Contact phonetic first name vs pronunciation first name

Nobody knows. Or at least Google doesn't know. One assumes iOS developers know. I believe "Phonetic" is older and that Siri uses it. That works on my wife's last name.

I think "Pronunciation" is a more recent addition. You'd think it would hold a sound field, but it appears to be a text field. When I set the keyboard to use voice entry and said my wife's name iOS just inserted her name (so Siri has learned the sound there).

I wonder if Pronunciation was added because "phonetic" doesn't make sense for non-phonetic languages (ex: Chinese), but somehow we ended up with both.

I do have on idea. The iOS 11 user guide documents that the built-in screen reader can be told how to pronounce certain words. (Settings:General:Accessibility:Speech:Pronunciations).

Maybe text entered in Contacts.app pronunciation field is used by screen readers to speak someone's name. So one could enter phonetic text here too.

My guess (only a guess) is to use the phonetic field to guide Siri.

I think the pronunciation field is for screen readers.