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Alexander Melville Bell

 
Alexander Melville Bell

 
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Alexander Melville Bell (1 March 1819 – 7 August 1905), teacher
Teacher

In education, a teacher is a person who teaches. A teacher who teaches an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor.The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out by way of Occupation or Profession at a school or other place of formal education....
 and father of Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, Innovation and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work....
 (the inventor of the telephone
Telephone

The telephone is a telecommunications device that is used to transmitter and receive electronically or digitally encoded sound between two or more people conversing....
), was born in Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
, Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
.

He studied under and became the principal assistant of his father, Alexander Bell, an authority on phonetics
Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception....
 and defective speech. From 1843 to 1865 he lectured on elocution
Elocution

Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone ....
 at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom....
, and from 1865 to 1870 at the University of London
University of London

Based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes....
. In 1868, and again in 1870 and 1871, he lectured in the Lowell Institute
Lowell Institute

Lowell Institute, an educational foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., providing for free public lectures, and endowed by the bequest of $237,000 left by John Lowell, Jr....
 course in Boston.

In 1870 he became a lecturer on philology
Philology

Philology, derived from the Greek language considers both morphology and Meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies....
 at Queen's College, Kingston, Ontario; and in 1881 he removed to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the Capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790....
, where he devoted himself to the education
Education

File:Inukshuk Monterrey 1.jpgEducation can be seen as a product or a process and considered in a broad sense or a technical sense. According to philosophy of education George F....
 of deaf mutes by the "Visible Speech
Visible Speech

Visible speech is the name of the writing system used by Alexander Melville Bell, who was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper elocution and an author of books on the subject....
" method of orthoepy
Orthoepy

Orthoepy means the correct use of word , from the Greek orth- + -epos, correct + word, speech.The English meaning of orthoepy is correct pronunciation, or the study of pronunciation and how it is used in sentences....
, in which the alphabetical characters of his own invention were graphic diagrams of positions and motions of the organs of speech.






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Alexander Melville Bell (1 March 1819 – 7 August 1905), teacher
Teacher

In education, a teacher is a person who teaches. A teacher who teaches an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor.The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out by way of Occupation or Profession at a school or other place of formal education....
 and father of Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, Innovation and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone.Bell's father, grandfather, and brother had all been associated with work on elocution and speech, and both his mother and wife were deaf, profoundly influencing Bell's life's work....
 (the inventor of the telephone
Telephone

The telephone is a telecommunications device that is used to transmitter and receive electronically or digitally encoded sound between two or more people conversing....
), was born in Edinburgh
Edinburgh

Edinburgh ; is the Capital city of Scotland, a position it has held since 1437. It is the seventh largest city in the United Kingdom and the second largest Scottish City status in the United Kingdom after Glasgow....
, Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
.

He studied under and became the principal assistant of his father, Alexander Bell, an authority on phonetics
Phonetics

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds , and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception....
 and defective speech. From 1843 to 1865 he lectured on elocution
Elocution

Elocution is the study of formal speaking in pronunciation, grammar, style, and tone ....
 at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh founded in 1582, is an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research in Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom....
, and from 1865 to 1870 at the University of London
University of London

Based primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes....
. In 1868, and again in 1870 and 1871, he lectured in the Lowell Institute
Lowell Institute

Lowell Institute, an educational foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., providing for free public lectures, and endowed by the bequest of $237,000 left by John Lowell, Jr....
 course in Boston.

In 1870 he became a lecturer on philology
Philology

Philology, derived from the Greek language considers both morphology and Meaning in linguistic expression, combining linguistics and literary studies....
 at Queen's College, Kingston, Ontario; and in 1881 he removed to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the Capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790....
, where he devoted himself to the education
Education

File:Inukshuk Monterrey 1.jpgEducation can be seen as a product or a process and considered in a broad sense or a technical sense. According to philosophy of education George F....
 of deaf mutes by the "Visible Speech
Visible Speech

Visible speech is the name of the writing system used by Alexander Melville Bell, who was known internationally as a teacher of speech and proper elocution and an author of books on the subject....
" method of orthoepy
Orthoepy

Orthoepy means the correct use of word , from the Greek orth- + -epos, correct + word, speech.The English meaning of orthoepy is correct pronunciation, or the study of pronunciation and how it is used in sentences....
, in which the alphabetical characters of his own invention were graphic diagrams of positions and motions of the organs of speech. Some have speculated that Alexander Melville Bell was the model for Professor Higgins, the elocutionist who taught Eliza in George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw, was an Irish people playwright.Although Shaw's first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, his talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60 plays....
's play Pygmalion
Pygmalion (play)

Pygmalion is a Play by George Bernard Shaw loosely inspired by Pygmalion . It tells the story of Henry Higgins, a professor of phonetics who makes a bet with his friend Colonel Pickering that he can successfully pass off a Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, as a refined society lady by teaching her how to speak with an upper class...
, which subsequently was used as the basis for the musical and later film: My Fair Lady
My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady is a musical theater based upon George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion and with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe....
. ("Bell's Visible Speech" is mentioned in the play.) Evidence supporting this includes the idea that Eliza was not a common name, and Eliza Grace Bell was Alexander Melville Bell's wife. Actually, "Eliza" was quite common at the time, since it is a short form of Elizabeth.

Melville Bell died at age 86 in 1905. He is interred in Rock Creek Cemetery
Rock Creek Cemetery

Rock Creek Cemetery is an cemetery with a natural rolling landscape located at Rock Creek Church Road, NW, and Webster Street, NW, in the Petworth, Washington, D.C....
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the Capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790....


Bell was a renowned authority on physiological phonetics
Acoustic phonetics

Acoustic phonetics is a subfield of phonetics which deals with acoustics aspects of Manner of articulation sounds. Acoustic phonetics investigates properties like the mean squared amplitude of a waveform, its duration, its fundamental frequency, or other properties of its frequency spectrum, and the relationship of these properties to other...
 and was the author of numerous works on orthoepy, elocution and education, including:
  • Steno-Phonography (1852)
  • Letters and Sounds (1858)
  • The Standard Elocutionist (1860)
  • Principles of Speech and Dictionary of Sounds (1863)
  • Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics (1867)
  • Sounds and their Relations (1881)
  • Lectures on Phonetics (1885)
  • A Popular Manual of Visible Speech and Vocal Physiology (1889)
  • World English: the Universal Language (1888)
  • The Science of Speech (1897)
  • The Fundamentals of Elocution (1899)
See John Hitz, Alexander Melville Bell (Washington, 1906).