Alexander John Ellis

Alexander John Ellis (14 June, 1814 - 28 October, 1890) was an English mathematician and philologist. He changed his name from his father's name Sharpe to his mother's maiden name Ellis in 1825, based on a condition for receiving significant financial support from a relative on his mother's side. [cite book | title = Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography | author = John Hannavy | isbn = 0415972353 | publisher = CRC Press | year = 2008 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=PJ8DHBay4_EC&pg=PA481&dq=alexander-ellis+sharpe&ei=v6LlSO7kFYOQsgOikpjABQ&sig=ACfU3U2pCRynP2CIc0C5HDqhzBIy7HwSnw#PPA481,M1 ]

Biography

Initially trained in mathematics and the classics, he became a well-known phonetician of his time. Through his work in phonetics he also became interested in vocal pitch and by extension in musical pitch as well as speech and song.

Ellis is also noted for translating and extensively annotating Hermann Helmholtz's "On the Sensations of Tone". The second edition of this translation, published in 1885, contains an appendix which summarizes Ellis' own work on related matters.

In his writings on musical pitch and scales, [Ellis, Alexander: [http://stuart.sfa.googlepages.com/MSVN00.html On the Musical Scales of Various Nations] HTML transcription of the 1885 article in the Journal of the Society of Arts (Accessed September 2008)] Ellis elaborates his notion and notation of cents for musical intervals which became especially influential in Comparative Musicology, a predecessor of ethnomusicology. Analyzing the scales (tone systems) of various extra-European musical traditions, Ellis also showed that the diversity of tone systems cannot be explained by a single physical law, as had been argued by earlier scholars.

In part V of his work "On Early English Pronunciation", he applied the Dialect Test across Britain, and distinguished forty-two different dialects in England and the Scottish Lowlands.

There are claims that Ellis himself was pitch-deaf, i.e. could not distinguish different pitches with his own ears. Today, this claim is often not supported anymore. [W.R. THOMAS, J.J.K. RHODES, "Ellis [Sharpe] , Alexander J(ohn)", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 11/05/2008), http://www.grovemusic.com]

He was acknowledged by Shaw as the prototype of Professor Henry Higgins of Pygmalion. (My Fair Lady). [Ross Duffin, "How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony" W.W. Norton and Co. 2007]

References

* M. K. C. MacMahon, "Ellis , Alexander John (1814–1890)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8683, accessed 14 June 2006]