An acostic analysis of Kalhuri Kurdish As Spoken in Islamabad-e-Gharb, Gilan-e-Gharb and Mahidasht

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Linguistics faculty, Allame tabatabai university, Tehran

Abstract

Previous research on the vowel system of Kalhuri Kurdish disagrees on the number and quality of monophthongs in this dialect. The present research focused on providing a phonological and acoustic account of Kalhuri Kurdish as it is spoken in the cities of Islamabad-e-Gharb, Gilan-e-Gharb, and Mahidasht based on the assumption that each dialect has its own vowel system. Vowel (near)minimal pairs were collected using previous research and data collected from native speakers. Vowels were then analyzed acoustically to determine their exact characteristics and location in the vowel space as well as the most exact phonetic symbol to represent them. Data were collected from 11 native speakers whose age ranged between 28 and 65 years. Words were recorded and analyzed using Praat software. The results revealed that Kalhuri Kurdish has 9 monophthongs (/i, y, eː, ԑ, ә, ӕ, ɑ, o, u/) contrary to what was stated in previous works. Measuring the actual frequencies of the first two formants of the vowel /e/ indicated that the symbol /ԑ/ is a more appropriate choice to display this sound and finally, the case of the vowel /o/ was discussed.

Keywords

Language and Linguistics
Volume 19, Issue 38
September 2024

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