An An Acoustic Analysis of Oromo and Amharic Ejective Stops

Authors

Keywords:

Oromo, Amharic, Ejective, Acoustic, Stops

Abstract

Previous acoustic studies of ejective sounds seem to have concentrated on the comparison of ejective stops with their pulmonic voiceless stops. The current study investigates ejective stops of Amharic and Oromo in order to examine if there are significant variations within the sounds and between the two languages. The audio data for the study were collected from 36 undergraduate students who are native speakers of their respective languages. Nine acoustic measures, which include temporal and spectral parameters, were extracted from the data. Analysis of the acoustic measures reveals a significant variation within ejective stops with respect to most acoustic variables under investigation. However, there is no significant variation between languages in all acoustic measures. Most tokens of the sounds are correctly classified with the spectral moments of their burst noise. Typologically, ejective stops of the languages cannot be categorically classified as slack or stiff and diffuse or compact based on their acoustic properties. Overall, it is concluded that more differences are observed within the sounds than between the languages. 

Published

2021-12-27

How to Cite

1.
Negesse F. An An Acoustic Analysis of Oromo and Amharic Ejective Stops. Canadian Acoustics [Internet]. 2021 Dec. 27 [cited 2022 Jun. 26];49(4). Available from: https://jcaa.caa-aca.ca/index.php/jcaa/article/view/3437

Issue

Vol. 49 No. 4 (2021)

Section

Article - Speech Sciences

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