Production of American English and Spanish Vowels

Abstract

The acoustical spectrum of the Spanish vowels /i, a, u/ and their English counterparts were analyzed and compared. The English speakers were asked to produce the /i, a, u/ vowel sounds as in the words heed, father, food but in isolation, while the Spanish speakers produced the vowel sounds as in si, paso, tu. Statistical analysis showed no significant difference for the vowels /i, a/ between languages. For the vowel /u/, there was a statistically significant difference. These observations indicate that on the average both vowel systems (for /i, a/) are produced with similar peak frequencies in the acoustic spectrum. The spectrographic analysis of vowel /u/ does not point toward acoustical equivalency.