UCLA's Phonetics Lab Archive

December 9, 2008 9:25 AM

"For over half a century, the UCLA Phonetics Laboratory has collected recordings of hundreds of languages from around the world, providing source materials for phonetic and phonological research, of value to scholars, speakers of the languages, and language learners alike. The materials on this site comprise audio recordings illustrating phonetic structures from over 200 languages with phonetic transcriptions, plus scans of original field notes where relevant." (Description from website.) Many more recordings -- indexed by language, sound, and geographic location -- are available here.
posted by cog_nate (12 comments total)

This is great. Thanks for posting this.
posted by homunculus at 9:55 AM on December 9, 2008

I love this sort of thing - thanks nate!
posted by pravit at 10:28 AM on December 9, 2008

This is a great resource, and lots of fun, too! I can't imagine what it would have been like to teach phonology/phonetics before this. Luckily I'll never have to find out.

Trivia: UCLA's phonetics program, and a large part of the field of phonetics itself, owes a huge debt to Peter Ladefoged (wikipedia article) who was the linguistic consultant on the film "My Fair Lady." His voice and much of his equipment appear in the "lab" scenes. My phonology professor told a story of how Rex Harris used to piss off Ladefoged by using his plaster cast of the lower jaw as an ashtray...
posted by tractorfeed at 10:46 AM on December 9, 2008

A member of the phonetics lab asked me to forward this information.

Here is a story from KPCC LA Public radio about the lab.

The actual research archive is here.

Anything here is teaching materials, some of them old and in the way.

They do phenomenal work in this lab. Although the patriarch, the great phoneticist Peter Ladefoged died in 2006, the lab continues to do state of the art work on the sound structure of language: the true "stuff of language".
posted by cogneuro at 11:48 AM on December 9, 2008

This is great stuff. I always liked to use this video when TAing phonetics .

The saddest party trick is demonstrating the ~14 English monophthongs and diphthongs for people who think there are only 5 vowels... I have yet to get the truly impressed reaction I think it deserves. :P
posted by furious_george at 12:03 PM on December 9, 2008

furious_george: The saddest party trick is demonstrating the ~14 English monophthongs and diphthongs for people who think there are only 5 vowels... I have yet to get the truly impressed reaction I think it deserves.

Tell me about it. I have similar conversations here in France about the large and shifting variety of nasalized vowels ; many of my Frenchy friends aren't aware of how complicated it is for foreigners.
posted by LMGM at 12:40 PM on December 9, 2008

Peter Ladefoged... was the linguistic consultant on the film "My Fair Lady."

The man who taught Rex Harrison how to teach Audrey Hepburn to say "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain"!
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:27 PM on December 9, 2008

Holy crap, this is great—thanks!
posted by languagehat at 1:33 PM on December 9, 2008

Now this...this is a brilliant use of the blue. Thanks!
posted by dejah420 at 2:24 PM on December 9, 2008

Ladefoged's "A Course in Phonetics" was my *bible* for several years. Right on tractorfeed for the credit. He reminded structuralists that people make language with their bodies.

Great site, thanks for the link!
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:04 PM on December 9, 2008

Awesome! Thanks for posting this!
posted by rebel_rebel at 5:06 PM on December 9, 2008

þancian, cognate.
posted by ageispolis at 7:21 PM on December 9, 2008