Abstract
Highly representative esophageal vowels (n ;= 191), selected from a listening experiment, were subjected to formant frequency analysis. The major results of this acoustic analysis showed that: (1) mean vowel formant frequencies for female esophageal speakers (n = 13) were higher than for males (n = 14); (2) the changes in formant frequency from vowel to vowel were systematic and were essentially the same for normal and esophageal speakers, and (3) average vowel formant frequency values for esophageal speakers were consistently higher than those reported for normal speakers [G. Peterson and H. Barney, J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 24, 175–184 (1952)]. Laryngectomy results in wellknown changes in source-function characteristics. The present data provide strong support for the hypothesis that removal of the larynx also results in changed vocal-tract transmission characteristics. A reduction in vocal-tract length for laryngectomized persons using esophageal speech is suggested. [This research was supported in part by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke.]
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