There is no standard phonetically balanced short passage for Portuguese research and clinical practice. This paper presents results of a novel analysis of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ (NWS) passage that aims to determine if it is phonetically balanced for European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), based on new transcriptions resulting from algorithms developed for grapheme–phone transcription in these two varieties of Portuguese. These algorithms (based on standard EP and São Paulo BP varieties) are the same as those used to collect the frequency data, which is central to determining if a text is phonetically balanced. Results showed that neither transcription violates phonotactic rules, i.e. permissible combinations of speech sounds. The NWS is not phonetically balanced for BP if the phonemes are considered individually but is evenly distributed in terms of manner of articulation. The EP version of the NWS passage is a phonetically balanced text for EP.

In this study, we determine the acoustic correlates of primary and secondary stress in Tongan. Vowels with primary stress show differences in f0, intensity, duration, F1, and spectral measures compared to unstressed vowels, but a linear discriminant analysis suggests f0 and duration are the best cues for discriminating vowels with primary stress from unstressed vowels. Vowels with secondary stress are mainly marked by differences in f0 relative to unstressed vowels. With regard to the effects of stress on the vowel space, we find that all five Tongan vowels are higher in the vowel space (have lower F1) when unstressed. Moreover, there is no reduction in the overall size of the vowel space. We interpret this pattern as evidence that unstressed vowels in Tongan are not prone to centralization, vowel reduction, or undershoot. The results, however, are consistent with a sonority expansion account (Beckman, Edwards & Fletcher 1992), whereby stressed vowels are lowered to enhance sonority.

The purpose of this investigation is to analyse the place of articulation of anterior nasal versus oral stops in Croatian. Although there is agreement that placement for /n/ and /td/ is in the anterior region, there is disagreement among different authors about the precise place of articulation for these sounds. Some authors view these targets as sharing identical placement while others view placement of /n/ as more posterior to /td/. In this paper we use electropalatography (EPG) to investigate whether placement for these sounds is the same or different. The speech of six participants was recorded for the purposes of this study. The speech material consisted of 972 VCV sequences (V = /iau/, C = /ntd/). Four EPG indices were analysed: the ACoG measure, the amount of contact at dental and alveolar articulatory zones (dentoalveolar articulation being inferred indirectly), incomplete EPG closures and the lateral contact measure. Coarticulatory effects of vowels on placement were also measured. The results showed that /ntd/ generally shared the place of articulation in the dentoalveolar region, but also that relating quantitative physiological data to specific places of articulation should be done cautiously, taking into account variability in individual productions. The analyses also showed that /n/ had more incomplete EPG closures and a significantly lower amount of lateral contact when compared with /t/ and /d/. The nasal was more variable and showed less coarticulatory resistance in different vowel contexts than /t/ and /d/. The results of this study are discussed in terms of existing descriptions of Croatian consonant system and in light of cross-linguistic findings.

Bemba (also called Cibemba or Icibemba; ISO 639-3 code bem) is a Niger-Congo language belonging to the Central Narrow Bantu branch (Zone M in Guthrie's 1948, 1967–71 classification). Bemba is spoken in Zambia (mainly in the Northern, Luapula and Copperbelt provinces) and the Southern Democratic Republic of Congo by approximately 3.3 million speakers (Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2013). Our data are based on Bemba spoken in Zambia.

Basaá [ɓàsː] is spoken by 282,000 people in the forest area located in the South, Centre and Littoral regions of Cameroon (based on 1982 Ethnologue record; Lewis 2009). Basaá is a narrow Bantu language in the Niger-Congo language family, and it is classified as A43 (Guthrie 1967–71, A43a in Maho 2009). The ISO code of Basaá is bas (Lewis 2009).

Goemai is an Afroasiatic (Chadic, West Chadic A, Angas-Goemai group) language spoken in Central Nigeria. The name Goemai [ɡmi] is used by the speakers themselves to refer to both their language and their ethnic group. To outsiders, they are better known under the name Ankwe – a name that is also commonly found in the older linguistic, anthropological and historical literature. The Goemai live as farmers, fishermen and hunters in villages throughout the lowland savannah region south of the Jos Plateau and north of the Benue River, an area that is known geographically as the Great Muri Plains. The economy is based on agriculture (yam, millet, guineacorn, groundnut, beniseed) and is supplemented with fishing and hunting. Politically, the area belongs to Plateau State, and more specifically to the Local Government Areas Shendam and Qua’an Pan. Smaller Goemai-speaking communities are found in surrounding Local Government Areas as well as in Jos, the capital of Plateau State.

The International Phonetic Association's by-laws recognize as Life Members those members who have paid membership dues for over 30 years. The awarding of Life Membership is intended to honour the impressive records of service of long-time IPA members, and to acknowledge their contribution in a symbolic and in a practical way.

During 2014, the Association granted three IPA Student Awards to student members participating in phonetics conferences. The recipients of the Awards were Martin Kohlberger of Leiden University for participation in Sound Change in Interacting Human Systems (University of California, Berkeley, USA), Caroline Sigouin of Université Laval (Québec, Canada) for participation in 30es Journées d’études sur la parole (Le Mans, France), and Valerie Freeman of the University of Washington for participation in NWAV 43 (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) in Chicago. Congratulations to these student members.

The following is a list of the countries of the current membership of the Association, based on the Association's records in November 2014. The numbers in parentheses indicate the total number of members per country (Life, Full, and Student combined). There are a total of 370 members from 49 countries. Individual members’ names are no longer published.

In November–December 2014, elections were held to choose twenty members of the Association's Council to serve from 2015 to 2019.

The IPA certificate exam will be offered in connection with ICPhS in Glasgow, on Sunday 9 August 2015. It will also be offered in London (at UCL) twice, on Wednesday 20 May 2015 and Tuesday 1 September 2015. (All offerings are subject to confirmation, requiring a sufficient number of entrants.)

The Association will offer two kinds of travel awards to student members presenting their work at the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in August 2015. Gösta Bruce Scholarships are funded by the Gösta Bruce Memorial Fund, established by the family of the late Gösta Bruce, previous President of the IPA. IPA Student Awards are funded by the Association. The deadline for applications for both kinds of awards will be in late May. Information about the numbers and amounts of the awards, and about the application procedures, is available on the IPA website under ‘Grants’.

Sandro Vasilyevich Kodzasov, Professor at M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, died on 25 October 2014 in Karlsruhe, Germany, after a serious illness, at the age of 76.