Daniel Jones was born in central London on September 12, 1881. He was educated at Radley and University College Schools. He graduated in mathematics from King's College, Cambridge, in 1903, and received his MA in 1907, the year he was called to the Bar (Lincoln's Inn).
He gained an appointment in 1907 at U. College London, the year in which its Department of Phonetics was set up, and worked there for most of his life: as lecturer (1907–14), Reader (1914–21), Professor (1921–49), and Emeritus Professor (1949–67). He received his B. A. in 1903, and his M. A. in 1907. He retired in 1949. His numerous publications concern many languages: English, Neo-Indic, Sechuana (Bantu), French, Russian, and Cantonese. Excelling in phonetic observation and description, and the application of phonetic science to the problems of the real world, Jones always regarded himself as being first and foremost an applied linguist.
With the passing years, the accuracy of many of Jones's statements on vowels has come increasingly under question, and most linguists now consider that the vowel quadrilateral must be viewed as a way of representing auditory space in visual form, rather than the tightly defined articulatory scheme envisaged by Jones. Nevertheless, the International Phonetic Association still uses a version of Jones's model, and includes a Jones-type vowel diagram on its influential International Phonetic Alphabet leaflet contained in the "Handbook of the International Association". Many phoneticians (especially those trained in the British school) resort to it constantly as a quick and convenient form of reference.
An Outline of English Phonetics With 131 Illustrations (Classic Reprint) A Sechuana reader : in international phonetic orthography (with English translations) Phonetic Transcriptions Of English Prose... - Scholar's Choice Edition An English pronouncing dictionary (on strictly phonetic principles) A Cantonese Phonetic Reader
