Abstrsct This study investigates the acoustic characteristics of the simple vowels of the Central Kurdish, focusing on parameters such as formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3), fundamental frequency (F0), vowel intensity, and duration. The primary aim of the thesis is to describe and analyze these acoustic features in detail. The data comprises 1,600 phonetic samples of the vowels /ɑ/, /i/, /e/, /o/, /u/, /ə/, /a/, and /ɵ/, produced by 20 native speakers of CK (10 males and 10 females). Each speaker repeated the target words twice. The vowels were embedded in four consonantal contexts: /hVC/, /bVC/, /gVC/, and /dVC/, and recorded in an acoustic phonetics laboratory. The recordings were analyzed using PRAAT, and the resulting data were processed using Python. The acoustic analysis revealed distinct patterns across the vowel set for both male and female speakers. Female speakers consistently exhibited higher pitch values than males, with the schwa vowel showing the highest fundamental frequency and /e/ the lowest. Low vowels demonstrated higher first formant frequencies, indicating more open articulation, while front vowels had higher second formant frequencies, reflecting forward tongue placement. Males produced louder vowels on average, and high vowels tended to have longer durations than central vowels. Comparative analysis with Kermanshahi Kurdish showed that CK vowels generally have lower pitch and more fronted articulation but less open vocal tract configurations. Compared to Persian (Farsi), particularly among female speakers, CK vowels display lower pitch, softer intensity, shorter durations, and more fronted articulation. The study also found that surrounding consonants influence vowel acoustics: initial consonants such as /h/ increase pitch and intensity, while final nasals lower formant frequencies and intensity. Voiced consonants at the end of the syllable tend to extend vowel duration. These findings provide valuable insights into dialectal variation and contribute to fields such as speech analysis and synthesis. Despite some data inconsistencies, the results present a foundational reference for further phonetic and linguistic research on CK vowels.
