Plate III. in A. v. Luschka's ' Der Schlundkopf des Menschen.' reproduced by permission of the Publishers, Messrs H. Laupp & Co., Tübingen. OF SPOKEN ENGLISH WITH SPECIMEN PASSAGES IN PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION, BY WALTER RIPMAN NEW VERSION REWRITTEN, WITH MANY ADDITIONS NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1920 PREFACE EIGHT years have elapsed since the Sounds of Spoken English appeared, and six since they were supplemented by the Specimens of English, Spoken, Read and Recited. These little books were intended, in the first place, for English students, and particularly for those in Training Colleges; they have also been much used by foreigners, who however, require a fuller treatment of the subject than those whose mothertongue is English and for their sake a new version seemed desirable. The direct impulse for re-writing the two books came from Professor J. Lawrence of the University of Tokyo, who had prepared a complete concordance to the Specimens which forms the main part of the present Glossary. For this laborious undertaking I owe him a great debt of gratitude, which will, I am confident, be shared by many students of phonetics. So far as I know, such a concordance is unique in phonetic literature. The next step was to annotate the Specimens: the concordance often showed variations of form and stress in words, which called for an explanation; often the same group of words might be read in several ways; often again it seemed well to add the pronunciation of kindred words. How fully the Specimens have been annotated may be gathered from the fact that there are forty pages of notes to twenty-seven of text. The The Sounds also called for renewed consideration, and it became increasingly evident that extensive additions were necessary. In the Introduction it was desirable to treat more adequately the question of standard speech. description of the organs of speech needed little change. On the other hand, the sections dealing with individual sounds required expansion, and a comparison of the old version with the new will show many corrections and V vi additions. Much attention is now given to orthoepy, of which hardly any account was taken before; and 8 number of sentences for practising the sounds have been supplied. Considerable changes have also been made in the section that deals with the sounds in connected speech. There are several new Appendices, dealing with the Pronunciation of Proper Names, the Pronunciation of Foreign Words, Varieties of English Speech, the Sounds of Child Speech, and Imperfect Rhymes; also a brief Bibliography. The Glossary contains over 5000 words. While it can lay no claim to be exhaustive, it includes a large number of words that have been shown to present difficulty; at the same time it affords an index to the Sounds and the Specimens. It is a pleasant duty to express my gratitude to several friends who have assisted me by reading the proofs and have contributed valuable corrections and suggestions; I have received help from Miss Annakin (of the Training College, Leeds), Mr G. E. Fuhrken (of the University College, Gothenburg), Prof. C. H. Grandgent (of Harvard University), Miss V. Hughes (of the Ashford County School), Mr Hardress O'Grady, Miss V. Partington (of Queen's College School), Prof. D. L. Savory (of Belfast University), Dr C. P. G. Scott (of the Simplified Spelling Board of America), and Mr W. H. Thompson, to whom I am particularly indebted for the extreme care with which he has read the proof, verifying every reference with most scrupulous conscientiousness, making many helpful suggestions, and thus adding materially to the value of the book. I trust that in its new form the Sounds and Specimens will help to attract attention to the spoken word and make it easier for teachers to impart clear speech to our boys and girls, and for foreigners to acquire the pronunciation of our beautiful language. LONDON, May 1914 WALTER RIPMAN |