Stress

[Taronyu]

I've been thinking recently about the way we show stress in this language. I think that the IPA system is hard for some people to grasp, especially those who are beginners. What happens is that people don't know the stress for words - and the pronunciation has run rampant, because of it. It's not hard to learn lexical stress from the get-go, but it needs to be learned first, as it is hard to fix. And I think that our current transcription system is somewhat to blame. Tute vs tute everyone knows because of it's exemplary status - but what about the correct stress for palulukan? Or tìswotìng? Or tätxaw? I don't know those stresses. And I would sure as heck like to.

I'm suggesting that I change the system in the dictionary. I think that it should be marked like this:

túte
tuté
mákto
ïlä (not the dual stress marks)
ìléy
ätxàle (not reverse stress, to mark ä + á)

Something like that. Of course, I don't know what this would do to the search function. I could always integrate it into a third sort of sorting, so:

teswotìng: [tɛ.ˈswo.tɪŋ] teswó-t·ing v. grant (ii) (c.w. from tìng give)

or even: tèswó-t·ìng.

This would also mean more words in the dictionary, which is annoying I guess, but the infix would be more clearly marked.

What do you all think?

[Kä'eng]

I'd suggest good old-fashioned underlining, à la the ASG: palulukan, etc. Doesn't mess up searching, and doesn't risk being confused with the non-stress-related accents on ä and ì.

[Muzer]

Underlining is Frommerian. Accents are not, and cause confusion.

[Plumps]

I remember that Keyl and Prrton tried something similar at the beginning of the Na'vi Nì'aw section at the beginning of the year and I was completely confused – back then I thought stress wasn't that important. That is of course not the case – it is very important!
If I understand you correctly, you want to create a separate entry similar to the IPA but with an accented stress mark... I think that's more work than is actually useful in the end. It's maybe easier for beginners to see very quickly where a stress is in a word but especially with our special characters ä and ì it will be extremely difficult to convince new learners that the ›right‹ spelling is teswotìng and not *teswótìng. We had (and sometimes I guess still do) similar ›problems‹ from the Wiki entries – at least in the German Wiki there are a few instances where the ›old‹ stress marking with accents instead of underlining is still there.

My stand is, and this is a very personal one, that if you want to learn a language where IPA is used you should get acquainted with it even though it should be a tìsraw mì tìm ... you'll profit from it in the end. And I don't think it's that difficult to realise that ' is the stress marking for the syllable between the dots.

The only instance where I personally ›accept‹ and use the accent is in your already mentioned example of tute vs tuté in written language use.

[Lisa]

As a beginner and IPA ignoramus, I find that underlined stress markings are much clearer and easier to understand, at least for me.   I know I would find the accented characters a bit confusing. 

[Muzer]

Underlined markings are instantly clear, and can be done anywhere but plain text (even IRC can do them) - accent marks are rather confusing, even if they can be used in a few cases where underlining can't.

['Oma Tirea]

Underlined markings are instantly clear, and can be done anywhere but plain text (even IRC can do them) - accent marks are rather confusing, even if they can be used in a few cases where underlining can't.

Oe mllte ngahu.  Underlining or italics catches the eye quicker than a stress mark, and even if it isn't standard IPA, you could use them in the IPA.

[Taronyu]

Ok.

I personally don't like underlining - partially because in latex, the program I use, it looks quite ugly. Partially because it isn't perfect (cf palulukan), and it's very easy to get confused (cf 'i'a), and it takes a lot of energy.

I think that I am going to use túte and tuté - because those are pretty much the only two where stress is a differentiator, and it matters. I'll of course put a bit in the beginning of my dictionary about it. I use túte elsewhere, too, of course...

Thanks guys.

[Tsamsiyu92]

I'd suggest good old-fashioned underlining, à la the ASG: palulukan, etc. Doesn't mess up searching, and doesn't risk being confused with the non-stress-related accents on ä and ì.

+zazam

Oel new tsat kop

[Muzer]

Accents make it harder for the translators too - we'll have to accept user input with accents and convert it to that without, as well as accepting accents from the database.

[Pxia Säsngap]

Actually I like it how it was. With ' or - which is less confusing - " before the stressed syllable. So [æ.'t'æ.lE] or [æ."t'æ.lE].
Doing that you don't have to underline syllables but it's not as confusing as some kind of accents. What you have to remember is, that beginners also use the dictionary and they might be very confused spotting some accents that aren't mentioned in NiaN or any other learning resource.

[Tompa'Ivong]

and of course, we cant forget about 'txe'lan'

Nice for mentioning Palulukan

[Plumps]

Already gave my comment but to consider all options...
What about Frommer's method from time to time in writing the stressed syllable in capital letters?
Don't think that is possible in the IPA, though

slä, fko tsir.VUN ti.VÌNG tì.FMI.ti

[Muzer]

Ah, now THAT method I agree with.

Benefits
* Easy
* Search still works
* Very hard to be confusing to beginners, unless they have come from Klingon or something where case matters
* Translators won't have to do anything

Drawbacks
* Some people may say it looks ugly

[Eyamsiyu]

Well, in regards to the ugly looks, maybe have this in a different set of parenthesis?

[Taronyu]

I agree with the "caps" is ugly part.

[Plumps]

As I said, just a suggestion to see all options
But I think you have to decide whether it should be easily accessible or aesthetically pleasing - I am not sure there is an option for both

[Payä Tìrol]

Is it viable to do it with color, as the wiki vocab page does?

[Taronyu]

not really.

I'm actually thinking that it is likely that it won't be searchable. It might be easier for us to just use tuté and túte casually, but not actually have that in the dictionary. Hmm....

[Tsamsiyu92]

the ´-s confused me when looking through the Wikibook pages as a beginner, so probably not a good idea, the underlining would be my favorite, seconded by the way it is.