An instrumental study of front oral monophthongs in Kensiu / Adilah Azizan

Adilah , Azizan (2020) An instrumental study of front oral monophthongs in Kensiu / Adilah Azizan. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

This paper acoustically examines the front oral vowels of Kensiu, a highly endangered Austroasiatic language spoken in Peninsular Malaysia. Although there have been initial studies on the phonology of Kensiu, (Bishop, 1996; Burenhult, 2001), these are mainly on the variety spoken in Thailand. This far, there is a lack of studies especially those based on the acoustic analysis. The changes in the sounds of Kensiu are likely to have taken place with increasing contact with the local Malay community in Kedah where the only Kensiu village is located. This paper aims to fill the gap by examining the acoustic properties of front oral monophthongs in Kensiu using a formant frequency model to examine the characteristics of these monophthongs and if there is vowel conflation between these monophthongs. Five female Kensiu native speakers aged between 50 to 62 years old from Kampung Siong in Lubuk Lengong located in Baling, Kedah were recorded. Data were obtained by showing the speakers pictures containing words with the target vowels. Based on measurements of the first formant (F1) and second formant frequencies (F2), the findings suggest that there may be only four front oral vowel phonemes in the Kensiu spoken in Kedah compared to five in the variety spoken in Yala, Thailand. This is due to the conflations of neighbouring vowels as well as possible influence from Malay. This study contributes to our understanding of the Kensiu sound system.

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