Phonetics and Speech Sciences (말소리와 음성과학)

Korean Society of Speech Sciences (한국음성학회)
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A statistical analysis of vowel inventories of world languages

  • Byunggon Yang (Department of English Education, Pusan National University)
  • Received : 2024.08.10
  • Accepted : 2024.09.10
  • Published : 2024.09.30
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Abstract

Vowels are fundamental elements of spoken language, providing insights into linguistic patterns and phonological systems. This study examines vowel inventories from 913 languages in a database, analyzing their statistical distributions. It investigates unique vowels within each language category, focusing on the two major dimensions of vowel height and backness, including diphthongs. The results show that vowel phonemes without diacritics constitute 30% of all distinct vowel types but account for 64% of the total vowel phonemes, highlighting the dominance of primary vowel articulations. The most frequent vowels are /i/, followed by /u/, /a/, /o/, /e/, /ɛ/, and /ɔ/. Multidimensional scaling of vowels, with or without diacritics, reveals distinctive clusters and co-occurrence patterns, necessitating more detailed analysis. Future research should consider the establishment of linguistic criteria on vowel representation and incorporate actual speech data for comprehensive linguistic studies.

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References

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