The variety described here is Standard Hindi used in everyday casual speech by educated speakers in cities such as Varanasi, Lucknow, Delhi, etc. Although there are a few differences in pronunciation among speakers of these cities, the differences are minimal. The transcription is based on a recording of a female third generation speaker of Standard Hindi who grew up mostly in Uttar Pradesh before moving to Delhi. For a detailed analysis of Hindi segments see Dixit (1963) and Ohala (1983).

The style of speech illustrated is that of Educated Colloquial Hungarian of the 1990's as spoken in Budapest. Historically, Standard Hungarian is based on the Eastern dialect, which became a supra-dialectal high prestige variety during the 18th century. The speech on the recording is that of a male speaker in his fifties with an academic background, using a somewhat advanced style of speech as spoken in a formal communicative situation.

From 18 to 21 August 1989 approximately 120 members of the Association (and a few guests) met in Kiel, West Germany, to work on revisions of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). There had been a great deal of preparation for this convention, involving the soliciting of opinion by mail on a wide range of topics, and considerable research on the present status of the IPA. A previous issue of this journal, JIPA 18(2), collected a number of these preparatory opinions. At the convention itself there were five major working groups which met almost continuously for the first two days. Three groups considered consonants, vowels and suprasegmentals; the other two considered computational aspects of the IPA, and the needs of speech pathologists and others for extensions of the IPA. In addition there were groups concerned with the principles on which the IPA should be based, the form of presentation of the IPA, past successes and failures, and methods of illustration of the IPA. The groups reported back to the whole at intervals, and on the last day the convention met in a series of plenary sessions to consider and vote on the final working reports. The following is a compilation of six of the group reports reflecting the results of the discussions and votes of the plenary sessions. The Association is very grateful to the co-ordinators and co-chairs of the groups. Most of the wording below is taken directly from their reports; in accordance with the traditions of the Association, this report is presented without attribution to particular authors.

Taba (also known as ‘East Makian’ or ‘Makian Dalam’) is an Austronesian language spoken in northern Maluku province, Indonesia. It is spoken on Makian, Moti and Kayoa islands and also in a few villages on other nearby islands. The speech recorded here is from the village of Ngofakiaha on Makian island. Slight dialectal variations are to be found in most villages where the language is spoken.

Tukang Besi is an archipelago in southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, where an Austronesian language is spoken. The speech represented here is that of the north-west coast of the island of Wanci. With mainly slight lexical variation it represents the speech of the two northernmost islands in the archipelago, Wanci and Kaledupa.

Yine [ˈjine] (previously known as Piro, ISO 639-3 = pib) is a Maipuran language (Payne 1991, Campbell 1997, Solís Fonseca 2003). See Payne (1991) and Campbell (1997) for discussion of the relationship of the Maipuran (or Maipurean) languages to the controversial Arawakan stock. There are approximately 3,000 speakers of Yine in the Peruvian Amazon. People in Brazil and Bolivia known as Manchineri (alternative spellings exist; ISO 639-3 = mpd) also speak a dialect of Yine (Urquía Sebastián 2006a).

Indonesian is an Austronesian language, closely related to Malay. Malay served as a lingua franca throughout the Malay Archipelago for centuries, and a variant of Malay was adopted as the official language of Indonesia when independence was declared in 1945. The variety described here is sometimes referred to as Standard Indonesian. Its autoglossonym is ‘Bahasa Indonesia’.

Kabiye is a Gur (Voltaic) language that belongs to the Eastern Grusi (also Gurunsi) sub-branch of Central Gur, which in turn sub-branches from Gur that is part of the greater Niger-Congo language family (Naden 1989: 147). The number of native Kabiye speakers is estimated at 730,000, with approximately 700,000 speakers living in Togo, 30,000 in Benin, and a very small number in Ghana (Grimes 2000: 242). The original homeland of the Kabiye people is in Northeastern Togo, with the region of Kozah serving as the community's cultural center. From the early 20th century, however, the community began to spread southward and now encompasses locations in the central and southern parts of Togo, as well as in the neighboring countries (Ali-Napo 1997: 20).

Salasaca Quichua (ISO 639-3=qxl) is a Quechuan language, specifically of the branch referred to as Quechua A (Parker 1963), as Quechua IIB (Torero 1974), or the northern group (Landerman 1991); but see Landerman (1991) and Adelaar (2004) regarding doubts with respect to the classification of the different varieties. The variety described in this paper is spoken by approximately 12,000 people in Ecuador. The Salasaca ‘parroquia’ (Spanish usage in Ecuador of this word is for a non-religious administrative district), in Pelileo canton, in Tungurahua province, is divided into eighteen communities and Quichua is spoken in all of them. This variety is similar to that of others of the region and is included in the Stark & Muysken (1977) dictionary. Varieties of Quechua in this area do not have the more open allophones attested farther south (such as in Peru), and for that reason the Ecuadorian varieties are traditionally called ‘Quichua’ rather than ‘Quechua’.

Tilquiapan Zapotec is an Otomanguean language spoken in the town of San Miguel Tilquiapan, in the Oaxaca Valley, in the central part of that state, in southern Mexico (see Merrill 2005). There are about 2700 speakers according to the government census (INEGI 2000), though town authorities (p.c. 2004) suggest that about 7000 is a more accurate assessment of the population. The Zapotec language spoken in Tilquiapan is distinct from that of any other town, although nearby Santa Inez Yatzeche has 80–90% intelligibility with Tilquiapan, according to recorded text testing (Weathers 1973, Persons et al. 1985). With respect to sociolinguistics and language attitudes, speakers in Santa Inez and Tilquiapan recognize the close relationship, though people from each town tend to say that those from the other ‘talk funny’.