Sounds and their relations : a complete manual of universal alphabetics ; illustrated by means of visible speech and exhibiting the prononciation of English, in various styles and of other languages and dialects

Alexander Melville Bell

 J.P. Burbank, Salem, Mass, 1881

[Audiology] Bound in publisher's wraps.  Spine perished.  102 p., [2] leaves of plates; 23 cm.  An early book on sound written by the father of Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.  The senior Bell was the creator of "Visible Speech" which was used to help the deaf learn to talk.  An interesting early book on turning speech into text. Bell's work was intended to help the deaf with aural speech.  To accomplish this task, Bell created a written short form system with 29 modifiers and tones, 52 consonants, 36 vowels and a dozen diphthongs.  Bell's work was also conceived as a way of creating a universal language.