A crosslinguistic investigation of vowel formants in babbling

TLDR

The study investigates how target language influences infant babbling across cultures. The authors recorded and spectrally analyzed 1,047 vowels from 20 ten‑month‑old infants in four language groups, generating F1‑F2 plots for each subject and group. Statistical analysis shows that infants’ vowel production differs by language background, mirroring adult speech patterns and suggesting early development of target‑language‑oriented skills.

Abstract

ABSTRACT A cross-cultural investigation of the influence of target-language in babbling was carried out. 1047 vowels produced by twenty 10-month-old infants from Parisian French, London English, Hong Kong Cantonese and Algiers Arabic language backgrounds were recorded in the cities of origin and spectrally analysed. F1-F2 plots of these vowels were obtained for each subject and each language group. Statistical analyses provide evidence of differences between infants across language backgrounds. These differences parallel those found in adult speech in the corresponding languages. Implications of an early build-up of target-language-oriented production skills are discussed.