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phonetics: Quick Facts

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Photos

Diagram of a human head in profile showing the location of vocal organs and possible places of articulation for speech sounds, with labels for lips, teeth, tongue, palate, uvula, pharynx, and vocal cords, and numbered regions corresponding to types of articulation such as bilabial, alveolar, and velar.
A diagram showing side views of the mouth and tongue positions for eight English vowel sounds: heed, hid, head, had, hod, hawed, hood, and who'd, with each vowel illustrated in a separate labeled box.
frequencies of formants
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Key People

Otto Jespersen
Otto Jespersen
Danish linguist
Pitman, detail of an oil painting by A.S. Cope; in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Sir Isaac Pitman
English educator and inventor