John Ohala

Ohala pioneered the theory that historical sound change is largely driven by listeners' misinterpretations of acoustic speech signals, rather than speakers intentionally changing their pronunciation. He argued that listeners consistently misattribute acoustic cues, like the lowering of pitch caused by a laryngeal consonant, to the speaker's intended meaning.

He spent the majority of his distinguished academic career as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, he established a highly influential phonetics laboratory dedicated to the experimental study of speech sounds.

He conducted extensive acoustic experiments to demonstrate how physical and aerodynamic forces affect sound production. By testing how human ears perceive variations in frequency and amplitude, he showed how the vocal tract's biomechanics influence the long-term evolution of languages.

He was highly decorated in the field of linguistics, receiving the prestigious Gold Medal from the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences in 2011. He also served as the president of the Linguistic Society of America during his career.