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Primary sourceBook1867

Visible Speech

Alexander Melville Bell · 1867

A phonetic notation system created by Bell's father in 1867 to teach deaf students how to form speech sounds, which shaped Bell's own understanding of sound.

This system, created by Bell's father and performed by young Alexander, shaped his lifelong work in speech and deaf education.

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Page 6 of 'Nature and Uses of Visible Speech' with the heading 'Illustrations of Visible Speech'. Fig. 1 is a side-profile diagram of the vocal tract with dotted airflow lines. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 show symbol combinations and a table of symbols with sound descriptions like 'p in pea', 't in tea', 'ng in sung'.
Alexander Melville Bell, Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics, 1867.

About this source

What it is

Visible Speech is a system of symbols developed in 1867 by Alexander Melville Bell, Alexander Graham Bell's father, to show the position of the mouth, tongue and throat used to make each speech sound. It was published as a book, Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics.

Why it matters

The system was designed to help deaf students learn to speak by seeing the sounds rather than hearing them. Alexander Graham Bell learned the symbols as a child, helped his father demonstrate the system publicly, and later became an advocate for oral education of the deaf. The experience shaped how he thought about sound and speech, ideas he later built on when inventing the telephone and photophone.

Look closer

  • Why might drawing the mouth's shape help someone who cannot hear learn to speak?
  • What does it tell you that Alexander Graham Bell performed in demonstrations of his father's invention as a boy?
  • What problems might arise with trying to represent every sound in every language with one system?

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U.S. Patent No. 174,465, Improvement in Telegraphy

Alexander Graham Bell · 7 March 1876

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Recording of the Voice of Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell · 1885

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Drawing of a Liquid Transmitter, 8 March 1876

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Book

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Memoir Upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race

Alexander Graham Bell · 1884

Black-and-white studio portrait of an elderly man with white hair and a full white beard, wearing a dark suit, vest, and tie, looking toward the camera against a soft gray backdrop.Photograph

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Portrait of Alexander Graham Bell

Moffett Studio

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