science

The Phonetic Journal

The Phonetic Journal is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Phonetic Journal rather than just read about it. In short: The Phonetic Journal was the official journal of The Phonetic Society based at the Kingston Buildings in Bath, Somerset, England and is the first ever journal about phonetics. It was published subtitled as Published Weekly, Devoted to the Propagation of Phonetic Shorthand, and Phonetic Reading, Writing and Printing.

Key takeaways

The Phonetic Journal belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Phonetic Journal to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Phonetic Journal from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Phonetic Journal was the official journal of The Phonetic Society based at the Kingston Buildings in Bath, Somerset, England and is the first ever journal about phonetics. It was published subtitled as Published Weekly, Devoted to the Propagation of Phonetic Shorthand, and Phonetic Reading, Writing and Printing. It was printed starting 1841 by Isaac Pitman, and published by F. Pitman at the Phonetic Depot, at 20, Paternoster Row, in London. The journal was initially in 12 small pages plus a 4-page advertising and information wrapper per issue. It published materials in traditional spelling as well as in phonetic spelling, and phonetic shorthand. It also included news of the Phonetic Society and its members.

The Phonetic Alphabet

The journal promoted The Phonetic Alphabet. It explained the alphabet promoted as "consisting of 36 letters, namely the 23 useful letters of the common alphabet (c, q and x being rejected) and 13 new letters included. The vowels a, e, i, o, u were used for their short sound as in pat, pet, pit, pot and put and all the other letters having their usual signification". A proposed order of the alphabet was as follows: Consonants: p, b; t, d; ç, j; k, g; f, v; [th], [dh], s, z; ʃ, ʒ; m, n, ŋ; l, r; w, y; h. Vowels: a, ɐ; e, ɛ; i, [ee]; o, [o]; γ, σ; u, ɥ. Diphthongs: ei (as in by), iu (as in new), ou (as in now), ai (as in ay), oi (as in ay). The alphabet also included 9 "foreign sounds", 7 from French and 2 from German.

Further contributions for a proposed alphabet Pitman published Phonotypy in 1844, his major work on spelling reform just three years after the founding of the journal. Pitman and Alexander John Ellis, an English mathematician and philologist jointly proposed in 1845 an English Phonotypic Alphabet made up of 40 letters based mainly on the Phonetic Alphabet of The Phonetic Journal in The Phonotypic Journal, a sister publication. Furthermore, in a book edited in 1848, under the title A Plea for Spelling Reform, Ellis and Pitman compiled a series of articles from The Phonetic Journal. and from other periodicals, recommending an enlarged alphabet and "A Reformed Spelling of the English Language" as a "means of placing the arts of Reading and Writing within the reach of all who speak the English language or wish acquire it", as Pitman said in the intro.

See also English-language spelling reform English Phonotypic Alphabet

Notes Sample volume of The Phonetic Journal. (Vol. 41 for the year 1882)

References

Illustrations

The Phonetic Journal: Cover of Volume 35 of The Phonetic Journal (1876) — Cover of Volume 35 of The Phonetic Journal (1876)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Phonetic Journal

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Phonetic Journal claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Phonetic Journal before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Phonetic Journal ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Phonetic Journal

In research: The Phonetic Journal appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Phonetic Journal in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Phonetic Journal is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic journals established in 1841, English-language journals, Linguistics journal stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Phonetic Journal outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Phonetic Journal in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Phonetic Journal means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Phonetic Journal out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Phonetic Journal in simple terms?

Why does The Phonetic Journal matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Phonetic Journal?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Phonetic Journal.