Reference values of Czech formants

The paper by R. Skarnitzl and J. Volín Reference values of vowel formants for young adult speakers of Standard Czech (Akustické listy, 2012) provides vowel formant values for 75 university-level students (48 females, 27 males).

The figure shows formant fields on the ERB (psychoacoustic) and Hertz (objective) scales. The non-high short and long vowels – /e eː, a aː and o oː/ – manifest almost complete overlap. A qualitative difference in the close front vowels was desribed decades ago, hence the transcription /ɪ/ and /iː/. Our data showed a smaller degree of qualitative difference in the close back vowels, suggesting a sound change in progress – the difference between the short /u/ and the long /uː/ has already exceeded the just noticeable difference.

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The following table summarizes rounded values in Hertz for male speakers.

vowel F1 (Hz) F2 (Hz)
ɪ 410 1940
280 2260
e eː 570 1550
a aː 670 1250
o oː 470 1040
u 360 940
300 770
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