20 Facts About Peter Ladefoged

Peter Ladefoged was Professor of Phonetics at University of California, Los Angeles, where he taught from 1962 to 1991.

Peter Ladefoged's book A Course in Phonetics is a common introductory text in phonetics, and The Sounds of the World's Languages is widely regarded as a standard phonetics reference.

Peter Ladefoged was born on 17 September 1925, in Sutton, England.

Peter Ladefoged attended Haileybury College from 1938 to 1943, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, Cambridge University from 1943 to 1944.

Peter Ladefoged received an MA and a PhD in Phonetics from the University of Edinburgh in 1959.

Peter Ladefoged was involved with the phonetics laboratory at UCLA, which he established in 1962.

Peter Ladefoged was interested in listening to and describing every sound used in spoken human language, which he estimated at 900 consonants and 200 vowels.

In 1966 Peter Ladefoged moved from the UCLA English Department to join the newly established Linguistics Department.

Peter Ladefoged wrote the transcriptions that can be seen in Professor Higgins's notebook, and his voice was used in the scenes where Higgins describes vowel pronunciation.

Peter Ladefoged was a member of the International Phonetic Association for a long time, and was President of the Association from 1986 to 1991.

Peter Ladefoged was deeply involved in maintaining its International Phonetic Alphabet, and was the principal mover of the 1989 International Phonetic Association Kiel Convention.

Peter Ladefoged was editor of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

Peter Ladefoged served on the board of directors of the Endangered Language Fund since its inception.

In 1992, Peter Ladefoged appeared on the Bill Bixby-hosted TV special The Elvis Conspiracy to give his professional opinion that 1980s recordings purported to be the voice of Elvis Presley were not authentic.

Peter Ladefoged was a founding member of the Association for Laboratory Phonology.

Peter Ladefoged married Jenny MacDonald in 1953, a marriage which lasted over 50 years.

Peter Ladefoged had five grandchildren Zelda Ladefoged, Ethan Friedman, Amy Friedman, Joseph Weiss, and Catherine Weiss.

Peter Ladefoged was initially charged with failure to disperse, but the charge was later changed to assault on a police officer.

Peter Ladefoged died on 24 January 2006 at the age of 80 in hospital in London, England after a research trip to India.

Peter Ladefoged was on his way home to Los Angeles, California from his research trip.