Speech Science History Perry C. Hanavan, Au.D.

Early roots of phonetics India Korea

Panini Lived in India between the 7th and the 4th centuries B.C.E. His work on Sanskrit, with its 4,168 rules, is outstanding for its highly systematic methods of analyzing and describing language Phonology/phonetics explicitly described The birth of linguistic science in Western Europe in the 19th century was largely due to the discovery of Panini's grammar

King Sejong of Korea Wanted his people to be literate, but knew that the Chinese system took too long for most people to learn. Promoted literacy by creating an entirely new, scientific alphabet, representing the individual sounds of the spoken language (see next slide). Named alphabet Hun Min Jong Um, “Accurate Sounds to Educate the People.” Korean scholars later opposed Sejong’s alphabet because it was not Chinese. Consequently, it was largely neglected, almost until the 20th century. Now in general use in both North and South Korea

Han’gul

Sir William Jones British scholar, linguist, and lawyer Fluent in seven languages by age 20 Came to India as Judge of Supreme court In 1786, announced in Calcutta earth-breaking news: Sanskrit and the European languages "have sprung from some common source which, perhaps, no longer exists." This set a trend in the linguistic study of Sanskrit and the use of the term "Aryan," to describe not only the Indian languages, but those of Europe

Henry Sweet English philologist and phonetician. An authority on Anglo-Saxon and the history of the English language. Pioneer in modern scientific phonetics. His History of English Sounds (1874) was a landmark study. In 1901, he was made a reader in phonetics at Oxford. Among his other writings are A Handbook of Phonetics (1877), A New English Grammar (1892–95), The History of Language (1900), The Sounds of English (1908), and works on Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Icelandic. Sweet was the model for Professor Higgins in G. B. Shaw’s play Pygmalion. 1845–1912

“Henry Higgins” The phonetician in the play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw  “Eliza Doolittle” 

Daniel Jones Professor at University College London. Used the term “phoneme” in the current sense. Promoted the term “cardinal vowel.” Wrote The outline of English Phonetics in Considered to be the first comprehensive description of Received Pronunciation. Suggested a two-parameter diagram to visualize how vowels are produced. Popularized experimental phonetics. Developed new alphabets for African and Indian languages. ( )

Abbot Rousellot 1843 – 1924 An important innovator in experimental phonetics Professor with the College of France

Rousselot cylinders Speech sounds and articulatory information were recorded for analysis “It will be possible hereafter to note the pronunciation of any language, dialect, or idiom whatever, without relying upon the testimony of the ear, which distinguishes but slight differences between the modes of speaking of several individuals.”

Raymond H. Stetson Trained at Harvard, then taught at Oberlin College for the next three decades. Main contributions are in the areas of speech movements and phonetics (an interest sparked by Abbe Rousselot following a year in France during ). Many of his original theories and experiments are considered ahead of their time, and in most cases were not fully explored until the 1960s. His prominent work, “Motor Phonetics,” made a strong case for a central timing mechanism that relied on syllables as an organizing principle. However, most modern theories place less emphasis on the syllable

From “Motor phonetics” (Stetson,1951)

Peter Ladefoged Currently at UCLA Has contributed widely in articulatory, acoustic, and linguistic phonetics An active member of the International Phonetics Association

International phonetics alphabet (IPA) (1888) First published by the Association Phonétique Internationale (International Phonetic Association), a group of French language teachers. Modeled on a phonetic script for English created in Goal: To devise a system for transcribing the sounds of speech which was independent of any particular language and applicable to all languages.

IPA - Uses Dictionaries, textbooks, phrase books. Creating new writing systems for previously unwritten languages. Non-native speakers of English when learning to speak English. Clinicians in speech language pathology and related disciplines.

Source-filter theory Vocal source vocal tract filter speech