Instrumental analysis of monophthongs of Hadrami Arabic / Azah Al-Abd Abdullah Al-Tamimi

Azah Al-Abd Abdullah , Al-Tamimi (2023) Instrumental analysis of monophthongs of Hadrami Arabic / Azah Al-Abd Abdullah Al-Tamimi. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

Hadrami Arabic is the dialect spoken by Hadrami people in Hadramawt, the southern part of Yemen. This study aims to instrumentally analyze the acoustic properties of the eight monophthong vowels of Hadrami Arabic, three short vowels (/i/, /a/, /u/) and five long vowels (/i:/, /a:/, /u:/, /e:/ and /ɔ:/). The targeted vowels are placed in between CVC and CCVC syllables, to be inserted in natural sentences. All sentences are read naturally by Hadrami Arabic speakers, who were born and live in the city of Seiyun in Hadramawt. They are aged between 36 – 60 years old. Acoustic and auditory analysis is used to investigate quality and duration of the monophthongs in Hadrami Arabic. Both the first and second formants are analyzed as well as vowel duration in milliseconds based on gender variation. The findings of vowel quality show HA vowels’ classification in the acoustic vowel space. The HA /i/ and /i:/ are high front vowels. The HA /u/ is a high central vowel while the HA /u:/ is a high back vowel. The HA /a/ is a mid-low front vowel while the HA /a:/ is a low front vowel. The HA /e:/ is a mid-high front vowel whereas the HA /ɔ:/ is a low back vowel. The findings of vowel quantity indicate that vowel duration is maintained between all vowel pairs. The duration of long HA vowels is more than double the duration of the short ones. Findings also indicate gender differences in pronouncing vowels for both vowel quality and quantity. While male speakers pronounce higher and more retracted HA vowels, female speakers pronounce longer HA vowels. A comparison between HA vocalic system and other Arabic vocalic system shows that all HA vowels have a slight tendency to be lower and more fronted than all other Arabic vowels and the HA long and short vowels pairs maintain a moderate range of length distinction compared to other vowels of other Arabic dialects.

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