Vowels in Malacca Portuguese Creole

• Authors: Stefanie Pillai , Min En Chan , Alan Norman Baxter
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper examines the vowel system of present day Malacca Portuguese Creole (MPC) or Kristang, based on recordings from interviews with five female native speakers of MPC. A total of 1083 monophthongs were extracted from the recordings. The first and second formants of these vowels were measured and analysed. Considerable variation was found within and between the speakers in the way each of the vowels was produced. There were also noticeable overlaps between /i/ and /e/ suggesting that they were being used interchangeably. Based on the variation in the way that vowels are produced, and the overlaps between vowels, the findings suggest the possibility of phonological instability of this endangered language.

Keywords

EN

Malacca Portuguese Creole (MPC); Kristang; vowels; acoustic analysis

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Łódzki. Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
• Journal: Research in Language
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 13
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 248-265

Dates

published

2015-09-30

Contributors

author

Stefanie Pillai

• University of Malaya

author

Min En Chan

author

Alan Norman Baxter

• Federal University of Bahia, Salvador

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/rela-2015-0024