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Peter Nielsen Ladefoged (IPA: [ˈlædɪfəʊɡɪd][1]; September 17, 1925 – January 24, 2006) was an English-American linguist and phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct sounds of endangered languages and pioneered ways to collect and study data. Events 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought 1462 - The Battle of Świecino (or Battle of Żarnowiec Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 41 - Gaius Caesar (Caligula, known for his eccentricity and cruel Despotism, is Assassinated by his disgruntled Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. English Americans (occasionally known as Anglo -Americans although this may have a wider cultural meaning are Citizens of the United States whose ancestry Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech An endangered language is a Language that it is at risk of falling out of use generally because it has few surviving speakers He was active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953–61. The University of Edinburgh (Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann founded in 1582 is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. The University of Ibadan is the oldest Nigerian university, and is located five miles (8 kilometres from the centre of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria Nigeria, officially named the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal Constitutional republic comprising thirty-six states and one Federal At Edinburgh he studied phonetics with David Abercrombie, who himself had studied with Daniel Jones and was thus connected to Henry Sweet. Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech Daniel Jones ( 12 September 1881 &ndash 4 December 1967) was a London -born British phonetician. Henry Sweet (1845-1912 was an English philologist, phonetician and Grammarian As a philologist he specialized in the Germanic languages

At the time of his death, he was Professor of Phonetics Emeritus at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he taught from 1962–1991. The University of California Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Westwood Los Angeles, California, United His book A Course in Phonetics is a common introductory text in phonetics, and The Sounds of the World's Languages (co-authored with Ian Maddieson) is widely regarded as a standard phonetics reference. Ian Maddieson is a linguist at UC Berkeley, and vice-president of the International Phonetic Association. Ladefoged also wrote several books on the phonetics of African languages. There are an estimated 2000 Languages spoken in Africa. About a hundred of these are widely used for inter-ethnic communication

Ladefoged married Jenny MacDonald in 1953, a marriage which lasted over 50 years. Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. They had three children: Lise Friedman, Bookseller; Thegn Ladefoged [1], Archaeologist, University of Auckland; and Katie Weiss, Attorney, Public Defender Nashville, Tennessee. Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from Greek grc ἀρχαιολογία archaiologia – grc ἀρχαῖος archaīos The University of Auckland (Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau is New Zealand 's largest University. An attorney at law (or attorney-at-law) in the United States is a practitioner in a court of law who is legally qualified to prosecute In the United States, a public defender is an Attorney whose duty is to provide legal representation to people who are charged with a crime or other offense Tennessee ( is a state located in the Southern United States. He also had five grandchildren.

Ladefoged died on January 24, 2006 at the age of 80 in hospital. Events 41 - Gaius Caesar (Caligula, known for his eccentricity and cruel Despotism, is Assassinated by his disgruntled Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. After a research trip to India, he had a safe flight from Bombay to London, England, but suffered a small stroke at Heathrow Airport. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Mumbai ( Marathi:,, IPA: formerly Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the financial London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland He was then taken to hospital, where he suffered a second, massive, stroke and died soon after.

Contents

Early life and education

Peter Ladefoged was born on September 17, 1925, in Sutton (then in Surrey, now in Greater London), England to Niels, an importer of Danish bacon and cheese, and his wife, Marie Frances. Events 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought 1462 - The Battle of Świecino (or Battle of Żarnowiec Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Sutton is the principal town in the London Borough of Sutton. Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. Greater London is the top-level administrative subdivision covering London, England. England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland He attended Haileybury College from 1938–43, and Caius College, a constituent college of Cambridge University from 1943–44. Haileybury and Imperial Service College, (usually shortened to Haileybury & ISC or Haileybury) is a famous British Independent school founded in 1862 Gonville and Caius College Cambridge is a constituent College of Cambridge University, one of the world's most academically respected institutions The University of Cambridge (often Cambridge University) located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the His university education was then interrupted by service in the Royal Sussex Regiment during World War II from 1944–47. The Royal Sussex Regiment, a regiment in the British Army, was formed in 1881 from the 35th (Royal Sussex Regiment of Foot and the 107th Regiment of Foot World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including He resumed his education at the University of Edinburgh, intending to study English literature but soon became fascinated by the sounds of speech. The University of Edinburgh (Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann founded in 1582 is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. He received an M.A. (1951) and a Ph.D. (1959) in Phonetics. "PhD" redirects here for other uses see PhD (disambiguation.

He was able to receive a first degree after only two years as an undergraduate at Edinburgh because returning World War II servicemen were allowed a year off from the usual three year requirement for an Ordinary degree. After receiving an M. A. (ordinary) (war emergency) in 1951, he went on to do a year's postgraduate work in phonetics. At the end of that year he got his first job, as a lab assistant cutting vinyl recordings. On January 1, 1953, he was promoted to Assistant Lecturer in Phonetics.

In the late 1950s, Ladefoged decided to work in the United States, but this required a Ph. D. degree. The university registrar allowed him to count the three years that he was a member of the faculty. In education outside the United Kingdom a registrar or Registrary is an official in an academic institution (a College, University, or All he needed was to complete a thesis. A dissertation (also called thesis or disquisition) is a document that presents the author's Research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature Ladefoged's dissertation was on the "nature of vowel quality," specifically on the cardinal vowels and their articulatory vs. A dissertation (also called thesis or disquisition) is a document that presents the author's Research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature auditory basis. After consultation with and advice from David Abercrombie, the head of the Phonetics Department, Ladefoged took three papers that he had already published on aspects of vowel quality, and added an introductory survey. He also appended some work that he had been doing on cardinal vowels with Daniel Jones, who had recently retired from the chair of phonetics at University College London. Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages For the Silverchair frontman see Daniel Johns. Daniel Jones is the name of Daniel Jones (phonetician (1881&ndash1967 University College London ( UCL) is a multi-faculty university institution based in the United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London Abercrombie arranged a grant enabling Jones to be a consultant on Ladefoged's project to study the acoustic quality of cardinal vowels, which enabled him an opportunity to work with the leading phonetician of the time. The sets of vowels recorded under Jones’s supervision were made by his former pupils. Although not very noteworthy, this part of his project provided an early example of the problems of analyzing vowels spectrographically.

After completing his thesis, Ladefoged received his Ph. D. upon completion of an oral exam that included Walter Lawrence – the inventor of PAT, the first parametric speech synthesizer – as an outside examiner. It was through Lawrence that Ladefoged met Donald Broadbent, who was a psychologist working in Cambridge at the time. Donald Eric Broadbent ( Birmingham, 1926 - April 10 1993) was an influential English experimental psychologist. They teamed together to conduct experiments using synthetic speech, about the relative nature of vowel quality. This led to their working together on other aspects of speech perception, and through Broadbent he learned how to do work in perceptual psychology.

Another person whom Ladefoged was able to work with through David Abercrombie was David Whitteridge, the Professor of Physiology, who was interested in the control of the respiratory system in speech. Ladefoged started working in Whitteridge's lab, at first every Saturday morning, then for days at a time, and then longer and longer as they realized that the control of the respiratory muscles was no simple matter. Said Ladefoged, "It was really Whitteridge who taught me to be a scientist. "

Academic career

At the same time, he began important research projects with Donald Broadbent, Walter Lawrence, Morris H. Draper, and David Whitteridge, with his first publications appearing in 1956. His 1957 paper with Donald Broadbent, "Information conveyed by vowels", was particularly influential.

Soon after moving to Los Angeles from Scotland to become an assistant professor at UCLA in 1962, Ladefoged had a brief career in Hollywood as the chief linguistic consultant on the 1964 film "My Fair Lady. United States cinema has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century A consultant (from the Latin consultare means "to discuss" from which we also derive words such as consul and counsel) is a Professional My Fair Lady is a musical Film adaptation of the Lerner and Loewe stage musical My Fair Lady, based in turn on the play " Director George Cukor wanted him to teach the film's star, Rex Harrison — who would win an Oscar for the role of Professor Henry Higgins — to behave like a phonetician. George Dewey Cukor ( July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an Academy Award -winning American Film director. Sir Reginald “Rex” Carey Harrison (5 March 1908 - 2 June 1990 was an English Academy Award and Tony Award -winning Theatre and "The Oscar" redirects here for the film see The Oscar (film. It is Ladefoged's voice that is heard producing the vowel sounds in the film.

Ladefoged was involved with the phonetics laboratory at UCLA, which he established in 1962. He also was interested in listening to and describing every sound used in spoken human language, which he estimated at 900 consonants and 200 vowels. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract This research formed the basis of much of The Sounds of the World's Languages. In 1966 Ladefoged moved from the UCLA English Department to join the newly established Linguistics Department.

Ladefoged's opinion on studying endangered languages was that linguists should record languages but not necessarily try to save them, even though he predicted that all but a handful of the world's 6,500 languages would disappear over the next thousand years. He argued that preserving languages could weaken national unity, encourage tribalism, and absorb scarce resources that might otherwise be used for development.

Ladefoged was also a member of the International Phonetic Association for a long time, and was involved in maintaining its International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Association (IPA is an organization that promotes the scientific study of Phonetics and the various practical applications of that science The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic He was also editor of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association. Ladefoged served on the board of directors of the Endangered Language Fund since its inception. The Endangered Language Fund is a small non-profit organization based in New Haven Connecticut.

Legacy

During his academic career, Ladefoged was a worldwide field linguist, as he visited Nigeria, Botswana, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Senegal, India, Yemen, Papua New Guinea, Nepal, Thailand, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, Korea, Scotland, the Aleutians, and China. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. The Republic of Ghana is a country in West Africa. It borders Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast to the west Burkina Faso to the north Togo to the The Republic of Uganda is a Landlocked country in East Africa. Tanzania ˌtænzəˈniːə officially the United Republic of Tanzania (Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. Senegal (le Sénégal officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country south of the Sénégal River in western Africa. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Yemen ( Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman officially the Republic of Yemen ( Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhuuriyya Papua New Guinea (or ˈpæpjuːə in Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini) officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania Nepal (नेपाल) is a Landlocked country in South Asia. The Kingdom of Thailand (ˈtaɪlænd ราชอาณาจักรไทย, râːtɕʰa-ʔaːnaːtɕɑ̀k-tʰɑj |utc_offset = -2 to -4 |time_zone_DST = BRST |utc_offset_DST = -2 to -5 |cctld The United Mexican States ( or commonly Mexico (ˈmɛksɪkoʊ () is a federal constitutional Republic in North America. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics. Korea is a geographic area composed of two sovereign countries a civilization and a former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Scotland ( Gaelic: Alba) is a Country in northwest Europethat occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain. The Aleutian Islands (possibly from Chukchi aliat, " Island " are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming a Volcanic China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National Much of his fieldwork remains unique to this day and he originated or refined many data collection and analytic techniques in the field. His classic 1996 Sounds of the World's Languages (with Ian Maddieson) summarized his knowledge of all the sounds he had studied and remains the definitive reference work. His 20 PhD students include such influential figures as Vicki Fromkin, John Ohala, Ian Maddieson, Louis Goldstein, and Cathe Browman. John Ohala is a Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at the University of California Berkeley. His textbook A Course in Phonetics, which is in its fifth edition, is the standard in phonetics.

Ladefoged also pioneered the use of state-of-the-art equipment in the field. His first portable phonetics lab that included a tape recorder and various scientific instruments weighed 100 pounds and required a porter but enabled him to do more than listen: He could take quantitative measurements, such as gauging how much air escaped from the nose or throat when a sound was made.

In an earlier trip to India, he recorded the Toda language, which is spoken by fewer than 1,000 people, as he documented its six trills produced by the tip of the tongue. Toda is a Dravidian language well known for its many fricatives and trills. In the Kalahari Desert, he studied the click sounds native to that part of Africa. In America, an Indian tribe, whose members knew their language was vanishing, refused to cooperate because they didn't want to reveal their culture to outsiders.

Academic timeline

Academic honors

Bibliography

Books and monographs

Other publications

Works involved in or about

Quotes from

I wanted to find out why Shelley could write better-sounding poetry than I.

– Los Angeles Times, 1970

It was really [David] Whitteridge who taught me to be a scientist.

– informal CV, Peter Ladefoged

I'd never heard of [director George] Cukor. My Fair Lady is a musical based upon George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner It just struck me as the chance to earn a fortune each week. It was just so much more than a professor's salary. It paid me enough to buy my first car in America.

My immediate answer was, 'I don't have a singing butler and three maids who sing, but I will tell you what I can as an assistant professor. '

– Los Angeles Times, 2004

[It's] not our decision to make. It's up to the people themselves.

– National Public Radio, 1999

See also

Quotes about

He did extensive linguistic fieldwork on a scale it had not been done before, and when he brought it back from the field he found ways to use sophisticated laboratory equipment to analyze his recordings. An endangered language is a Language that it is at risk of falling out of use generally because it has few surviving speakers Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech

– Pat Keating, UCLA

References

  1. ^ As transcribed by Ladefoged himself in the 2001 edition of his book Vowels and consonants: an introduction to the sounds of languages (page 74). Patricia Keating is a professor in the Linguistics department at UCLA.

External links

Persondata
NAMELadefoged, Peter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTIONBritish phonetician
DATE OF BIRTH17 September 1925
PLACE OF BIRTHSutton, London
DATE OF DEATH24 January 2006
PLACE OF DEATHLondon
Events 1176 - The Battle of Myriokephalon is fought 1462 - The Battle of Świecino (or Battle of Żarnowiec Sutton is the principal town in the London Borough of Sutton. Events 41 - Gaius Caesar (Caligula, known for his eccentricity and cruel Despotism, is Assassinated by his disgruntled London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom.
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