User:NRodriguez (WMF)/Draft/IPA Audio Renderer
Audio for IPA notation  | |
|---|---|
| Generate the audio for IPA notation for readers of the WMF projects | |
| Group: | Community Tech |
| Team members: | Nicolas Ayoub, MusikAnimal, Sammy Tarling, Sam Wilson, Szymon Grabarczuk, Karolin Siebert , James McLeod |
| Lead: | Natalia Rodriguez (product owner) Harumi Monroy (engineering owner) |
| Updates: | Updates |
Hello all, and thanks for coming to read more details about Audio for IPA Notation. This was the #9 wish in the Community Wishlist Survey 2022. This article will outline our approach to building a solution of this wish. We are asking for your feedback and insight so that we may make the best possible improvement.
Wish Objective Summary: Generate the audio for IPA notation for readers of the WMF projects.
Background & Problem Space edit
What is IPA?
The English Wikipedia page for International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) describes it as an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. IPA is a standardized representation of the documented possible speech sounds that humans can make making use of their vocal instruments in written form.
This markup allows for contributors of the project to add IPA to our projects so that others who may not know how to pronounce a word can learn how. However, because only very few people on the planet read this notation, it is practically impossible for folks to discern how to pronounce something purely based on IPA notation. While our IPA coverage is strong, it does not necessarily mean that folks will know how to pronounce a word.
Where does IPA Exist in our Projects?
IPA exists in multiple templates inside the WMF-supported projects. As of today, the associated Wikidata object for Template:IPA lists that there are:
- Wikipedia: 177 entries
- Wikibooks: 21 entries
- Wikinews: 1 entry
- Wikiquote: 3 entries
- Wikisource: 5 entries
- Wikiversity: 4 entries
- Wikivoyage: 5 entries
- Wiktionary: 85 entries
- Multilingual sites: 3 entries
Here are two illustrative instances of IPA in our projects:
Where is the hidden complexity of attempting to project?
Given that there are many instances of IPA coverage in the WMF products, a large portion of the complexity will be in understanding what libraries are available to us and have the best coverage across languages.
There is also the pre-existing reality that IPA has some languages that do not have dedicated keys for the speech sounds that a given language can make.
A large portion of the complexity will include:
- Investigating, comparing, and testing investigating with library gives the projects the most language coverage while still remaining a stable solution
- Ensuring that the phonetic library we end up deciding to use can benefit the most number of instances of IPA projects
Scope and Constraints edit
The focus of this project is around readers’ inability to read IPA markup.
- The project will NOT address the pre-existing equity concerns associated with IPA. While we may do our best to mitigate the equity shortcomings of IPA, it is not part of scope to tackle this
- This project with NOT generate new phonetic library, we will use a pre-existing audio library
The project will NOT address the content generation of IPA notation on the wikis, i.e. the Editor experience. This is mitigated by offering the rendered audio for IPA notation with no pre-existing audio associated with it
Data Investigations and Unknowns edit
- How many users attempt to listen to the pronunciation of IPA notation?
- How many instances of all IPA templates in wiki object exist across the projects?
- What’s the coverage of human generated pronunciation of IPA on our projects?
- What content is missing IPA notation that needs it?
Why and how did we accept this wish? edit
This wish scored high in our prioritization process for 2022. It was very popular in terms of number of votes, impactful in terms of the benefit for the community, and had a relatively lower complexity estimate. Please read about our full process here.