On the relation between the similarity of the acoustic distribution patterns of vowels and the language closeness

Huhe Harnud,Zhou Xuewen

doi:10.1186/s41257-021-00054-5

Abstract

Based on the “Unified Platform for Speech Acoustic Parameters of Chinese Minority Languages”, this paper calculates and compares the acoustic distribution of vowels in Mongolian, Uyghur, and Ewenki and proposes a hypothesis that the relevance between the similarity of the acoustic distribution patterns of vowels and language closeness does exist. It indicates that the acoustic pattern implies clues of closeness and relevance among the three languages. The results demonstrate that, in terms of vowels, Mongolian and Ewenki are closely related. Both those languages and the Uyghur language are distant relatives, with only typological similarity. This paper provides a new perspective for the research methodology of language kindred. It proves that the comparison of acoustic pattern is of significance in studies in linguistics, linguistic typology, historical comparative linguistics, and anthropology.

Highlights

Since the first hypothesis about the relationship between Altaic and some other languages was proposed by Swedish officer Philipp Johann von Strahlenberg in the first half of the eighteenth century, Altaic linguistics has undergone nearly 300 years of research
Based on the Unified Platform (Huhe et al 2009), by analyzing and studying “vowel acoustic dynamic distribution”, “voice acoustic distribution pattern” and “voice acoustic distribution type” of a single language, we found that the similarity of acoustic distribution pattern of segments is related to language closeness
This paper proposes the hypothesis that the similarity of the acoustic distribution pattern of vowels in phonetic segments and language closeness are related

Summary

Introduction

Since the first hypothesis about the relationship between Altaic and some other languages was proposed by Swedish officer Philipp Johann von Strahlenberg in the first half of the eighteenth century, Altaic linguistics has undergone nearly 300 years of research. Keywords Altaic languages · Acoustic distribution pattern · Similarity · Closeness Scholars realize that commonalities and similarities of phonetic features, word formation and syntactic structure are not sufficient to authenticate the features of original languages.

Results

Conclusion