Phonetics, the study of speech, is one of the scientific disciplines in which an enormous amount of development has taken place in the past fifty years or so. This is partly due to its rich traditions; but also to the new vistas that have been opened up by the accumulation of increasingly more reliable data ascribable, in turn, to the development of technology and the new possibilities of exploration and analysis. Computer technology has led to further evolution in all three areas of phonetics, articulation or speech production, its acoustic consequences (i.e., the detailed analysis of spoken utterances), and speech perception (recognition of sounds, sound combinations or sound sequences). Results in experimental phonetics have provided a firm basis for the subsequent emergence and current development of applied phonetics and speech technology.
The standards of phonetics in Hungary are not in the least inferior to its international standards, either in terms of the topics investigated or with respect to the results obtained. The state of the art therefore makes it possible and desirable that the present homepage should make pieces of knowledge, data, and information available for the interested public. This might subsequently lead to personal contacts, joint projects, and educational work of diverse levels and directions. These aims have motivated the work of the editors of this homepage.