Sol505000

About your transcription of my name

Look, there seems to be a misunderstanding here. Before making unwarranted assumptions about my intentions, please take a look at this discussion. The reason I am writing this not because I want something, but because the two of you keep insisting on a pronunciation that is fundamentally incorrect. My name is not pronounced as "Jam" or "Steembergen". Any Dutch speaker can confirm this. I am all for being consistent with Help:IPA/Dutch, but that page does not write at all that /n/ becomes [m] before a labial, nor that [ɣ] is the only acceptable transcription of Dutch /g/. I also understand that that help page uses a simplification. That's why I suggested Dutch pronunciation: [joˈɦɑnəs ˈɦɛndrɪk ˈjɑn vɑn ˈsteːnbɛrxə(n)] as a reasonable alternative. I am not questioning your honourable intentions, and I'd really rather not interfere with articles about me, but I do feel entitled to speak up when people are deliberately adding incorrect information. (And for the record, I don't appreciate being referred to as "they"). Regards, —IJzeren Jan _Uszkiełtu? 19:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Being a native speaker of a language doesn't automatically grant you an insight into the fine detail of language's allophony (this mimics my arguments in this discussion). Per Booij's Phonology of Dutch (pages 64 and 65), /n/ is readily assimilated even across word boundaries in normal speech (e.g. in Parijs [ɪm paːˈrɛis]). There's nothing incorrect about this, all Dutch speakers do it all of the time, except in overly careful speech where some of those assimilations may be avoided. It is not about "Jan" being pronounced [jɑɱ] (it never is in isolation), it's about what immediately follows "Jan" in the phrase "Jan van Steenbergen": it is a labiodental [v], therefore: [ˈjɑɱ vɑn ...]. It's simple, really. You're not supposed to make pauses when you read those transcriptions, that's the trick.

Heemskerk and Zonneveld even seem to prescribe those assimilated forms in their Uitspraakwoordenboek (thus: [ˈsteːmbɛrɣə(n)] for "Steenbergen" - I agree that the alveolar [n] is possible too here). In this regard Dutch seems to be much more like Spanish or Italian, rather than German.

The usage of the symbol ⟨ɣ⟩ is up to debate (to a certain extent). We seem to be using a pandialectal transcription that covers northern and southern dialects simultaneously. We could split them, but that needs to be done across Wikipedia, in every single Northern Standard Dutch transcription and the guide (see MOS:IPAINTEGRITY). Sol505000 (talk) 20:45, 7 October 2024 (UTC)