Peter Nielsen Ladefoged [ˈlædɪfəʊgɪd] (September 17, 1925 – January 24, 2006) was a British-American linguist phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct sounds of endangered languages and pioneered ways to collect and study data. He was active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953–61. At Edinburgh he studied phonetics with David Abercrombie, who himself had studied with Daniel Jones and was thus connected to Henry Sweet. September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ... January 24 is the 24th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the UK Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... The University of Ibadan is Nigerias oldest university, and is located five miles (8 kilometres) from the centre of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria. ... Daniel Jones (1881 - 1967) was a British phonetician. ... Henry Sweet (1845-1912) was a philologist, and is sometimes also considered to be an early linguist. ...

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. 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. Ladefoged also wrote several books on the phonetics of African languages. The University of California, Los Angeles, popularly known as UCLA, is a public, coeducational university located in the residential area of Westwood within the city of Los Angeles. ... Ian Maddieson is a world-renowned linguist at UC Berkeley, the vice president of the International Phonetic Association. ... There are an estimated 1800 languages spoken in Africa. ...

Ladefoged married Jenny MacDonald in 1953, a marriage which lasted over 50 years. They had three children: Lise Friedman, Bookseller; Thegn Ladefoged, Archaeologist, University of Auckland; and Katie Weiss, Attorney, Public Defender Nashville, Tennessee. He also had five grandchildren. Archaeology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ... The University of Auckland is New Zealands largest research-based university. ... An attorney is someone who represents someone else in the transaction of business: For attorney-at-law, see lawyer, solicitor, barrister or civil law notary. ... The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view. ... For other cities named Nashville, see Nashville (disambiguation). ... State nickname: Volunteer State Official languages English Capital Nashville Largest city Memphis Governor Phil Bredesen (D) Senators Bill Frist (R) Lamar Alexander (R) Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 36th 109,247 km² 2. ...

Ladefoged passed away on January 24, 2006 at the age of 80 in hospital. After a research trip to India, he had a safe flight from Bombay to London, England but suffered a small stroke at Heathrow Airport. He was then taken to hospital, where he suffered a second, massive, stroke and died soon after. January 24 is the 24th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... This article or section should be merged with Mumbai Mumbai (previously known as Bombay) is the worlds most populous conurbation, and is the sixth most populous agglomeration in the world. ... London is the capital city of the United Kingdom and of England. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... London Heathrow Airport (IATA airport code: LHR, ICAO airport code: EGLL, and often simply Heathrow) is the United Kingdoms busiest and best-connected airport. ...

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. He attended Haileybury College from 1938–43, and Caius College, a constituent college of Cambridge University from 1943–44. His university education was then interrupted by service in the Royal Sussex Regiment during World War II from 1944–47. He resumed his education at the University of Edinburgh, intending to study English literature but soon became fascinated by the sounds of speech. He received an M.A. (1951) and a Ph.D. (1959) in Phonetics. September 17 is the 260th day of the year (261st in leap years). ... Sutton is the principal town in the London Borough of Sutton. ... Surrey is a county in southern England, part of the South East England region and one of the Home Counties. ... For more coverage on London, visit the London Portal. ... Royal motto (French): Dieu et mon droit (Translated: God and my right) Englands location within the British Isles Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area – Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population – Total (mid-2004) – Total (2001 Census) – Density Ranked 1st UK... Coat of arms of Haileybury College This article refers to the school in England. ... Full name Gonville and Caius College Motto - Named after Edmund Gonville & John Caius Previous names Gonville Hall (1348), Gonville & Caius (1557) Established 1348 Sister College Brasenose College Master Neil McKendrick Location Trinity St Undergraduates 468 Graduates 291 Homepage Boatclub Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, generally known as Caius (though pronounced... The University of Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with one of the most selective sets of entry requirements in the United Kingdom. ... Combatants Allied Powers Axis Powers Commanders {{{commander1}}} {{{commander2}}} Strength {{{strength1}}} {{{strength2}}} Casualties 17 million military deaths 7 million military deaths {{{notes}}} World War II, also known as the Second World War (sometimes WW2 or WWII or World War Two), was a mid-20th century conflict that engulfed much of the... The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... A masters degree is an academic degree usually awarded for completion of a postgraduate or graduate course of one to three years in duration. ... Doctor of Philosophy, or Ph. ...

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. All he needed was to complete a thesis. Ladefoged 's dissertation was on the "nature of vowel quality," specifically on the cardinal vowels and their articulatory vs. 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. Abercrombie arranged a grant enabling Jones to be a consultant on Ladefoged's project to study the acoustic quality of cardinal vowels, which enabled hism 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. In education, a registrar is an official in an academic institution (a college, university, or secondary school) who handles student records. ... A thesis (literally: position from the Greek θέσις) is an intellectual proposition. ... This article is about the thesis in dialectics and academia. ... Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. ... University College London, commonly known as UCL, is one of the colleges that make up the University of London. ...

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. 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. Donald E. Broadbent (Birmingham, 1926-1993) was an influential fucktard British experimental psychologist. ...

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." 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. It is Ladefoged's voice that is heard producing the vowel sounds in the film. The cinema of the United States, although it is sometimes simply referred to as Hollywood does not refer only to the film industry of the United States of America. ... A consultant (from the latin consultus meaning legal expert) is a professional who provides expert advice in a particular domain or area of expertise such as accountancy, technology, the law, human resources, marketing, medicine, finance, public affairs, communication, or more esoteric areas of knowledge, for example engineering of different kinds... The original poster for the Broadway production of the show designed by Al Hirschfeld My Fair Lady is a 1956 musical theater production with lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederic Loewe, adapted from George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion. ... George Cukor George Cukor (July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director. ... Rex Harrison Sir Reginald Carey Rex Harrison (March 5, 1908–June 2, 1990) was a British theatre and film actor. ... Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ...

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. This research formed the basis of much of The Sounds of the World's Languages. In 1966 Ladofoged moved from the UCLA English Department to join the newly established Linguistics Department. A consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. ... In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. ...

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 has been involved in maintaining its International Phonetic Alphabet. 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 International Phonetic Association // (abbr. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... 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. 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. His textbook A Course in Phonetics, which is in its fifth edition, is the standard in phonetics. Korea refers to South Korea and North Korea together, which were a unified country until 1948. ... Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (English: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the UK Languages English, Gaelic, Scots Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area - Total - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... Looking down the Aleutians from an airplane. ...

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. In the Kalahari Desert, he studied the click sound native to 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

• 1953–5: Assistant Lecturer in Phonetics, University of Edinburgh
• 1955–59: Lecturer in Phonetics, University of Edinburgh
• 1959–60: Lecturer in Phonetics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
• 1960–61: Lecturer in Phonetics, University of Edinburgh
• 1961–62: Field fellow, Linguistic Survey of West Africa, Nigeria
• Summer 1960: University of Michigan
• Summer 1961: Royal Institute of Technology, [Kungliga Tekniska högskolan or KTH], (Stockholm, Sweden)
• 1962–63: Assistant Professor of Phonetics, Department of English, UCLA
• 1962: Established, and directed until 1991, the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory
• 1963–65: Associate Professor of Phonetics, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
• 1965–91: Professor of Phonetics, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
• 1977–80: Chair, Department of Linguistics, UCLA
• 1991: “retired” to become UCLA Research Linguist, Distinguished Professor of Phonetics Emeritus
• 2005: Leverhulme Professor, University of Edinburgh
• 2005-06: Adjunct professor at the University of Southern California (USC)

The University of Ibadan is Nigerias oldest university, and is located five miles (8 kilometres) from the centre of the major city of Ibadan in Western Nigeria. ... The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (UM or U of M) is a coeducational public research university in the U.S. state of Michigan. ... The Royal Institute of Technology or Kungliga tekniska högskolan (KTH) is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. ... The Old town in Stockholm from the air ▶(?) is the capital of Sweden, located on the east coast at the entrance of lake Mälaren. ... The University of Southern California (also known as USC, SC, Southern California and Southern Cal), Californias oldest private research university, is located in the urban center of Los Angeles, California. ...

Academic honors

• Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
• Fellow of the American Speech and Hearing Association
• Distinguished Teaching Award, UCLA 1972
• President, Linguistic Society of America, 1978
• President of the Permanent Council for the Organization of International Congresses of Phonetic Sciences, 1983-1991
• President, International Phonetic Association, 1987-1991
• UCLA Research Lecturer 1989
• Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1990
• UCLA College of Letters and Science Faculty Research Lecturer 1991
• Gold medal, XIIth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences 1991
• Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy 1992
• Honorary D.Litt., University of Edinburgh, 1993
• Foreign Member, Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 1993
• Silver medal, Acoustical Society of America 1994
• Corresponding Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2001
• Honorary D.Sc. Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2002

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) is an organization devoted to the scientific study of human language, and is the major professional society for linguistic researchers in North America and beyond. ... The International Phonetic Association // (abbr. ... The House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts. ... Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters (Danish: Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab) is a Danish non-governmental science Academy, founded November 13, 1742 by permission of the King Christian VI, as a historical Collegium Antiquitatum. ... The Acoustical Society of America is an international scientific society dedicated to increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics and its practical applications. ... The Royal Society of Edinburghs Building on the corner of George St. ...

Bibliography

Books and monographs

• Ladefoged (1962). The nature of vowel quality. Monograph supplement to Revista do Laboratório de Fonética Experimental da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra.
• Ladefoged (1962). Elements of acoustic phonetics. University of Chicago Press. Paperback edition 1971. Translation into Japanese, Taishukan Publishing Company, 1976. Second edition, with added chapters on computational phonetics 1996. ISBN 0226467643
• Ladefoged (1964). A phonetic study of west African languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Reprinted 1968. ISBN 0521069637
• Ladefoged (1967). Three areas of experimental phonetics. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-437110-7
• Ladefoged, Peter, Ruth Glick & Clive Criper (1969). Language in Uganda. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-436101-2
• Ladefoged (1971). Preliminaries to linguistic phonetics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Ladefoged (1975). A course in phonetics. Orlando: Harcourt Brace. 2nd ed 1982, 3rd ed. 1993, 4th ed. 2001, 5th ed. Boston: Thomson/Wadsworth 2006. Japanese translation 2000. ISBN 0-15-507319-2
• Ladefoged, Peter & Ian Maddieson (1996). The sounds of the world’s languages. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0-631-19814-8
• Ladefoged (2001). Vowels and consonants: An introduction to the sounds of languages. Oxford: Blackwells. 2001, 2nd ed. 2004. ISBN 0-631-21412-7
• Ladefoged (2003). Phonetic data analysis: An introduction to instrumental phonetic fieldwork. Oxford: Blackwells. ISBN 0631232702
• Ladefoged (2006). Interactive CD-ROM for "A Course in Phonetics" ISBN 1-4130-1420-8
• Ladefoged (in progress before death). Representing linguistic phonetic structure.

Other publications

• over 140 other publications

Works involved in or about

• George Cukor (director), Alan Jay Lerner (lyricist): My Fair Lady. Motion picture film. (1964).
• Fromkin, Victoria A., editor (1985). Phonetic linguistics: Essays in honor of Peter Ladefoged. Orlando: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-268990-9

Alan Jay Lerner was a Jewish-American Broadway lyricist and librettist. ... The original poster for the Broadway production of the show designed by Al Hirschfeld My Fair Lady is a 1956 musical theater production with lyrics and book by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederic Loewe, adapted from George Bernard Shaws Pygmalion. ...

Quotes from

• on why he chose to pursue phonetics:

"I wanted to find out why Shelley could write better-sounding poetry than I." (Los Angeles Times, 1970)

• on his becoming a scientist:

"It was really [David] Whitteridge who taught me to be a scientist." (informal CV, Peter Ladefoged)

• on his consultant work on the set of My Fair Lady:

"I'd never heard of [director George] Cukor. 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."

• on his response to Cukor's request to assist Rex Harrison to behave like a phonetician:

"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)

• on the preservation of languages:

"[It's] not our decision to make. It's up to the people themselves." (National Public Radio, 1999)

Quotes about

• on his contribution to his field

"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." (Pat Keating, UCLA)

External links

• Peter Ladefoged's home page at UCLA
• Remembering Peter Ladefoged
• Tribute to Peter Ladefoged: 80th birthday
• Obituary: Peter Ladefoged, UCLA Linguistics Professor
• Death of Peter Ladefoged (Linguist List posting)
• Some Memories of Peter Ladefoged (notes by Dan Everett at Linguist List)
• The Endangered Language Fund
• UCLA Phonetics Laboratory
• International Phonetic Association