Scholarly account which frequently challenges many of the traditional concepts in phonetic and linguistic theory.
W. J. Hardcastle, Queen Margaret College The Sounds of the World's Languages provides a detailed description of the articulatory processes of human speech production; it provides a descriptive backup to the UCLA speech database; perhaps most importantly it presents descriptions of the vast variety of sounds that occur in the world, and offers evidence, discussion and references which are relevant to many crucial theoretical issues at the interface of phonetics and phonology. It is a boon to all teachers and researchers in the field. W. Barry, Universitat des Saarlandes, Saarbrucken, Germany
The Sounds of the World's Languages draws on a wealth of published and unpublished sources to determine the phonetic contrasts that support lexical minimal pairs. It is the most comprehensive treatment to date. The book is extensively documented with a variety of experimental phonetic techniques. Phonologists will find the book of special interest. There are numerous marked generalizations to be contemplated and very useful discussion of the tension between increasing the inventory of sound types versus more elaborate scenarios of gestural timing. It is a book all students of phonology and phonetics will want to own. Michael Kenstowicz, MIT
It is well written, superbly researched and it will make a mark in the halls of linguistics publishing. It is a book a vast range of linguists, phoneticians, speech scientists and others will need to have on their shelves. John A Goldsmith, University of Chicago
An instant standard reference work that belongs on the desk of every linguist who has interest in what sounds human languages make use of. I am unable to present a single significant criticism of this book. Geoffrey S. Nathan
Ladefoged & maddison have put together a well written, well organized volume that is certain to become a standard reference in the field Katharine Davis, University of Washington
...an instant standard reference work that belongs on the desk of every linguist who has an interest in what sounds human languages make use of......I am unable to present a single significant criticism of this bookGeoffrey Nathan, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
