An obituary of Ian Maddieson

Key Points

• To commemorate the contributions of Ian Maddieson to the field of phonetics.
• Descriptive analysis of Maddieson's work and its significance in linguistics.
• Review of contributions to the study of speech sounds and their patterns.
• Maddieson's research advanced the understanding of phonetic variation across languages.
• He influenced generations of linguists through his teaching and published works.