Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Reading/IPA audio renderer

Random proposal ►◄ Reading  The survey has concluded. Here are the results!

IPA audio renderer

• Problem: Not everyone can read IPA markup (e.g. /ˈbɜːrmɪŋəm/ for "Birmingham")
• Proposed solution: A tool or gadget that takes IPA as input and outputs an audio file or stream.
• Who would benefit: Anyone wanting to know how a word is pronounced, but who cannot read IPA
• More comments: The Phabricator ticket includes various examples of third party tools that do this, as proofs of concept.
• Phabricator tickets: phab:T298950; phab:T33221
• Proposer: Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:40, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

The Community Tech project page for this wish is at: Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Generate Audio for IPA

Discussion

• Great idea. After all, the whole point of IPA is that it can be machine-rendered with reasonable accuracy. Rollo (talk) 19:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

  The idea does sound good, I want to add though that we are kind of depending on having a open source library the provides audio rendering of IPA markup. Is anyone aware of one? KSiebert (WMF) (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I support this solution. When I read biographies in other Wikipedia, I want to hear how the name and surname are pronounced. IPA is unreadable to me. A reading machine would help a lot.--Rosewood (talk) 09:46, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

It appears there has been some work around using espeak, https://itinerarium.github.io/phoneme-synthesis/ Akathelollipopman (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• Aren't there 2-3 variants of IPA? (Only different in certain symbols)? - no idea, not a linguist.-Eptalon (talk) 23:54, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  Hi Eptalon. Yes, mostly with tonal indication, but it is not such a big deal, there is several systems but no overlapping between them. Something else: A language with a large diffusion could have more than one way to capture the phonological representation, I mean the most systematic one despite local changes. This could still be conflictual between contributors when a phonetic change is typical in a large area such as a change on the sound of the letter d in Canadian French. Well, that was a serious answer. I hope you got the point (I am kind of a linguist). A shorter answer could have been: Yes, one IPA is a beer, the other one a script Noé (talk) 13:33, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

• I dare to say we have overlapping proposals here Community Wishlist Survey 2022/Wiktionary/Get free pronunciation data :) Xavier Dengra (MESSAGES) 23:56, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• This would be awesome and would be especially useful when learning new words on wiktionary.org Akathelollipopman 20:24, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
• I am not favorable to this idea, I think a human voice is more accurate and give a useful warming touch. Noé (talk) 22:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  You are not obliged to listen to IPA pronunciations. I look forward to hearing your plan for having a human voice on every article currently using IPA. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• @Sebastian Berlin (WMSE): Is this something WikiSpeech could solve? ♥Ainali ^talk_{contributions} 15:42, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

  It should be able to, to some extent. It would help if there is a consistent markup for IPA (don't know if this is the case). As discussed above, IPA can be written a bit differently and with varying levels of detail. Having a TTS that can pronounce all possible IPA may not be realistic and some conversion will likely have to be implemented. E.g. when I did a quick test now I had to convert to /ˈbɝmɪŋəm/ for the TTS used by Wikispeech. Sebastian Berlin (WMSE) (talk) 09:07, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• Can IPA actually do this? The enwiki IPA help pages are full of indications that the same IPA is pronounced differently in different accents or dialects of English, warnings that the symbols aren't directly equivalent in other languages etc. If it can work reliably, this would be a useful feature, as IPA is incomprehensible to most readers. But we don't want a system that pronounces every word in (say) a mid-Atlantic accent, as if that's the only correct pronunciation. Modest Genius (talk) 20:49, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. See the linked proofs-of-concept, on the Phabricator ticket. Also note that at least one of them offers a choice of voices. Even so, better to have "every word in (say) a mid-Atlantic accent" than no audio pronunciation at all. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
• Would have supported if I had known voting ended at 18 UTC. ~~~~
  User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 19:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

Voting

•  Support --Nachtbold (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Support this over the "get free data" one, this is already machine-ready data - just needs a rendering engine. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Femke (talk) 19:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Wskent (talk) 19:36, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Bischnu (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Akathelollipopman (talk) 20:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Vis M (talk) 21:08, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support --Yodin^T 21:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support --Matěj Suchánek (talk) 21:45, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support - MrMeAndMrMe_{Let's talk} 22:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support UV (talk) 23:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Daud Iffa (talk) 00:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Huji (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Helpful to readers. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:23, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Ottawajin (talk) 05:42, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Lectrician1 (talk) 05:52, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support --𝑇𝑚𝑣 (𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑘) 07:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support So useful. Tranhaian130809 (talk) 11:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
• Neutral Forgive me if I'm being arrogant here, but I don't feel IPA is too hard. I worry an automated voice could be difficult for some, especially with dialect differences. Celerias (talk) 11:15, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Meiræ 11:41, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support --Spiros71 (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support NguoiDungKhongDinhDanh 13:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Javiermes (talk) 14:02, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Aca (talk) 15:03, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Dexxor (talk) 15:27, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Ed6767 (talk) 15:34, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 18:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support would be really helpful. — Omnilaika02 (talk) 19:51, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support ToBeFree (talk) 23:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Nw520 (talk) 23:54, 29 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Pelagic (talk) 00:24, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Wostr (talk) 00:26, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Gusfriend (talk) 00:28, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Ali Imran Awan (talk) 07:17, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support TheInternetGnome (talk) 08:22, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support OwenBlacker (Talk) 11:03, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support --Minorax^«¦talk¦» 11:07, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support → «« Man77 »» ^[de] 13:42, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support NightWolf1223 (talk) 15:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support HynekJanac (talk) 17:20, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support czar 19:42, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support KevinL (aka L235 · t) 20:58, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Libcub (talk) 23:23, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support if technically possible – Teratix ₵ 07:03, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Penalba2000 (talk) 07:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Is not big problem to read IPA (because characters are letter-like), but is problem to write it and understand every nuance. JAn Dudík (talk) 13:03, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Lrkrol (talk) 14:53, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Sadads (talk) 15:50, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Bencemac (talk) 18:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Mbkv717 (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support stwalkerster (talk) 23:43, 31 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Dave Braunschweig (talk) 00:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Trey314159 (talk) 00:22, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Labdajiwa (talk) 03:30, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Characters to write IPA for different supporters Thingofme (talk) 13:33, 1 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support * Pppery * _{it has begun} 00:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Hiàn (talk) 04:28, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support good one Paradise Chronicle (talk) 05:13, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Serg!o (talk) 12:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Camillu87 (talk) 13:00, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Geert Van Pamel (WMBE) (talk) 16:12, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Would be fabulous, I imagine it would be a welcome feature for the wider group of readers as well. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 20:51, 2 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Aimwin66166 (talk) 06:08, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Rotavdrag (talk) 11:27, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Paucabot (talk) 15:42, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support WikiAviator (talk) 16:13, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Daniel Case (talk) 19:44, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Wutsje (talk) 20:46, 3 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Ninepointturn (talk) 17:02, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support — Bilorv (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:59, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support - Darwin ^Ahoy! 01:02, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Feoffer (talk) 07:53, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Tomastvivlaren (talk) 08:47, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Kpjas (talk) 10:30, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support SD0001 (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Lambsbridge (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support paul2520 (talk) 20:07, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Waldyrious (talk) 23:28, 5 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Oppose --Ciao • Bestoernesto • ✉ 03:31, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Michael Barera (talk) 06:10, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support--Vulp❯❯❯here! 08:12, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support —— Eric Liu_（Talk） 09:39, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Emaus (talk) 17:49, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Ayumu Ozaki (talk) 00:23, 7 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support KnowledgeablePersona (talk) 23:43, 8 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support β₁₆ - (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Bodhisattwa (talk) 09:38, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 11:20, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support — DaxServer (t · c) 12:57, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support ~Cybularny ^Speak? 23:30, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Quiddity (talk) 08:45, 10 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Sunpriat (talk) 02:07, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support I would also prefer human recordings instead of audio rendering, but issues of scale aside, I think doing something like this (1) would provide an immediate benefit to many, many users on many, many articles and (2) might stimulate people to say to themselves, hey, I can record a better pronunciation than that -- and then hopefully they'll do that and upload it to the Commons. Gaurav (talk) 03:22, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Jl sg (talk) 10:10, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support evrifaessa (talk) 16:58, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support Valerio Bozzolan (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
•  Support -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 17:22, 11 February 2022 (UTC)