PHONO-CINEMA 



PHONOGRAPH 



breath is checked by the action of 

 the lips or lower lip and upper teeth 

 (b, f, p). (2) Sibilants or blade-con- 

 sonants : here the surface of the 

 tongue behind the point is brought 

 close to the hard palate, as in s, sh. 



(3) Interdentals : here the rim of the 

 tongue stops the slit between the 

 two rows of teeth, as in English th. 



(4) Denials : here the stop is caused 

 by the front part of the tongue 

 acting upon the inner wall of the 

 upper teeth or their sockets (d, t). 



(5) Palatals : here the middle of the 

 back part of the tongue acts 

 against the back part of the hard 

 palate, e.g. the softened k in Eng- 

 lish kit. (6) Gutturals, also called 

 throat-sounds or velars : here the 

 hinder part of the back of the 

 tongue articulates against the soft 

 palate, e.g. the English c in cat. 



The following classification of 

 consonants, although by no means 

 complete, indicates the character 

 of the English consonants and the 

 best known of those in foreign lan- 

 guages. Digraphs, or combina- 

 tions of two letters to express a 

 single sound, are used in some 

 cases. Thus kh expresses the gut- 

 tural fricative sound produced by 

 placing the tongue to the roof of 

 the mouth', as in k, except that a 

 narrow space is left, through which 

 the air is forced. In the following 

 list the pairs of voiceless and 

 voiced consonants are indicated by 

 colons, e.g. p : b. 



Labials. (1) Both lips. Frica- 

 tives, Gr. ph : Gr. b. Voiced nasal, 

 m. (2) Lower lip and teeth. Frica- 

 tives, f : v. (3) Lips and back of 

 tongue. Fricatives, wh : w. 



Sibilants. (1) Blade of tongue. 

 Fricatives, s : z. (2) Blade and 

 point. Fricatives, sh : zh (measure). 



Interdentals. Fricatives, th : dh 

 (then). Voiceless stop, French t. 



Dentals. Fricatives, Icelandic 

 hr : r. Side, Welsh 11 : 1. Stops, 

 t : d. Nasals, Icel. hn : n. 



Palatals. Fricatives, Ger. ch 

 (ich) : y. Voiced side, ly (Fr. 

 famille, Ital. egli). Stops, Hung, 

 ty : dy (Hung. gy). Voiced nasal, 

 n (Fr. vigne, Sp. senor, Ital. ogni). 



Gutturate. Fricatives, kh (Ger. 

 ach) : gh (Ger. sagen). Voiced side, 

 Russian guttural 1. Stops, k : g. 

 Voiced nasal, ng (sing). 



H, not included here, is a frica- 

 tive, produced, like several pecu- 

 liar Arabic sounds, in the throat. 



Vowels are voiced sounds, modi- 

 fied by the tongue, lips, and soft 

 palate, but without any audible 

 friction. 



The vowels, the number of which 

 is indefinite, are modified in four 

 principal ways. (1) They are 

 unrounded if the lips are fully open, 

 as in fit ; rounded if the lips are 

 partly closed, as in ii (Fr. u). (2) 



Front vowels are produced by 

 stretching the tongue forward, as in 

 pin, ten ; back vowels by drawing 

 it back, as in sun, saw, barn. There 

 are also mixed vowels, interme- 

 diate between front and back, as in 

 bird. (3) High or close vowels are 

 produced by raising the tongue, as 

 in fit, pull ; mid and low vowels, 

 classed together as open, by lower- 

 ing the tongue, as barn, may, bird, 

 pack, saw. (4) Nasal vowels, char- 

 acteristic of French, Portuguese, 

 and Polish, but not occurring in 

 English, are formed by opening the 

 nose-passage, as in Fr. plan, en, 

 vin, on, un. There are other vowels 

 identical with continuant conso- 

 nants, such as m, n, 1, when they 

 form syllables in themselves, as in 

 fasten, cattle. See Consonant ; Pro- 

 nunciation ; Vowel. 



Bibliography. Elementary Pho- 

 netics of English, French and Ger- 

 man, W. Vietor, Eng. trans. W. 

 Rippmann, 1899: A Primer of Pho- 

 netics, H. Sweet, 3rd ed. 1906 ; 

 Introduction to English, French and 

 German Phonetics, L. Soames, 3rd 

 ed. 1913 ; The Sounds of Spoken 

 English, W. Rippmann, new ed. 

 1914. 



Phono-Cinema. Talking film, 

 an invention by which the photo- 

 graphic record of action and the 

 gramophone record of speech are 

 synchronised. Scientists in differ- 

 ent countries had been working for 

 years on the problem of the rela- 

 tion of light and sound, and on the 

 photography of sound. As soon as 

 the recording of sound through 

 light was accomplished the question 

 of synchronising the photography 

 of objects and of sound, so as to 

 reproduce simultaneously action 

 and sound, was only a matter of 

 time. 



The first talking film made was 

 described by The Times on Sept. 24, 

 1921. The earliest completion of 

 the invention is due to Sven Aison 

 Bergland, of Stockholm, but almost 

 simul taneously 

 with the announce- 

 ment of his 

 achievement, a 

 British inventor, 

 H. Grindell- 

 Matthews, pro- 

 duced an appara- 

 tus based on rather 

 different principles, 

 but achieving the 

 same result, the 

 automatic syn- 

 chronisation and 

 reprod u c t i o n of 

 action and sound. 



The Swedish 

 machine is a double 

 camera with two 

 reels. "On the one 

 the ordinary photo- 

 graphic repro- 



\ 



duction of the passing scene is 

 taken ; on the other the sound 

 is recorded, not as in a gramo- 

 phone record by scratchings on a 

 cylinder, but photographed light. 

 The second camera is directed at a 

 ray of light agitated by the actor's 

 voice. Across the end of a receiver 

 a diaphragm of rock crystal is 

 stretched. This diaphragm vibrates 

 with the voice, and writes on the 

 celluloid film as it moves through 

 the camera curves, corresponding 

 to the vibrations which agitate it. 

 The pictured vibrations are changed 

 into resonant vibrations by the 

 use of selenium, the most sensitive 

 of all known metals. Mr. Matthews 

 uses a tiny mirror of stainless steel 

 which vibrates two pencils of light, 

 which are focused on the edge of 

 the film. This is a process less com- 

 plex than the Swedish one, both 

 the scene and the sound being 

 recorded on a single film. See 

 Cinematography ; consult also the 

 article, A Swedish Invention, in 

 The Times of Sept. 24, 1921. 



Phonograph (Gr. phone, sound ; 

 graphein, to write). Talking ma- 

 chine which records and repro- 

 duces sounds. As invented in 1876, 

 it consisted of an axially-moving 

 rotating brass cylinder, mounted 

 on a screw, and covered with tin 

 foil, against which pressed a needle 

 secured to a thin diaphragm. The 

 needle ran in the middle of a helical 

 groove cut on the cylinders, and, 

 when the diaphragm was not vi- 

 brating, the needle forced the tin 

 foil into the groove, whereas, when 

 the diaphragm was vibrated by 

 sound waves entering a trumpet 

 or horn, the movements of the 

 needle made indentations in the 

 tin foil in the groove. 



To reproduce the sounds, the 

 needle was drawn away, and the 

 cylinder was rotated backwards 

 until the needle was brought to 

 the point at which it started. The 



Phonograph. Diagram illustrating method of produc- 

 ing sound waves. A. glass disk which receives vibra- 

 tions from the point, B, which moves up and down in the 

 grooves in the cylinder 



