Acoustic Phonetics of Non-Nasal Standard Bengali Vowels: A Spectrographic Study

Abstract

This paper presents the results of the investigations on the formant frequencies and durations of non-nasal vowels of Standard Bengali (SB). Spectrographic analysis of 350 multisyllabic words spoken by three male and three female informants provide the basic data for this study. The results confirm the existence of seven SB vowels with an additional compromise vowel. A comparative study of SB vowels with cardinal vowels and Telugu vowels indicates that SB vowels have a tendency towards centralization. The coefficients of variations of formant frequencies for different vowels are also presented. In this respect, low values are noted in case of low vowels for first formant and of high front vowel for second formant. Moreover, the variations are, in general lower for front vowels for fourth formant and the trend is opposite for the third formant. Regarding duration, it does not discriminate between male and female informants. However informant wise durational pattern shows some characteristic individuality.

Indexing terms:

• Standard Colloquial Bengali
• Formant frequency
• Duration
• Cardinal vowel
• Spectrographic analysis
• coefficient of variation