The southern drawl gets deconstructed
Understanding vowel sound diversity could improve Siri
By
Rachel Ehrenberg
3:14pm, June 30, 2017
BOSTON — Some aspects of speech are as Southern as pecan pie. Consider the vowel shift that makes the word pie sound more like “pah.” While that pronunciation is found from Florida to Texas, a new study reveals a surprising diversity in Southern vowel pronunciation that’s linked to a speaker’s age, social class, gender, race and geography.
The research, presented June 29 at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, could help software developers create better speech recognition tools for smartphones and other devices.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/southern-drawl-gets-deconstructed?mode=topic&context=49
