or your area of expertise that's fine, just leave my transcription alone. Sol505000 (talk) 19:45, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

I would like to know which source you used to transcribe the vowels. And also, why can't we use the same transcription as Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999) using <ɪ, ʏ, ʊ>? Fdom5997 (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Read the messages above and you'll get your answer. Sol505000 (talk) 00:15, 12 November 2023 (UTC)