Here I present: Peter Ladefoged & Ian Maddieson, “The Sounds of the World’s Languages”, 1996.
Peter Ladefoged (1925-2006) was professor of phonetics, at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the United States. Peter Ladefoged was a highly regarded speech scientist, knowledgeable of phonetic alphabets.
INTRODUCTION.
The book consists eleven (11) chapters, and four-hundred twenty-five (425) pages. The “Table of Contents” of the book is given BELOW.
“TABLE OF CONTENTS”
Chapter 1. “The Sounds of the World’s Languages”.
Chapter 2. “Places of Articulation”.
Chapter 3. “Stops”.
Chapter 4. “Nasals and Nasalized Consonants”.
Chapter 5. “Fricatives”.
Chapter 6. “Laterals”.
Chapter 7. “Rhotics”.
Chapter 8. “Clicks”.
Chapter 9. “Vowels”.
Chapter 10. “Multiple Articulatory Gestures”.
Chapter 11. “Coda”.
COMMENTS.
This book gives a description of all the known ways in which the sounds of the world’s languages differ. In doing so, it provides the empirical foundation for linguistic phonetics and phonology. It has been a standard work of reference for researchers in phonetics, linguistics, and speech science for many years.
The scope of the book is truly global, with data drawn from nearly 400 languages, many of the them investigated at first hand by the authors. A picture of the full range of possible contrasting phonetic categories is created by comparing families of similar sounds across many different languages.
Separate chapters deal with place of articulation, stops, nasals, fricatives, laterals, rhotics, clicks, vowels, and segments, with multiple articulations. Each chapter is packed with illustrations documenting the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of the sounds discussed, and serving to illustrate the application of modern experimental techniques to descriptive phonetic studies.
