The birth of an institute: A centennial jubilee of Prague’s Institute of Phonetics

Abstract

The current issue of Phonetica Pragensia is published at the occasion of the Institute of Phonetics celebrating the 100th anniversary of its official foundation. The aim of this paper is to provide background to the contributions that follow, namely a historical perspective to the tradition of long-term experimental research set up in Prague by the early phonetic pioneers and continued until today. Drawing primarily on archival materials, the article brings a more detailed account of the constitutive years in comparison to the reviews published so far. It reveals the complexity that is involved in the process of establishing and sustaining a new (phonetics) institute, which might be informative to wider audiences as well.

Keywords

• history of phonetics
• Czech phonetics
• Institute of Phonetics
• Josef Chlumský
• Bohuslav Hála
• phonetic laboratory