Vowel Production in Standard Malay and Kedah Malay Spoken in Malaysia

Authors

  • Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf Universitas Syiah Kuala
  • Stefanie Pillai Universiti Malaya
  • W.A. Wan Aslynn International Islamic University Malaysia
  • Roshidah Binti Hassan Universiti Malaya

Keywords:

Standard Malay, Kedah Malay, vowels, Malay dialects, formant frequencies

Abstract

This study investigates and compares the production of vowels by speakers of Standard Malay (SM) and the Kedah Malay dialect (KD). Previous acoustic studies on the Malay vowels concentrated largely on SM, and there is a dearth of acoustic studies on how these vowels are produced in other Malay dialects. The findings indicate that the vowels /i/, /e/, /ə/ and /o/ were similarly produced by these two groups of speakers, whilst, the vowels /a/ and /o/ were produced higher in the vowel space by the KD speakers compared to those produced by the SM speakers.

Further, the SM speakers produced the diphthong vowels /ai/ and /oi/ with larger movements in the vowel space compared to the KD speakers. Despite the small samples presented in this study, it shows the similarities and variances of vowel production between SM and the KD speakers in Malaysia that are useful for the documentation of languages spoken in this multi-ethnic and multilingual country.

LIJ 15.1 cover

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Published

2021-08-25

How to Cite

Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf, Stefanie Pillai, W.A. Wan Aslynn, & Roshidah Binti Hassan. (2021). Vowel Production in Standard Malay and Kedah Malay Spoken in Malaysia. Linguistics International Journal, 15(1), 65–93. Retrieved from https://connect.academics.education/index.php/lij/article/view/19

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 1 (2021)

Section

Articles

License

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