Forum:SH:Pronunciation information

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. C4-DE Bot (talk) 17:25, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

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I'd like to get the community's input on an idea I feel may be worthwhile to pursue. Essentially, modifying the {{Pronounced}} template allow for

1. Non-IPA pronunciations
2. Audio files

In both cases, obviously sourced directly from official media.

This was inspired by posts by Stephen Stanton (here) and Leland Chee (here) on social media, where they shared information regarding pronunciations of names. We know that several people in Star Wars production teams consult Wookieepedia, and I figured this kind of information could be especially useful for actors and narrators.

I'm not sure if this would require a CT or Manual of Style change, but for now I wanted to throw the idea out there and see what other people think. Stake black ^msg 03:46, 31 July 2025 (UTC)

Discuss

• Personally not in support. while yes Leland did provide a small chart of non-IPA pronunciation sheet, it still feels very conjectural trying to map them ourselves. Aside from that, the charts provided looks very messy too. The constant change between upper and lowercase just doesn't look good imo. Bonzane10 03:57, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Forgot to specify that my point is regarding the non-IPA pronunciation in specific since audio is already supported per Pedantry below. Bonzane10 04:38, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
    • I don't think we should try to map them either, only use directly provided information. Would you favor that? Stake black ^msg 06:01, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
      • Still a no for me. I'm personally not pleased, visually speaking, per my point above about the upper and lowercase. Though I understand that this is a preference thing, so others might disagree. Bonzane10 06:20, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
• I'd be in support of at least allowing for audio files. I've been thinking about that myself for a while. Master Fredcerique(talk) (he/him) 04:05, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
• The template already supports audio files. see Gunter and Chaelt for examples. ThePedantry (talk) 04:15, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Huh, you're right. In that case, we need to alter it so it doesn't take you to a different page to play the file, similar to what was done to the quote templates. Master Fredcerique(talk) (he/him) 05:23, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Might it be an improvement to allow for it to also just have audio? Feels like providing audio is an improvement over nothing and could be very helpful as a quick tool for readers, as opposed to looking through audio quotes. Master Fredcerique(talk) (he/him) 05:25, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
    • Yeah I honestly am more in favor of the template having no pronouciation text and only using sourced audio files. I will also note that the The New Essential Guide to Characters had pronunciation guides for a number of Legends characters but it didn't use IPA. I'd guess because very few people actually read IPA. ThePedantry (talk) 05:30, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
    • Yes Bonzane10 05:49, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
      • Yeah, agreed that audio-only is the best approach. And, just like audio-files for quotes, it needs to be optional. Imperators II^(Talk) 05:53, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
        • Re: Fred: There is already a reason it doesn't/was not swapped to be clickable audio. The plugin we use only allows for one "Play" state text and one "Paused" state text. If this pronunciation is changed to support the word "Listen" like every other audio template with no flavor text, then it'll work. If not, then the clickable audio will not work with any other format of template, such as how it is now. That, or making it work for the format of this one template would automatically make all of the others non-functional.—spookywilloww^talk 13:58, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
          • Good to know! I think that should be an easy alteration to the template, no? Master Fredcerique(talk) (he/him) 20:08, 3 August 2025 (UTC)
            • In theory. Last time it came up on Discord people got extremely touchy about removing the fanon IPA. But from a technical standpoint, if all of the flavor text is stripped and we're left only with an audio file, then yes it could be changed fairly quickly.—spookywilloww^talk 15:00, 6 August 2025 (UTC)
• Not sure if it's out of scope for this SH but we might also want decide if there are any policy around subjects with multiple pronunciations and if any should not be included. (I'm specifically thinking of the Phantom Menace novelization audiobook which has wildly different pronunciation from the film.) ThePedantry (talk) 05:41, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Might it make sense to distinguish between different pronunciations IU (think Lando's "Han" ig) vs different pronunciations OOU? Imperators II^(Talk) 05:57, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
    • It might. I think I'd prefer in universe pronunciations over narration or AD pronunciations if they are different. But if they aren't different its often easier to get a cleaner audio file from narration than IU. And besides accuracy, the cleanest pronunciation is the most important part of this type of audiofile. ThePedantry (talk) 06:12, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
• I strongly disagree with fanon-ing IPA onto pages when IPA for a subject has not been directly revealed by a licensed source or LFL individual. Its for this exact reason that status articles pretty much never use this template; even though it's scattered across some odd main characters here and there, obviously those aren't up to standard. It basically gets away with adding information that is impossible to reference or source solely because introductions cannot have references. Audio-only with no pronunciation text sounds good to me.—spookywilloww^talk 13:58, 31 July 2025 (UTC)
  • Yes, that is what I was going for with "In both cases, obviously sourced directly from official media." Stake black ^msg 20:17, 31 July 2025 (UTC)