This project measures and classifies language variation. In contrast to earlier dialectology, we seek a comprehensive characterization of (potentially gradual) differences between dialects, rather than a geographic delineation of (discrete) features of individual words or pronunciations. More general characterizations of dialect differences then become available. We measure phonetic (un)related...

This work provides a method that can be used to build an English TTS for a population who speak a dialect which is not defined and for which no resources exist, by showing how a Text to Speech System (TTS) was developed for the English dialect spoken in Kenya. To begin with, the existence of a unique English dialect which had not previously been defined was confirmed from the need by the Englis...

The present study examined the premise that lexical information (top-down factors) interacts with phonetic detail (bottom-up, episodic traces) by assessing the impact of dialect variation and word frequency on spoken word recognition. Words were either spoken in the listeners’ native dialect (Australian English: AU), or in one of two non-native English dialects differing in phonetic similarity ...

PURPOSE This study provides milestones for phonological development in African American English (AAE) speakers who are learning Mainstream American English (MAE) as a second dialect. METHOD The Dialect Sensitive Language Test (DSLT; H. Seymour, T. Roeper, & J. G. de Villiers, 2000) was administered to a nationwide sample of typically developing children ages 4 through 12: 537 speakers of AAE ...

The objective of this paper is to present an under-resourced language related to Arabic. In fact, in several countries through the Arabic world, no one speaks the modern standard Arabic language. People speak something which is inspired from Arabic but could be very different from the modern standard Arabic. This one is reserved for the official broadcast news, official discourses and so on. Th...

Recent research demonstrates that social preferences for native language speakers emerge early in development, indicating that infants prefer speakers from their own society. Dialect may also be a reliable cue to group membership because it provides information about an individual's social and ethnic identity. We investigated whether infants showed social preferences toward native-dialect speak...

The written form of the Arabic language, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), differs in a nontrivial manner from the various spoken regional dialects of Arabic – the true “native languages” of Arabic speakers. Those dialects, in turn, differ quite a bit from each other. However, due to MSA’s prevalence in written form, almost all Arabic datasets have predominantly MSA content. In this article, we des...

Recent work on London English has found innovation in inner city areas, most likely as the outcome of dialect contact. These innovations are shared by speakers of different ethnic backgrounds, and have been identified as features of Multicultural London English (MLE). This study examines whether syllable timing is a feature of MLE, as work on rhythm shows that dialect and language contact may l...

naming as an inseparable sign of a country’s language has attracted the attention of many linguists to formulate and test hypotheses regarding the culture and language of the people of a certain area. iran appears like a proper destination for conducting a research focusing on naming based on several factors such as geography or chronology. the present article aims to take a specific look at th...