A Dialectal Acoustic Comparison of Vowels in Jordanian Arabic: Madani Dialect vs Fallaћi Dialect
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1506.28Keywords:
Madani dialect, Fallaћi dialect, vowel quantity, vowel quality, vocalic spaceAbstract
This study investigates the acoustic correlates of long and short vowel contrast for two dialects spoken in the northern part of Jordan. More specifically, it describes the vowels uttered in a connected speech by the Urban Speakers (referred to as 'Madani Dialect,' henceforth ‘MD’) and Rural Speakers (referred to as 'Fallaħ Dialect,' henceforth 'FD'). Three males and two females from each region uttered 40 words. The vowel inventory for both dialects consists of three short vowels, /i, a,u/, and five long vowels, /i: a: u: e: o:/. Phonetically speaking, vowels can be best analyzed by measuring their acoustic properties rather than describing their articulatory configurations (Ladefoged, 2003). As such, analyzing formant frequencies is the most common method to examine the characteristics of vowel systems of any language or variety. The F1, F2, and duration are the acoustic parameters that were measured, analyzed, and compared with previous studies when necessary. The results revealed that females have higher formants than males, duration is a cue for vowel identity, and length is phonemic. Also, the vowels of the Madani and Fallaћi dialects were found to have relatively shorter durations than their Arabic counterparts by Egyptian, Palestinian, Saudi, and Sudanese.
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