The quantification of speech intelligibility of malay words by means of corner vowels

• Main Authors: Ahmad, Muhammad 'Aasim Asyafi'ie, Harun, Mokhtar, Ibrahim, Md. Najib, Shapiai, Mohd. Ibrahim, Khalid, Puspa Inayat, Abdul Hamid, Siti Zaleha
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: TK7885-7895 Computer engineer. Computer hardware
• Online Access: http://eprints.utm.my/id/eprint/62206/; http://www.ukm.my/car/en/event/5th-international-conference-on-noise-vibration-and-comfort-nvc-2015-2/

Speech intelligibility is important for communication and different techniques have been developed to quantify it. This includes the frequency responses of corner vowels. However, such techniques have not been used for Malay language. The purpose of this study is to analyze the frequency response of spoken Malay to quantify speech intelligibility. The study was done by playing 15 recorded Malay words, spoken by two speakers, in anechoic room and reverberant room. From this, the value of first formant frequency (F1) and second formant frequency (F2) were obtained. F1 and F2 were then used to derive the differences of F2 and F1 (F2-F1) and to calculate the vowel working space (VWS) area. This study found that the value of F2-F1of vowel /i/ is affected by speech intelligibility. Also, smaller VWS area was found for room with less speech intelligibility.