Records Relating to Phonetics
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: Accession #1976-95
name: label: Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
label: Names
content: Bloomfield, Leonard, 1887-1949
label: Names
content: Hewitt, J. N. B. (John Napoleon Brinton), 1859-1937
label: Names
content: Kroeber, A. L. (Alfred Louis), 1876-1960
label: Names
content: Lowie, Robert Harry, 1883-1957
label: Names
content: Michelson, Truman, 1879-1938
label: Names
content: Sapir, Edward, 1884-1939
label: Names
content: Swadesh, Morris, 1909-1967
label: Names
content: Swanton, John Reed, 1873-1958
label: Names
content: Underhill, Ruth, 1883-1984
label: Names
content: Voegelin, C. F. (Charles Frederick), 1906-1986
label: Names
content: Waterman, T. T. (Thomas Talbot), b. 1885
label: Collection Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
topic: label: Topic
content: Language and languages -- Documentation
label: Topic
content: Linguistics
label: Topic
content: Phonetics
creator: label: Creator
content: Harrington, John Peabody, 1884-1961
setName: label: See more items in
content: John Peabody Harrington papers
label: See more items in
content: John Peabody Harrington papers / Series 8: Notes and Writings on Special Linguistic Studies
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: One aspect of the study of linguistics of special interest to John P. Harrington was the development of a practical phonetic alphabet for writing all languages. It was an effort to which he devoted a great amount of time from 1910 to 1915, from 1922 to 1928, and again intermittently in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s.

In 1912 Harrington drafted comments on a proposal for an international conference to devise a universal phonetic system, and on a sample questionnaire which was mailed to many linguists by the International Phonetic Association (I.P.A.). It is unclear whether or not he actually submitted them to the I.P.A.

Also in that year he was chosen to serve on a committee ofthe American Anthropological Association to "prepare a scheme of phonetic representation which [would] have the official sanction" of the organization. Fellow committee members were Franz Boas (chair), Edward Sapir, Alfred L. Kroeber, and Earl Pliny Goddard.

Although later notes indicate that he consulted a number of language specialists, it appears that most of Harrington's efforts at devising a workable alphabet were undertaken alone or with only the cooperation of his friend Paul Vogenitz.

In the mid-1930s he was invited to teach a seminar on "General Phonetics" at the University of Southern California. While correspondence with Dr. Frank C. Touton, vice president of the university, suggests that Harrington contemplated offering the course at various times between the spring of 1935 and the summer of 1936, this plan was abandoned because of more pressing interests. He did touch on phonetics during his course on language at the University of Washington during the summer of 1910

At various points in his career Harrington wrote preliminary descriptions of the phonetic system he favored at that time. None of the early drafts appeared in print and as late as the 1940s, while writing the treatise "Linguistics," Harrington was undecided whether to publish his system or "die keeping it hidden."
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Item (box)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1910-1957
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NAA.1976-95, Subseries 8.17
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Notes
label: Type
content: Manuscripts
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Microfilm and digital surrogates of microfilm are available. See Volume 8, reel 23, which also contains materials from other subseries. Only original documents created by Harrington, his collaborators and field assistants, or notes given to him were microfilmed.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Notes
label: Genre/Form
content: Manuscripts
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This subseries of the Notes and writings on special linguistic studies series contains materials resulting from Harrington's efforts to develop a phonetic alphabet for writing all languages.

There are four main groupings of notes relating to phonetics. A large set of uncategorized notes has been arranged in chronological order from 1910 through the 1950s. Most of the material dates from the period 1910 to 1915 and from 1921 to 1928; there are smaller amounts of data for the following three decades. The notes present alternate phonetic systems--sometimes referred to as "sonoscript"--in chart form with accompanying explanations of the rationale behind each proposed alphabet. There are also sample words and sentences written out phonetically. The notes from 1910 include a draft of a letter from Harrington to his mother and those from 1912 contain three large poster-sized charts. A second set of notes is arranged alphabetically by topic and includes subsections on alphabetic order, length, letters practical in handwriting, and pitch accent. A relatively large file labeled "phon[etic] letter forms" consists of various handwritten and typed letters as well as cut-and-pasted examples of letters from printed sources. There is also a clipping dated 1922 regarding an advocate of Esperanto with Harrington's own proposals for word forms in that language. In addition, the files contain a copy of an I.P.A. questionnaire and Harrington's comments on it. A third section of material consists of the notes which Harrington made during or immediately following interviews with about twenty linguists and anthropologists, among them Leonard Bloomfield, Alfred L. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Edward Sapir, Morris Swadesh (misspelled "Schwadesh"), Ruth Underhill, Carl F. Voegelin, T. T. Waterman, and B.A.E. colleagues Hewitt, Michelson, and Swanton. Not all of the notes are dated; those which are clearly labeled cover discussions from the 1920s to the 1940s. The last grouping, compiled around 1923 to 1926, contains brief notes on various alphabets. The alphabetically arranged files cover the proposed systems of Arden, Forchhammer, Jespersen, Murray, Olbrechts, Pierce, Powell, and Rouse.

This subseries also contains drafts for four papers by Harrington on phonetics as well as a brief one-page draft description of a "Seminar in General Phonetics" which Harrington was planning to offer at the University of Southern California in 1935 or 1936.