[Lingtyp] IPA for linguists' names

[Yuri Koryakov]

Dear Maria,

On 07.09.2026 11:16, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm wrote:
> Hi,
>
> As Martin Haspelmath has pointed out, I introduced the transcription 
> of the authors’ name as the obligatory component of their information 
> in “Linguistic Typology” a few years ago and have repeatedly talked 
> about this initiative in various contexts. I have also tried to get a 
> few other journals to do this, but to no avail so far. However, as the 
> President (now Vice-President) of the SLE, I also started the 
> discussion about adding this information to the database of the SLE 
> members and in the book of abstracts.
SLE is a great platform for such an initiative, and I hope you succeed. 
A few years ago, at an international conference in Moscow, we wrote the 
transcription in IPA on badges, next to the name.

> There are many important reasons for doing this. I can talk a lot 
> about this from a personal experience.
By the way, if you could write something inspiring for the Guide page, 
that would be great!
>
> All the best,
> Maria (Masha)
Yours,
Yuri
>
>> On 5 Sep 2026, at 17:57, Yuri Koryakov via Lingtyp 
>> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dear colleagues,
>>
>> Many of us have encountered a situation where we need to pronounce 
>> the name of a linguist, but we don’t know how. Or we need to write 
>> down someone’s name in another script (Cyrillic, Arabic, Japanese, 
>> Chinese, etc.), and this again requires correct pronunciation.
>>
>> As a result, you have to look for pronunciation instructions on 
>> personal webpages, listen to recordings on YouTube, ask friends, and 
>> so on, but it is much more convenient when such information is 
>> collected in one place.
>>
>> To do this, I created the editable list of names and their 
>> transcriptions here: 
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=0#gid=0
>>
>> The *General Guide* “How to add your name to the list” is available 
>> in the Info tab ( 
>> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zFKZp2e6dvfw_JQqX7904xY1GnqOwaopD2gnb3ytilA/edit?gid=863783271#gid=863783271 
>>  ).
>>
>> Additional difficulties that this project allows to solve:
>>
>> a) distinguishing the surname from other names (necessary for the 
>> correct compilation of bibliographies and especially relevant for 
>> languages with a different order of components in the name or for 
>> names consisting of more than two words)
>>
>> b) indicating gender pronouns – he / she / they – useful in many 
>> languages when you need to, for example, refer to the author.
>>
>> If you are in doubt whether you should indicate yourself, you can use 
>> the following criterion as a working one: if you have published at 
>> least one article or had one presentation at a conference, you can 
>> safely provide your name. Also if people pronounce your name 
>> differently from how you’d like it to be pronounced, or if you’ve 
>> ever been asked how to pronounce your name, that’s a hint that you 
>> should provide that information.
>>
>> If you can’t/don’t want to add your data to the sheet yourself, you 
>> can send it to me by email . Also write if you have any 
>> questions/comments/suggestions etc.
>>
>> Yours,
>> Yuri Koryakov
>>
>>
>>
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>
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm University
> Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”,
> President of Societas Linguistica Europaea,
> tamm at ling.su.se
> www.su.se/english/profiles/tamm-1.182300
>
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