Ida War—An Appreciation

Abstract

Professor Ida C. Ward, until 1948 head of the African Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London, was equally eminent as a teacher and researcher; she had lectured in many European universities and her distinguished gifts were known and appreciated in Europe and America. It is largely through her work and her personality that the African Department of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, has become a world-famous institution in the field of African linguistics. Her name will forever be connected with the study of African languages, and in particular of African tone languages. It was the function of tone in West African languages on which her work centred, and her achievements in this difficult and delicate field have initiated a new phase in our knowledge of African speech. Hers was the unfailing ear, the keen observation of sound-production and the art of reproducing foreign sounds and new sound-sequences, which make the true phonetician. What gave her work such fullness of life and actuality was its intimate linking with practical language study. It may be said that many of her important discoveries were the immediate outcome of her teaching. Teaching, practising, and researching were to her an indissoluble unit. ‘The practical depends on the scientific, for one can never tell what practical problems—or solutions of problems—will be thrown up by meticulous scientific analysis’, and ‘on the other hand, the practical application of scientific research keeps the researcher within bounds, as it were, and will not allow him too far into the realms of conjecture and theorising’. She was an ideal and enthusiastic teacher, never tiring, never losing patience. A group consisting of herself, an African assistant, and a small cluster of students was her ideal; here all were partners in the same aim, and all took an active part in the subject discussed.