An introduction to the sounds of languages

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Peter Ladefoged

Vowels and Consonants

1. Sounds and languages -The IPA chart sounds
2. Pitch and loudness
3. Vowel contrasts
4. The sounds of vowels
6. The sounds of consonants
7. Acoustic components of speech
8. Talking computers
11. Making English vowels
12. Actions of the larynx
13. Consonants around the world
14. Vowels around the world
15. Putting vowels and consonants together
The sounds of A Course in Phonetics
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 Chapter 2

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Chapter 2
2.Tones.
2.1. The tones of Standard Chinese.

2.2. The tones of Cantonese.

2.2 English intonation. Clickon each sentence to hear it.

2.3. I'm going away said as a normal unemphatic
statement.

2.4. Where are you going? said as a normal

unemphatic question.

2.5. Are you going home? again said as a regular

question.

2.6. Where are you going? said with a rising

pitch.

2.7. Are you going away? said with some alarm.

2.8. When danger threatens your children, call the

police.

2.9. When danger threatens, your children call the

police.

2.10. Jenny gave Peter instructions to follow.

2.11. Jenny gave Peter instructions to follow.

2.12. An utterance in which there are no words,

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 Chapter 2

but in which the speaker sounds contented.

2.13 An utterance in which there are no words,

but in which the speaker sounds upset or angry.

Video of the vocal folds

Photographsof the vocal folds producing a sound at three different pitches

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The tones of Standard Chinese

To hear the sounds pressPlay

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The tones of Cantonese

To hear the sounds pressPlay

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The vibrating vocal folds

(compare figure2.14 and 2.15)

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Photographsof the vocal folds producing a sound at three different pitches

(compare figure2.16)

120 Hz 160 Hz 200Hz

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Chapter 3

3.1-4 The vowels of Spanish,Hawaiian, Swahili and Japanese

3.5 The vowels of American English
3.6 The vowels of BBC English

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To hear the Spanish vowels click here

To hear the Hawaiian vowels click here
To hear the Swahili vowels click here
To hear the Japanese vowels click here

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 Recording 4

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Click to hear General American English vowels

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Click to hear BBC English Vowels

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Chapter 4

The words heed, hid,head, had, hod, hawed whispered.

The words had, head,hid, heed spoken in a creaky voice.

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Chapter 6
Click on a column to hear thewords in that column

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 a bird in the hand

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Chapter 7

The component sounds that buildup the phrase the "A bird in the hand is worth
two in thebush".
Recording 7.1 is the phrase as a whole.
Click on each of the recordingsto hear the separate components.

7.1 A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

7.2 Frequency and amplitudeof first formant
7.3 Frequency and amplitudeof second formant
7.4 Frequency and amplitudeof third formant
7.5 Frequency and amplitudeof all three formants
7.6 Frequency and amplitudeof all three formants and added
resonances
7.7 Frequency and amplitudeof fricative and burst noises
7.8 Three formants, added resonances and fricative noises
7.9 Three formants, added resonances, fricative noises and
pitch changes

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 chapter 9

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Chapter 8
The words leaf and feel,played forwards.
The same words played in reversebackwards.
Concatenativespeech synthesis.
There are three different examples of speech synthesis
below.
Natural sounding synthesis of the first four sentences of this
book by the Fonix Acuvoice system.

1 Once upon a time, the most important animal

sounds were those made by predators and
prey, or by sexual partners.
2 As mammals evolved and signaling systems
became more elaborate, new possibilities
emerged.
3 Nowadays undoubtedly the most important
sounds for us are those of language.
4 Nobody knows how vocal cries about
enemies, food and sex turned into language.

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chapter 9

The first five sentences of this book as readby the Lernout

and Hauspie Real Speak system. (This system isnot
mentioned in the text of the book, as it was not
availablewhen the book went to press. It uses many more
examples of eachstored diphone than the Fonix Acuvoice
system.)
1 Once upon a time, the most important animal
sounds were those made by predators and
prey, or by sexual partners.
2 As mammals evolved and signaling systems
became more elaborate, new possibilities
emerged.
3 Nowadays undoubtedly the most important
sounds for us are those of language.
4 Nobody knows how vocal cries about
enemies, food and sex turned into language.
But we can say something about the way the
sounds of languages evolved, and why some
5
sounds occur more frequently than others in
the world's languages.

This passage was also synthesized by the SPRUCE('Spoken

Response from UnConstrained English') system by
MarkTatham and Katherine Morton of the University of

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chapter 9

Essex and EricLewis of Bristol University. SPRUCE uses

concatenated syllableswhenever it can find them in its data
base, and pays special attentionto the rhythm and intonation.
play SPRUCE synthesis of the sentences

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 chapter12

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Chapter 11
Tongue video
Jaw video
Larynx video

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Tongue video
Click on the left sideof the slider bar below the picture to see movement

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Jaw video
Click on the left sideof the slider bar below the picture to see movement

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Larynx video
Click on the left sideof the slider bar below the picture to see movement

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 chapter 13

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Chapter 12
Some voiced-voiceless pairs in Burmese
A comparison of English [b,p] and Spanish [b,p]
Thai stops
Hawaiian consonants
Breathy voice
Hindi stops
Breathy voiced vowels in Gujarati
Creaky voice
Jalapa Mazatec vowels
Voice qualities and tones in Mpi
Quechua stops
Sindhi stops
Owerri Igbo

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Voiced and voiceless nasals in Burmese

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A comparison of English and Spanish /b/ and /p/

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Thai stops

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Click on 'Hawaiianconsonants' to hear the sounds

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The vocal folds atone moment in the cycle when producing

breathy voice

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 hindi

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Hindi Stops

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Gujarati breathy sounds

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The vocal folds at one moment in the cycle when producing

creaky voice

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Voice qualities and tones in Mazatec

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Voice qualities and tones in Mpi

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Some contrasting stops in Quechua

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The stops of Sindhi

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Some contrasting stops in Owerri Igbo

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 Chapter 14

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Chapter 13
Ewe fricatives
Nunngubuyu dental and alveolar stops
Hungarian palatals
Malayalam nasals
Aleut stops
Kele and Titan bilabial and alveolar trills
Southern Swedish uvular trills
Polish sibilants
Toda sibilants
Melpa laterals
Zulu laterals
Nama clicks
X-ray of a Click

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Some contrasting fricatives in Ewe

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Dental and alveolarstops in Nunggubuyu

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Palatals in Hungarian

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Contrasting nasals in Malayalam

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Dental, velar and uvular stops in Aleut

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Bilabial and alveolar trills in Kele and Titan.

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Southern Swedish

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Polish sibilant fricatives

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Toda Sibilants

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Melpa laterals

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Zulu laterals

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 Nama

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Clicks in Nama
(All these words have a high tone)

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X-ray of a Click

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Chapter 14
French vowels
Swedish vowels
German vowels
Scottish Gaelic long vowels
French oral and nasal vowels
!X vowels
Video of nasalized vowels

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 French

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French oral vowels

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Swedish Vowels

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German vowels

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Scottish Gaelic Long Vowels

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French oral and nasal vowels

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!X vowels

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video of French nasalizedvowels

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Chapter 15

She sells seashells on the seashore and the seashells that she
sells are seashells I'm sure.

Perception experiment 1
Perception experiment 2
Perception experiment 3

Oro Win

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Perception experiment1

Click on the sentence belowto hear it:

They thought it was Jane who could be brave and in the
team.
When you hear this sentenceagain there will be an "s" from
another sentencesuperimposed on it. Your task is to say on
which word or betweenwhich words this superimposed
speech sound occurs.
Click on the sentence belowto hear it with the superimposed
"s".
Listen to this sentence onlyonce before saying where the "s"
occurs.
They thought it was Jane who could be brave and in the
team.

Answer

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Perception experiment2
Click on each of the two sounds below to hear them.
Sound(1)
Sound(2)

Now listen to two complex sounds,each containing both of

these sounds. Your task is to say whether Sound (1) comes at
the beginning or the end of Test 1 & Test2.
You may listen to each Test twice.
Test 1
Test 2
In this part of the test you will hear pairs of sounds. Your
task is to decide whether the members of the pair are the
same or different. If you don't know just guess. You may be
doing better than you expect.
Pair 1 Pair 2
Pair 3 Pair 4

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Pair 5
Answers

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Perception experiment 3
In this experiment the pairs of sounds you heard in previous
experiment come in the middleof the sound of a telephone dialing.

Listen to these telephone noises by themselves.

In the five sets of soundsbelow these telephone noises are always
present. You must disregard them, and consider only the sounds that
are the same as those you heard in the previous experiments.
Superimposed on each setof telephone noises there is a pair of sounds
of the type thatyou heard previously. Your task is to say whether the
membersof the pairs are the same or different. If you don't know
whether the members of the pair are the same or different, just guess.
[Hint:Most people guess.]

Pair 1
Remember. Just listen for the pairs of sounds that were in the previous
experiment

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Pair 2
Pair 3
Pair 4
Pair 5
Answers

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Click on 'Man' or 'Woman'to hear these speakers

Half speedrecording man
Half speedrecording woman

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