Kunming is located in central Yunnan Province, China, and according to the Atlas of Chinese Languages (1988), the Kunming dialect belongs to the Southwest Official Language. In the past, the study of the Kunming dialect has focused on phonology, and there has never been an experimental study of Kunming dialect vowels. We made an experimental phonetics analysis on the recordings of 14 speakers in the Kunming dialect of Yunnan province. Acoustic experiments extracted resonance peak F1 and F2 data to analyze the first-order vowels in the Kunming dialect.
The voice record using Audacity software, mono, 16-bit, 44100Hz; each experimental word on the pronunciation word list was read three times.
The speech samples' first resonance peak (F1) and second resonance peak (F2) data were extracted using Praat speech analysis software. The acoustic data of the vowels were processed and collated using Excel software, and the acoustic vowel maps were created using Xiong Ziyu's Pratt script.
When plotting the acoustic vowel diagram, the origin of the coordinates is set in the upper right-hand corner, and the data of the first resonance peak (F1) is used as the vertical coordinate and the data of the second resonance peak (F2) as the horizontal coordinate using the logarithmic marking method. The first resonance peak (F1) negatively correlates with the lingual position. The lower the F1 value, the higher the lingual position; the second resonance peak (F2) is negatively correlated with the front and back of the linguistic class. The lower the F2 value, the more forward the lingual position.
Unlike Mandarin, the first-order vowels in the Kunming dialect have unique characteristics. The experimental results showed that the seven first-order vowels in the Kunming dialect are prelingual high vowel /i/, postlingual high vowel /u/, postlingual low vowel /ᴀ/, prelingual semi-low vowel /ɛ/, lingual central mid vowel /ə/, prelingual high vowel /ɿ/ and lingual posterior high vowel /ʅ/.
Regarding the distribution area, the first-level vowels /ᴀ/, /ɛ/, and /ə/ in the Kunming dialect have more internal variants, are more widely distributed, and have a greater internal dispersion rate. The two vowels /ɛ/ and /ə/ in the first-degree vowels of the Kunming dialect are slightly dynamic in their articulation, resulting in a larger distribution space and showing a more pronounced dynamic range on the pattern diagram. Because mid vowels are less stable than top vowels and often show slippage, they are still unitary.
The gender grouping experiments showed that males had more variants within the first vowel, with a higher total dispersion rate than females. Females had a more distinct first vowel pattern and a more posterior mid vowel /ə/.
