Hans Jørgen (John) Uldall’s archive at the Royal Library

Hans Jørgen (John) Uldall’s correspondence with Daniel Jones

Hans Jørgen Uldall i 1938
British Daniel Jones (1881-1967) is often referred to as the person who invented the cardinal vowel system as an applicable instrument within the realm of phonetics. His work in phonetics and phonology was primarily focused on the English language, however he worked on many other languages too. Till this day he is considered to be revolutionary in phonetics. Jones’ book “English Pronouncing Dictionary” (1917), was the first dictionary with phonetic transcriptions of more than 50.000 English words.

    

"We are all different from each other, & whatever the goal of human existence may be, we all approach it by different paths."

Jones to Uldall, 1938

      

                        

We can find his interest for phonetics and phonology in the letter correspondences between Jones and Hans Jørgen (John) Uldall. Their letter correspondence comes to an end though, when they agree to disagree: ”We are all different from each other, & whatever the goal of human existence may be, we all approach it by different paths”.

Photograph from "The real Professor Higgins" (1998: 306)

This quote is from a letter from Jones to Uldall in 1938 where they have realized that their work derives from two different ontological positions. Jones approaches phonetics and linguistics as a means to an end, in opposition to Uldall (along with Hjelmslev and their glossematics) who worked with linguistics to ensure it as an autonomous science; that language is an