Talk:Egyptian hieroglyphs

Edits by 159.86.182.197

Removed.

IPA in lead

@DePiep: I'm sorry, I think I may have misunderstood this edit summary -- can you think of any English word that isn't a "foreign-orig word"? This is a common word that most native English speakers, at least those of my generation (the better part of a century after the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb and the first Mummy film -- neither of which had anything to do with my home city/country, so I'm assuming the same is true for most English-speaking countries) likely encountered very early in their education (maybe even knew the word before they learned to read?). The only purpose I can think of for the IPA is to tell Greek-speakers (or speakers of other languages that have the same word) with poor English that the English pronunciation is different from Greek, but (i) Greek-speakers who don't know English are not the target readership of English Wikipedia and (ii) it's debatable whether the common English pronunciation can be called the "correct" pronunciation when /i.e.ro.ɣli.f/ or some such would be obvious to any English-speaker from context and is more etymologically accurate. Given all of this, it is my belief that the IPA in the lead does not provide useful information to our target readership and is rather misleading. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:01, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: OK, good to be here. We are talking about (your) editsummaries [1] and [2], removing the IPA pronounciation. I reinstalled it, with reply/arguments in this editsummary [3].

First I hope we do agree that "[1] I've known how to read [pronounce] it since ... 8 or 9" is not eh enough.

You say that the word is common, and so its pronounciation is known to native English speakers. However, I think that its pronounciation is not implied by its spelling (see also lead vs. lead). Miriam-Webster defines a different IPA than the on that was/is in this article: MW: \ ˈhī-(ə-)rə-ˌglif \, enwiki: /ˈhaɪrəɡlɪfs/. Apparently there is confusion possible about its pron, and so IPA is warranted. (And the diff MW-enwiki is to be solved). -DePiep (talk) 06:48, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's helpful to analyse the wording used in edit summaries except insofar as they comprise policy-based rationales for edits. My initial edit summary cited WP:NOTDICT; Wretchskull undid this edit with the statement that since "hieroglyphs" is an "uncommon" word the IPA is helpful regardless of NOTDICT; I then reverted that by pointing out that it is not an especially uncommon word, to which you responded by saying that the info is useful for non-native speakers of English. Presumably you meant non-native speakers of English whose native languages have the same word but pronounce it differently, thereby explaining why such people would be reading Wikipedia but would not necessarily have a perfect grasp of English pronunciation and would therefore misread a word that no native speaker of English would misread if said native speaker could reasonably be assumed to be reading this article. But that just brings me back to NOTDICT: such people do not need that information in order to be able to read our article, they may not even need the information to be understood in conversation, and even if they did they should be getting the information from a dictionary or language textbook, not Wikipedia.

Your new rationale, though, seems to be based on a confusion between Webster's pronunciation guide and the IPA: there is no confusion possible about its pron but rather different ways to represent its common English pronunciation. Non-native speakers who do not know how to use MW's pronunciation key should be using another dictionary (like Wiktionary) or should learn to read MW's pronunciation key as well. It is beyond the scope of Wikipedia to provide pronunciation guides for random words just because they happen to exist in similar spellings in other European languages but are pronounced differently from their common English pronunciations.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

1. The editsummaries were the only arguments presented, so I referred to them in counterarguing. Then suggestin stating that my rationale here is 'new' i.e. changed, even basing this on a "seems to be"-assumption, is muddying the waters (and wrong). -DePiep (talk) 09:12, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

The editsummaries were the only arguments presented, so I referred to them in counterarguing. Stop it. I presented a reasonable argument, which was misunderstood, and I clarified. Then you (deliberately?) distorted what I said in a second revert, so I politely explained to you again on the talk page. You then came onto the talk page and selectively picked pieces of my edit summaries so that you could claim that they were "not eh enough". Then suggestin stating that my rationale here is 'new' i.e. changed, even basing this on a "seems to be"-assumption, is muddying the waters (and wrong). I have no idea what you are talking about. You initially said nothing about "confusion over the pronunciation" as given in Webster here but half the text of your above comment was about this confusion. But it is your individual confusion, apparently the result of your being unfamiliar with Webster's formatting, not a general confusion that is likely to be widespread among our readers. Do you accept this? Can we now restore what was the article's status quo for a good three weeks before anyone complained? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:42, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I do not understand the song and dance over the IPA. Your explanation that you knew it when you were young is a very subjective argument that is refuted with the fact that not everyone is a native speaker, and even if they were, not everyone has the same experiences and upbringing; it is a difficult word and the pronounciation is not implied by its spelling, as DePiep pointed out. Wretchskull (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Non-native speakers who are reading this article either (a) do not need to know this information in order to read this article for their purposes, (b) already know this information because unless they have training in this field in English they are probably not reading this article, (c) probably are not reading this article in the first place, or (d) should not expect to get elementary/intermediate English-language training from a Wikipedia article on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. If neither of you are going to present a coherent argument as to how this is not a simple WP:NOTDICT issue of anyone interested in this information being encouraged to use the corresponding Wiktionary entry, but you will similarly not accept my arguments for ... whatever reason, then I will have to agree to disagree and let you have this one, since I've already wasted far too much time on this. Frankly I don't understand the song and dance you are engaging in over the IPA. Cheers. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 14:40, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: Stop the drama. Restart please from scratch: clear argumentation only. (so far, you keep injecting personal jabs and distractions). arguments, no judgements please. @Wretchskull:. -DePiep (talk) 20:11, 15 July 2021 (UTC)

Give it a break already. Geez, can't you just be content that I let you "win" this one? I could have very easily made "personal jabs" and "drama" here (I do indeed remember the time I told you that "middle ages" was not a typo, you pretended to accept that, and then did the same thing again a few weeks later...) but have thus far refrained from doing so. You just don't seem to be willing to be a graceful winner, and have insisted on pinging me back here multiple times despite the fact that I have already stated that I'm not willing to waste time trying to convince you of something you clearly are not willing to be convinced of. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:25, 16 July 2021 (UTC)