Thursday, February 20, 2014

Week 5 Vowels in Suzhou dialect

Vowels in Suzhou dialects are based on six simple vowels:
         a          e        i       o         u          y
        /ɑ/         /ɛ/      /i/      /ɔ/        /ʊ/       /iy/
Above is the vowel chart I retrieved from Wikipedia. Since there is no official vowel chart published by government or other authorities, I assumed this chart is collected and made by some phonology scholars and it seemed to me the chart is made by some non-native speakers because there are far more diphthongs and triphthongs not included in it.

Below is a vowel chart concluded by some experts of Suzhou dialect who are all native Suzhou citizens. It is not presented in IPA style but in pinyin and distinct phonetic symbols used in Wu dialect.

From the chart above, we can see that vowels in Suzhou dialect are far more complicated because there are many triphthongs and some tricky diphthongs; however, unlike English, we do not have glides in the system.
Next I'll focus on the two features of the Suzhou dialect, triphthongs and nasalization (not exactly the same nasalization in English, but for now let's just call it that) frequently appeared in my archetype. 

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