CZ:Pronunciation guides
While for the most part, Citizendium provides a introduction to subjects and so aims to avoid obscure and specialist language, there are occasions where the reader must be introduced to new words or phrases. These might be specialised words in science or they may be words that originate in a foreign or non-English culture. In such cases it may be helpful to supply the reader with a guide to the correct pronunciation of the new word.
There are competing methods for assisting pronunciation such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), English Phonemic Representation (enPR), Americanist phonetic notation or respelling (spelling how it sounds).
Phonetic systems make use of characters outside of the normal 26 English-Latin alphabet. If coded incorrectly, web browsers and other display media may render the characters incorrectly or fail to render the character at all. Also, phonetic systems often reuse characters form mainstream languages but map alternative pronunciations on to them. In order that phonetic systems are used, the reader must be able to recognise where they are being utilised. To this end, a standard mark-up should be employed to indicate what sections of text are in English and which sections are in the phonetic guide.
To avoid confusing readers, a policy should be followed indicating when pronunciation guides are to be used; which system of phonetics shall be employed; and how to mark-up and display the pronunciation guide so that people can identify it and so that computer systems render it correctly on the users screen.
Policy (Draft)
Below will be a draft guideline on how and when to use pronunciation guides in the Citizendium. Please expand this page. If any issue need discussion, the talk page may be used. So far, this policy is only a draft. It is not official. You may agree or disagree with it and you may edit it.
Preferred system
Style Guide
How to mark-up the pronunciation guide so that users can identify it.
Technical issues
How to code the pronunciation guide such that the display media (e.g. web browser) displays in as you intended.
Also see