Vowels and Consonants: An Introduction to the Sounds of Languages (Paperback)

by Peter Ladefoged (Author) "Once upon a time, the most important animal sounds were those made by predators and prey, or by sexual partners..." (more)
Key Phrases: bilabial column, vocal fold pulses, cats bring good luck, American English, British English, Standard Chinese (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This is a fascinating, accessible, and reader-friendly book by a master phonetician, about how speech sounds are made, and how they can be analyzed. Being able to hear the sounds under discussion, on the accompanying CD, is really useful. I warmly recommend the book to everyone with an interest, professional or otherwise, in spoken language." John Laver, University of Edinburgh

"This is a radically new introduction to phonetics. The use of examples is imaginative and the book is written with infectious enthusiasm. It will change the way we introduce students to phonetics." Peter J. Roach, University of Reading

"Only Peter Ladefoged, the world's leading phonetician, could produce a work like this: an authoritative and thorough introduction to phonetics written in a style that can be understood by a reader with no prior background in linguistics." John Ohala, University of California, Berkeley

"[This book] lucidly discusses issues that are not commonly covered in introductions to phonetics, including computerised speech synthesis and recognition, which ties in with a major focus on acoustics from the first chapter onwards." Times Higher Education Supplement

Product Description
This superb introduction to phonetics, with its accompanying CD, is perfect for anyone who wants to learn about the sounds of languages. Peter Ladefoged, one of the world's leading phoneticians, describes how languages use a variety of different sounds, many of them quite unlike any that occur in well-known languages. People trill their lips and click their tongues when talking in ways that are amazing to English speakers. Several of these unusual sounds are reproduced on the CD. The book opens with a brief introduction to the main forces working on the sounds of languages. Using basic terms, Ladefoged outlines the acoustic components of speech and demonstrates speech synthesis. Subsequent chapters on computers and speech describe text-to-speech systems, and show how speech recognition systems work. The last part of the book describes the sounds of a wide variety of languages, introducing them to readers largely by means of the CD that accompanies the book, and by reference to the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet. The contents of the CD are available on Peter Ladefoged's phonetics site, which includes an online version of the CD as well as other useful phonetics links.

This is an introductory book on phonetics that will enable readers to go on to read The Sounds of the World's Languages (Blackwell 1996) by Peter Ladefoged and Ian Maddieson, and other more advanced books on phonetics and phonology. With its lucid prose and accompanying CD, it is also a book to be enjoyed in its own right.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell (October 10, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0631214127
• ISBN-13: 978-0631214120
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #855,906 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ladefoged Outdoes Himself, October 9, 2000

By	J. M. Pickett "[e-mail]" (Surry, Maine United States) - See all my reviews

Peter Ladefoged has recently revised his two fine introductory texts, "Elements of Acoustic Phonetics" and "A Course in Phonetics" and, in 1996, published an advanced text on phonology "The Sounds of the World's Languages" with Ian Maddieson, his collaborator phonologist in their first-hand, on-site studies of African languages and many others. His new book brings acoustic phonetics and phonology together in a brilliantly designed course, complete with a CD-ROM containing many important and interesting examples and demonstrations. After such a fine introduction, the student is ready to study phonology and/or phonetics more intensively and become a professional. The generous number of figures and tables are well chosen; the coverage of technical techniques and their applications for research are broadly representative of speech science and technology. This is one book that lives up to the glowing remarks of colleagues on the back cover. My own more-advanced book, "The Acoustics of Speech Communicatiion" will work better, especially for linguistics students, if they have used "Vowels and Consonants" for their first course.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of illustrations..., March 5, 2002

By	Longhaired Goddess (East Coast, United States) - See all my reviews

This book is the text for the introductory phonetics course I am currently taking. It has a strong acoustic basis, and lots of charts, graphs, and spectra.

Most of us have no background in either phonetics or acoustics (as might be expected in a linguistics program). Although the illustrations are undoubtedly of the sort which are most commonly used in the field, to a student not already familiar with what they represent, they can be mystifying. An introduction and explanation of the scales used would have saved us a lot of class time we spent getting a grasp of this.

5.0 out of 5 stars very informative, June 19, 2009

By	VLC (OH) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vowels and Consonants (Paperback)

for an academic book, i found it very easy to read and not boring at all. Its a classic!