TESOL Course, Unit 20
Instructor Bree
02-21-2007

The Phonetic Alphabet 02

A Brief History of The Phonetic Alphabet

Over the past century researchers have dedicated their lives to the study of Phonetics and the Phonetic Alphabet. Many researches have found only speculation to the true origins of Phonetics and the first Phonetic Alphabet. This has led to more theories and conjecture than to facts.

• What are the early forms/history of Phonetics and/or Phonetic Alphabets?
  In this research article I shall focus on and attempt to answer this question.

Early Phonetics

The earliest forms of Phonetics are said to have dated back to about 600BC. Most researchers believe that the Aramaic language was pre-dated form of phonetics. In this period, most of the Aramaic language was sung or sounded out in a kind of musical notation. The Aramaic languages used symbols that would represent certain sounds. Some of these symbols were themselves silent, but would change the sound of other symbols to give a new sound and meaning. Researchers believe that the Indian Language of today was actually derived from the Aramaic language (On-line Research Library, Encyclopedia Britannica).

Phonetic Confusion

As far as “Early Phonetics” is concerned, there is not a lot of documented information on the subject. Most information found is nothing but theory full of lots of conjecture with little or no evidence of early Phonetics, Phonetic Alphabets and/or their uses. It is almost like someone just forgot to write it down. This has led to many disagreements and arguments amongst researchers, which has changed the ways in which we sound out different words. For example: The many arguments concerning the derivation of “YOGH” and “EZH” (Michael Everson, Irish National Position), which has changed the way in which we spell and pronounce Scottish names such as “Mackensie”.

It finally dawned on me that there are several references to early Phonetics in some very familiar books. I am speaking of the Christian/Jewish Old Testament and of the Kabbalistic writing known as the Zohar. There are passages that refer to the use of Phonetics and the study of language as far back as the time of Babylon, but modern day records only show accuracy dating back to the 1700’s.

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18th Century Phonetics

Benjamin Franklin was an “Alphabet Reformer”. In 1768 he wrote “A Scheme for a new Alphabet and a Reformed Mode of Spelling” in which he proposed a fairly accurate phonetic system for spelling English. The alphabet was not published though until 1779 in Franklin’s “Political, Miscellaneous and Philosophical Pieces”. This new phonetic alphabet consisted of all of the lowercase letters of the Latin alphabet, but it excluded the letters “c, j, q, w, x, and y, which he thought of as redundant. He also added six new letters for sounds, which he thought, lacked the proper representation. The rest of the letters were all based upon the principle of “one symbol for one sound”. Benjamin Franklin met with many disagreements over his desired changes in the Phonetic Alphabet. He eventually lost interest and stopped promoting his idea.

19th Century Phonetics

Modern phonetics began with Alexander Melville Bell (1819-1905), whose “Visible Speech” (1867) introduced a system of precise notation for writing down speech sounds. The first alphabet that was employed and promulgated was a modification of the 1847 Alphabet of Isaac Pitman and Alexander J. Ellis. (Journal of the International Phonetic Association 25.1:43,1995). These were the predecessors of the IPA or the International Phonetic Alphabet. The International Phonetic Alphabet was created in 1886 by a group of French and British Language teachers. This also led to the creation of the International Phonetic Association.

In its un-extended form (as of 2005) it has 107 and 55 modifiers. The Symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet and divided into three categories: Letters (which indicate basic sounds), diacritics (which further specify those sounds) and suprasegmentals (which indicate qualities such as speed, tone and stress). These are then broken down even further into smaller “subcategories”.

20th Century Phonetics

Americanist Phonetic Notation, also known as the APA or the American Phonetic Alphabet, has a very foggy beginning, because no one knows exactly when it began. There are many theories that claim its origins to date sometime around the early 1900’s, but no one truly knows. Leonard Bloomfield, author of the book “Language” (1935), had used IPA notion in his writings up to that point. Later, the IPA Linguists noticed seeing a change in the behavior of the American linguist, sometimes even hostile, towards the use of IPA notation and some of its symbols.

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Unlike the IPA, Americanist Phonetic Notation doesn’t require a strict harmony among the character styles: letters from the Greek and Roman alphabets are used side by side. Another contrast is that the Americanist tradition relies heavily upon diacritics where the IPA, which reserves diacritics for specific purposes, relies on newly created Greek and Roman letters with character shape modifications. The reasons for these differences boils down to nothing other than different philosophies (Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, Americanist Phonetic Notation/History).

Today

The IPA or International Phonetic Alphabet is still the most widely used method of teaching the pronunciation of English language. I have discovered that the English language and language in general is constantly evolving. Teachers and linguist will have to evolve at a higher rate than they have in the past and “We must remember to write it all down”. A history lost is a history forgotten and does everyone little good.

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References

Everson, M. (1997) Of the derivation of “YOGH and EZH”, Irish National Position, Consideration by WG2 and UTC

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, “The International Phonetic Alphabet”

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, “History of the IPA”

Background Research Notes: CODE REFORM (ATTEMPTS) HISTORY, “Benjamin Franklin”

“Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet”

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, “Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet”

“The writings of Benjamin Franklin”

Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, “Americanist Phonetic Notation”

Bett, S.T., Ph.D., “A brief biography of two simplified spelling advocates and a brief introduction to Franklin’s “fonetic” script.”

The “Study of Speech Sounds”

The “Zohar”

David Byron Langley