Beatrice Lilian Honikman () was a phonetician of South African origin who taught at

SOAS University of London SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

and the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

. Her special field was the phonetics of

African languages The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families: * Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Southern A ...

Career

After graduating in South Africa, she studied phonetics in the late 1920’s with Daniel Jones at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. She later worked as a lecturer in the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury ar ...

, London under J.R.Firth. During this period she jointly published material on the phonetics of

Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also * ...

. She undertook the major task of editing and completing ''The Phonetic and Tonal Structure of Kikuyu'' when its author,

Lilias Armstrong Lilias Eveline Armstrong (29 September 1882 – 9 December 1937) was an English phonetician. She worked at University College London, where she attained the rank of reader. Armstrong is most known for her work on English intonation as we ...

died suddenly in 1937. The work was published in 1940. Honikman’s career continued with a lectureship in the Department of Phonetics at the

, under the headship of P.A.D. MacCarthy, from 1955 to her retirement in 1971. Her best known publication from that period was on the topic of articulatory settings (or ''basis of articulation''). Although she was not, and did not claim to be, the originator of this idea, her article is widely cited in discussion of articulatory settings, an area of growing interest to language teachers. She died in Cape Town in 1998.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honikman, Beatrice 1905 births 1998 deaths Alumni of University College London Academics of SOAS University of London Academics of the University of Leeds People from Cape Town South African women academics Phoneticians 20th-century South African women South African expatriates in the United Kingdom