Acoustics of Spanish vowels as spoken in two regions of Colombia

Abstract

It has long been believed that Spanish dialects do not differ with respect to vowels. However, acoustic differences between Spanish dialects have been reported anecdotally. A reasonable assumption then is that, like English, Spanish dialects would vary both within and across countries. In fact, dialect differences have been found within regions of Panama [M. C. McNair, ‘‘An acoustical analysis of Panamanian vowels,’’ unpublished Master’s Thesis (1996), University of South Florida]. Therefore, the following analysis was conducted to determine if acoustic differences exist within Colombian Spanish. Nine male monolingual Spanish speakers from two cities of Colombia (Barranquilla and Santa Fe Bogota) produced three tokens of each of the five Spanish vowels in bilabial, alveolar, and velar environments within the frame, ‘‘Escribe CVCV bien.’’ Spectral and temporal measurements were calculated for each vowel in the first syllable of the word. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant four way interaction suggesting that differences between dialects were dependent upon specific contexts, vowels, and formants. While vowel differences between dialects were subtle, perceptual differences in prosody and consonant production emerged.