This study focuses on the temporal analysis of stops /p b t d k ɡ/ and devoicing analysis of voiced stops /b d ɡ/ produced in different word positions by six native speakers of European Portuguese. The study explores acoustic properties related to voicing. The following acoustic properties were measured: voice onset time (VOT), stop duration, closure duration, release duration, voicing into closure duration, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of the following vowel. Results suggested that when [b d ɡ] were devoiced, the acoustic properties stop duration, closure duration, duration of the following vowel, duration of the preceding vowel and duration of voicing into closure were relevant for the voicing distinction. Implications for research and practice in speech and language therapy are discussed. Further investigation is needed to find how the productions analysed in the present study were perceived by listeners, specifically productions of devoiced stops.

This year, 2010, we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Journal of the International Phonetic Association and the 125th anniversary of the publishing of a journal by the Association. From 1886 through 1888, the journal had the title The Phonetic Teacher, rendered variably as Dhi Fonètik Tîtcer (1886–1887), dhə fənetik tîtcər (1887–1888), ðə fonetik tîtcər (1888). From 1889 to 1970, the name of the journal was Le Maître Phonétique (lə mɛːtr fɔnetik, revised in 1895 to lə mɛːtrə fɔnetik) in which articles and letters were usually published in phonetic transcription; hence, the journal is traditionally referred to as the ‘mf’.

What is reproduced here must be as rare an item as any from the early years of the IPA – an unused membership application form for the decade 1910–1919. The section to be completed by the applicant is perforated, ready to be torn along the wavy line. The form is probably a token of the systematic and meticulous approach of the young Daniel Jones (1881–1967), who became Assistant Secretary to the Association in 1910. The clerical task of keeping track of the membership must have been considerable; in 1914, numbers peaked at 1,751, drawn from 40 countries (MacMahon 1986: 31).

The following two texts were published by the predecessor of our journal over half a century ago and illustrate the characteristic nature of its publications at that time.

The reprinted text entitled ‘On the classification of stop consonants’ was written by J. C. Catford, in original phonetic transcription, for the 1939 January–March issue (vol. 65) of Le Maître Phonétique and is an example of the article de fond type of contribution. J. C. (Ian) Catford (1917–2009) studied phonetics with Daniel Jones, Pierre Fouché and Marguerite Durand. He founded the School of Applied Linguistics in Edinburgh in the early 1950s. In 1964, he was invited to the University of Michigan, where he headed the English Language Institute and the Laboratory of Communication Studies until his retirement in 1985.

The reprinted text entitled ‘Dutch’ was written by Eli Fischer-Jørgensen and J. G. Talma-Schilthuis, in original phonetic transcription, for the 1948 January–June issue (vol. 89) of Le Maître Phonétique and is an example of the spécimen type of contribution. Eli Fischer-Jørgensen (1911–2010) was a member of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen from 1933 and became Denmark's first Professor of Phonetics at the University of Copenhagen. Johanna Geertruida Talma-Schilthuis (1901–1984) studied with Daniel Jones in 1921.

‘In choosing between the various proposals that have been made for revising our alphabet, we've been guided by the following principles, which I think are admitted by most of our readers as essential to a practical system of phonetic spelling.’ (Passy 1888: 57)

The pages reproduced here constitute the full text of the 1949 version of the Principles of the International Phonetic Association, edited by Daniel Jones: ‘a description of the International Phonetic Alphabet and the manner of using it, illustrated by texts in 51 languages’.

Isthmus Zapotec (autoglossonym: [dìʤàˈzàˑ]) is the common name used for a variety of Zapotec (Otomanguean family) spoken on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico (Suárez 1983: xvi; Campbell 1997: 158). It is now officially listed by the Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI 2008) as ‘zapoteco de la planicie costera’ (‘coastal plain Zapotec’) to distinguish it from other varieties of Zapotec spoken on the Isthmus. It is the mother tongue of many inhabitants of various cities and towns, as well as many smaller communities (INALI 2008), with some lexical, syntactic and phonetic variation between towns only a few kilometers apart. The ISO 639-3 code for this variety is zai. Since the most recent census figures do not separate out the varieties of Zapotec, and have not done so reliably when attempted, official statistics as to the number of speakers of Isthmus Zapotec are not available. (The Ethnologue (Lewis 2009) cites the 1990 census as listing 85,000 speakers; that figure must have been an interpretation of other statistics in the census.) INALI (personal communication, September 2008) estimates the current number to be about 104,000. In the city of Tehuantepec, the language is no longer widely used. In certain other locations, including Juchitán de Zaragoza, Spanish is becoming the dominant or the only language spoken by many people born after about 1990, although Zapotec is dominant in many outlying towns, including San Blas Atempa. Mature speakers have remarked that young people who are not fluent do not use tones correctly. Isthmus Zapotec has had active writers, including poets and novelists, since the first half of the twentieth century, well before an orthography was officially established (Alfabeto popular 1956), but reading and writing of the language are still not taught in schools in the region.

Slovak (sometimes also called Slovakian) is an Indo-European language belonging to the West-Slavic branch, and is most closely related to Czech. Slovak is spoken as a native language by 4.6 million speakers in Slovakia (that is by roughly 85% of the population), and by over two million Slovaks living abroad, most of them in the USA, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Canada and Great Britain (Office for Slovaks Living Abroad 2009).

The 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII) will take place in Hong Kong, China, at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, on 17–21 August 2011. ICPhS XVII is organized jointly by the City University of Hong Kong, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, and the Academia Sinica, Taipei, under the auspices of the Permanent Council for the Organization of the International Congresses of Phonetic Sciences and the International Phonetic Association. The deadline for full-paper submission to ICPhS 2011 Hong Kong is 1 March 2011. Further information is available at http://www.icphs2011.hk.