Editing Visible Speech

{{Short description|Featural phonetic representation script}}
{{Infobox Writing system
|   name = Visible Speech
|   type = [[Alphabet]]
|   time = 1867 to the present
|languages = 
|creator = [[Alexander Melville Bell]]
|sisters = 85
| children =
| sample =
|imagesize = 200px
|unicode = U+E780 to U+E7FF in the [[ConScript Unicode Registry]]
| iso15924=Visp
|direction = Left-to-right
}}

[[File:VisibleSpeech-illustrations.jpg|thumb|Illustrations of Visible Speech]]
[[File:VisibleSpeech-Englishchart.png|thumb|chart of English sounds]]
[[File:VisibleSpeech-nature&use.jpg|thumb|On the Nature and Use of Visible Speech]]

{{distinguish|text=[[John DeFrancis|Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems]]}}

'''Visible Speech''' is a system of phonetic symbols developed by British linguist [[Alexander Melville Bell]] in 1867 to represent the position of the speech organs in articulating sounds. Bell was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper [[elocution]] and an author of books on the subject.  The system is composed of symbols that show the position and movement of the throat, tongue, and lips as they produce the sounds of language, and it is a type of [[phonetic transcription|phonetic notation]].  The system was used to aid the deaf in learning to speak.

In 1864, Melville promoted his first works on Visible Speech, in order to help the deaf both learn and improve upon their speech (since the profoundly deaf could not hear their own pronunciation).<ref>Winzer 1993, pg.192</ref> To help promote the system, Bell created two written short forms using his system of 29 modifiers and tones, 52 [[consonant]]s, 36 [[vowel]]s and a dozen [[diphthong]]s:<ref>Winzer 1993, pg.193</ref> they were named [[International English|World English]], which was similar to the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]], and also Line Writing, used as a shorthand form for [[stenographer]]s.<ref name="Winzer 1993, pg.194">Winzer 1993, pg.194</ref>

Melville's works on Visible Speech became highly notable, and were described by [[Édouard Séguin]] as being "...a greater invention than [[invention of the telephone|the telephone]] by his son, [[Alexander Graham Bell]]".<ref name="Winzer 1993, pg.194"/> Melville saw numerous applications for his invention, including its worldwide use as a [[universal language]].  However, although heavily promoted at the [[Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf]] in Milan, Italy in 1880, after a period of a dozen years or so in which it was applied to the education of the deaf, Visible Speech was found to be more cumbersome, and thus a hindrance, to the teaching of speech to the deaf, compared to other methods,<ref>Winzer 1993, pg.195–203</ref> and eventually faded from use.

Bell's son [[Alexander Graham Bell]] learned the symbols, assisted his father in giving public demonstrations of the system and mastered it to the point that he later improved upon his father's work.  Eventually, Alexander Graham Bell became a powerful advocate of Visible Speech and [[oralism]] in the United States.  The money he earned from his patent of the [[telephone]] and the sale of his [[Volta Laboratory and Bureau|Volta Laboratory]] [[Volta_Laboratory_and_Bureau#Laboratory_patents|patents]] helped him to pursue this mission.

== The early years ==

In 1867, Alexander Melville Bell published the book ''Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics''. This book contains information about the system of symbols he created that, when used to write words, indicated pronunciation so accurately, that it could even reflect regional accents.<ref name="PKK">Potter, Kopp, and Kopp, 1966. ''Visible Speech''.</ref> A person reading a piece of text handwritten in Melville Bell's system of characters could accurately reproduce a sentence the way it would be spoken by someone with a foreign or regional accent. In his demonstrations, Melville Bell employed his son, Alexander Graham Bell to read from the visible speech transcript of the volunteer's spoken words and would astound the audience by saying it back exactly as the volunteer had spoken it.

A few samples of the writing system invented by Melville Bell may be seen in the images on this page. These images depict Melville Bell's intention of creating a script in which the characters actually look like the position of the mouth when speaking them out loud. The system is useful not only because its visual representation mimicks the physical act of speaking, but because it does so, these symbols may be used to write words in any language, hence the name "Universal Alphabetics".<ref name="M">Melville Bell, 1867. ''Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics''.</ref>

Melville Bell's system was effective at helping deaf people improve their pronunciation, but his son Graham Bell decided to improve upon his father's invention by creating a system of writing that was even more accurate and employed the most advanced technology of the time.

== A fresh take on pronunciation for the deaf ==

Alexander Graham Bell later devised another system of visual cues that also came to be known as visible speech, yet this system did not use symbols written on paper to teach deaf people how to pronounce words. Instead, Graham Bell's system, developed at his [[Volta Laboratory and Bureau|Volta Laboratory]] in Washington, D.C., involved the use of a [[spectrogram]], a device that makes "visible records of the frequency, intensity, and time analysis of short samples of speech".<ref name="PKK"/> The spectrogram translated sounds into readable patterns via a photographic process. This system was based on the idea that the eye should be able to read patterns of vocalizations in much the same way that the ear translates these vocalizations into meaning. [[Spectrogram|Modern implementations]] of Bell's idea display sound spectra in real time and are used in [[phonology]],<ref>Myers and Crowhurst, Phonology case studies, University of Texas at Austin 2006 [http://www.laits.utexas.edu/phonology/index.html]</ref> [[speech therapy]] and [[computer speech recognition]].

== Method ==

The idea of the use of a [[Optical spectrometer|spectrograph]] to translate speech into a visual representation (a [[spectrogram]]) was created in the hopes of enabling the deaf to use a telephone.<ref name="K">Kopp, 1967. ''Visible Speech Manual''.</ref> If the sounds could be translated into something readable, then a deaf person at the receiving end could then read out the pattern of speech to determine its meaning without having to hear what was said. The spectrograph readings could also be used to teach pronunciation by having a person speak into the spectrograph and watch a small television-like screen to monitor the precision of their utterances.<ref name="K" />

== See also ==

* [[International English]]
* [[Second International Congress on Education of the Deaf]]
* [[Universal language]]
* [[Volta Laboratory and Bureau]]
* [[Hangul]]

==Notes==
{{Reflist}}

== References ==
* Kopp. ''Visible Speech Manual'', Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1967. ISBN HV 2490 K83+
* Potter, Kopp, Kopp. ''Visible Speech'', Dover Publications, 1966. ISBN TK 6500 P86 1966.
* Bell, Alexander Melville. ''Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics'', Simkin, Marshall & Co., London, 1867.
* Winzer, Margret A. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sXFaytRNneUC ''The History Of Special Education: From Isolation To Integration''.] Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, 1993. {{ISBN|978-1-56368-018-2}}.

== External links ==

* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/visiblespeech.htm Visible Speech with IPA equivalents] <small>(Omniglot.com)</small>
* [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=magbell&fileName=377/37700401/bellpage.db&RecNum=0 Visible Speech as a Means of Communicating Articulation to Deaf Mutes] <small>(American Memory: Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers)</small>
* [http://web.meson.org/write/vispeech.php Description and Overview of Visible Speech, with fonts]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=EGwKAAAAIAAJ&dq=Visible+Speech&pg=PA11  Visible Speech, by Alex M. Bell through Google books]
* [https://books.google.com/books?id=LxcoAAAAMAAJ  Primer of Phonetics, by Henry Sweet through Google books. A manual on Sweet's revision of Visible Speech, Organic Speech]
{{list of writing systems}}

[[Category:Phonetic alphabets]]
[[Category:Alexander Graham Bell]]
[[Category:Deafness]]
[[Category:Special education]]
[[Category:1867 introductions]]