Effect of Age on Formant Frequencies in Kannada Speakers

Formants are the concentration of the acoustic energy around a frequency in the speech wave. Kaur and Narang (1) have noted the variation of pitch and formants in the different age groups in the English language. The current study aimed to find the relation between the aging and formant frequency (F1 and F2) in the Kannada language. The methodology of the study involved eight males and eight females (2 of 8–10 years of age, 2 of 18–20 years of age, 2 of 48–50 years of age, and 2 of above 60 years of age) who were native Kannada speakers. The participants were instructed to repeat the non-sense words V1CV2 in which V2 was /a/always. V1 consisted of three short vowels and three long vowels. The non-sense words used were aka, ika, uka, a: ka, i:ka, and u:ka. The subjects were asked to repeat thrice. In total, 288 tokens were collected for the study. The speech sample is recorded in the Praat software in an acoustically treated room and being the microphone placed 3 cm away from the mouth. The mean of the F1 and F2 of the steady part of the initial vowel (V1) excluding the onset and offset of the three trials is considered. Then, the F1 and F2 were compared across the age group and gender. The present study found that the F1 and F2 decrease as age increases in both males and females.