F1 and F2 Correlation with F0: A Study of Vowels of Hindi, Punjabi, Korean and Thai

This is an empirical study of the peripheral vowels of four languages, Hindi, Punjabi, Thai and Korean in terms of two parameters, namely F0 variation, and acoustic space calculated by using two lower formants, F1 and F2. We examine all peripheral vowels (with level tone in case of Thai and Punjabi) to find out the correlation between the pitch of voice, a laryngeal phenomenon and the resonance phenomenon/acoustic space. The results based on four different languages including two tonal languages, Punjabi and Thai give us some interesting hypotheses to be explored further with data from more languages. The correlations are studied using SPSS. The results are interesting, the formants F1 and F2 show a statistically significant correlation with F0/Pitch of voice. F0 and F1 correlation and F0 and F2 correlation have significant implications for comparison across speakers for speaker characterization and forensic applications. These results also have significant application in speech pathology, for developing tools and instruments for assessment and therapeutic speech procedures in speech pathology.