Sweet
NAME:
Sweet, Henry
ACHIEVEMENTS:
Pioneer of modern phonetics
NICKNAME/ALIAS:
None
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:
15 September 1845, London, England
DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:
30 April 1912, Oxford, England. Aged 67
DISCIPLINE:
Scholard
FIELD:
Philology and Phonetics
LANGUAGE:
English
PARENTS:
Father: George Sweet
Mother: Agnes Nicholson
SIBLINGS:
?????
SPOUSE:
Mary Birch
CHILDREN:
None
EDUCATION:
King's College School, London
University of Heidelberg
Balliol College, Oxford
MAJOR WORK:
"A Primer of Spoken English" (1890)
"The History of Language" (1890)
"The Sounds of English: An Introduction to Phonetics" (1908)
LIFE AND TIMES:
Sweet, the son of a London barrister, found it difficult to read as a child due to undiagnosed short sightedness. However, he soon made up lost ground and showed an early interest in philology (the study of language, its use and how it sounds). He corresponded with the London Philological Society while still a student and in 1871, at the age of twenty-six, published a pioneering work on Old English dialects.
Three years later he brought out "History of the English Sounds from the earliest period" which became a standard text book. In 1876 he published a selection of Old English literature in the first edition of his celebrated "Anglo-Saxon Reader".
In the same year Sweet applied for the post of professor of comparative philology at University College, London but was not appointed. Through his studies into language and how it was pronounced, he was familiar with the teaching of elocution, attempts to help the deaf to speak, and with shorthand systems based on the sound of consonants and vowels such as that invented by <work related to> Pitman*.
Like Pitman, and <a pal of> Shaw* (with whom he became friendly) Sweet was also interested in the reform of spelling. In 1877 he wrote "Handbook of Phonetics: including a Popular Exposition of the Principles of Spelling Reform". After seven years' study, his book "The Oldest English Texts" was published in 1885. It provided the standard text on the subject and in the same year Sweet pioneered the study of phonetics in Europe with his "Primer of Spoken English".
In spite of his growing reputation on the continent, Sweet again tried and failed to obtain a university post. He drew up schemes for a school of linguistic study but had no way of making his influence felt in England. Nevertheless, he continued his scholarly investigations and among the languages whose sounds he described were Danish, Welsh, Russian and Portuguese. In 1892 he wrote "A New English Grammar".
In the same year Sweet published a system of shorthand called ‘Current’ because he did not like Pitman’s shorthand system and since 1869 had used the system invented by <work related to> Alexander Melville Bell*.
Finding this also problematic, he decided to produce his own system on which he corresponded with the Danish linguist <corresponded with> Jesperson*. ‘Current’ never became popular although Shaw gave it a mention in his play "Pygmalion". In 1895 Sweet he settled at Oxford and at the age of fifty began to study Arabic, Chinese and Finnish. In 1900 he wrote "The History of Language".
Sweet's work was crucial in paving the way for phonetic studies such as those by Jespersen in Denmark, <set stage for> Passy* in France and , <set stage for> Daniel Jones* in England. In 1901, although scholars all over Europe supported his application, he failed to get the chair of comparative philology at Oxford perhaps because he was a difficult man who quarrelled with most people he knew and engaged in many longstanding feuds.
His studies included music and he became concerned with a new system of musical notation. He was also interested in spiritualism and the doctrine of <a follower of> Swedenborg*. His last book on phonetics was "The Sounds of English: an
Introduction to Phonetics" (1908).
ASSESSMENT: Sweet was a major contributor to the foundation of the modern study of
phonetics.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: None
ONELINER: Henry Sweet, pioneer in phonetics
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DNB