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  1. Article ; Online: Comparative Analysis of Majority Language Influence on North Sámi Prosody Using WaveNet-Based modeling.

    Hiovain, Katri / Suni, Antti / Kakouros, Sofoklis / Šimko, Juraj

    Language and speech

    2020  Volume 65, Issue 4, Page(s) 859–888

    Abstract: The Finnmark North Sámi is a variety of North Sámi language, an indigenous, endangered minority language spoken in the northernmost parts of Norway and Finland. The speakers of this language are bilingual, and regularly speak the majority language ( ... ...

    Abstract The Finnmark North Sámi is a variety of North Sámi language, an indigenous, endangered minority language spoken in the northernmost parts of Norway and Finland. The speakers of this language are bilingual, and regularly speak the majority language (Finnish or Norwegian) as well as their own North Sámi variety. In this paper we investigate possible influences of these majority languages on prosodic characteristics of Finnmark North Sámi, and associate them with prosodic patterns prevalent in the majority languages. We present a novel methodology that: (a) automatically finds the portions of speech (words) where the prosodic differences based on majority languages are most robustly manifested; and (b) analyzes the nature of these differences in terms of intonational patterns. For the first step, we trained convolutional WaveNet speech synthesis models on North Sámi speech material, modified to contain purely prosodic information, and used conditioning embeddings to find words with the greatest differences between the varieties. The subsequent exploratory analysis suggests that the differences in intonational patterns between the two Finnmark North Sámi varieties are not manifested uniformly across word types (based on part-of-speech category). Instead, we argue that the differences reflect phrase-level prosodic characteristics of the majority languages.
    MeSH term(s) Humans ; Language ; Speech ; Speech Perception ; Norway
    Language English
    Publishing date 2020-12-29
    Publishing country England
    Document type Journal Article
    ZDB-ID 3312-1
    ISSN 1756-6053 ; 0023-8309
    ISSN (online) 1756-6053
    ISSN 0023-8309
    DOI 10.1177/0023830920983591
    Database MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System OnLINE

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  2. Article ; Online: Dialectal variation of duration patterns in Finnmark North Sámi quantity.

    Hiovain, Katri / Vainio, Martti T / Šimko, Juraj

    The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

    2020  Volume 147, Issue 4, Page(s) 2817

    Abstract: Ternary length contrast is a rare phonological feature, investigated here both in terms of its realization and possible undergoing changes. In North Sámi, a phonetically under-documented and endangered Fenno-Ugric language spoken by indigenous people in ... ...

    Abstract Ternary length contrast is a rare phonological feature, investigated here both in terms of its realization and possible undergoing changes. In North Sámi, a phonetically under-documented and endangered Fenno-Ugric language spoken by indigenous people in Northern Europe, the ternary quantity contrast is assumed to be signalled by a progressive lengthening of a consonant and a compensatory shortening of the previous vowel. This study evaluates this assumption and compares the realization of the length contrasts in two dialects, the Western and Eastern Finnmark North Sámi. The results show that while the contrast between the short and the two longer quantities is robustly signaled regardless of the dialect, the durational differences between the two longer quantities are maintained only in the Eastern dialect. On the other hand, a vowel quantity contrast independent of the quantity of the following consonant is present in the Western but not in the Eastern dialect. Further, comparing the phonetic realization of the ternary quantity contrast for speakers of different ages presents evidence of a language change: the results indicate an ongoing neutralization of the ternary contrast in younger speakers, which points to a possible disappearance of this rare typological feature in Finnmark North Sámi.
    MeSH term(s) Europe ; Language ; Phonetics ; Speech Production Measurement
    Language English
    Publishing date 2020-05-18
    Publishing country United States
    Document type Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
    ZDB-ID 219231-7
    ISSN 1520-8524 ; 0001-4966
    ISSN (online) 1520-8524
    ISSN 0001-4966
    DOI 10.1121/10.0000994
    Database MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System OnLINE

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  3. Book ; Online: Dialect Identification of Spoken North S\'ami Language Varieties Using Prosodic Features

    Kakouros, Sofoklis / Hiovain, Katri / Vainio, Martti / Šimko, Juraj

    2020  

    Abstract: This work explores the application of various supervised classification approaches using prosodic information for the identification of spoken North S\'ami language varieties. Dialects are language varieties that enclose characteristics specific for a ... ...

    Abstract This work explores the application of various supervised classification approaches using prosodic information for the identification of spoken North S\'ami language varieties. Dialects are language varieties that enclose characteristics specific for a given region or community. These characteristics reflect segmental and suprasegmental (prosodic) differences but also high-level properties such as lexical and morphosyntactic. One aspect that is of particular interest and that has not been studied extensively is how the differences in prosody may underpin the potential differences among different dialects. To address this, this work focuses on investigating the standard acoustic prosodic features of energy, fundamental frequency, spectral tilt, duration, and their combinations, using sequential and context-independent supervised classification methods, and evaluated separately over two different units in speech: words and syllables. The primary aim of this work is to gain a better understanding on the role of prosody in identifying among the different language varieties. Our results show that prosodic information holds an important role in distinguishing between the five areal varieties of North S\'ami where the inclusion of contextual information for all acoustic prosodic features is critical for the identification of dialects for words and syllables.
    Keywords Electrical Engineering and Systems Science - Audio and Speech Processing
    Subject code 400
    Publishing date 2020-03-23
    Publishing country us
    Document type Book ; Online
    Database BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (life sciences selection)

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  4. Article ; Online: Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures.

    Ćwiek, Aleksandra / Fuchs, Susanne / Draxler, Christoph / Asu, Eva Liina / Dediu, Dan / Hiovain, Katri / Kawahara, Shigeto / Koutalidis, Sofia / Krifka, Manfred / Lippus, Pärtel / Lupyan, Gary / Oh, Grace E / Paul, Jing / Petrone, Caterina / Ridouane, Rachid / Reiter, Sabine / Schümchen, Nathalie / Szalontai, Ádám / Ünal-Logacev, Özlem /
    Zeller, Jochen / Winter, Bodo / Perlman, Marcus

    Scientific reports

    2021  Volume 11, Issue 1, Page(s) 10108

    Abstract: Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their ... ...

    Abstract Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.
    Language English
    Publishing date 2021-05-12
    Publishing country England
    Document type Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
    ZDB-ID 2615211-3
    ISSN 2045-2322 ; 2045-2322
    ISSN (online) 2045-2322
    ISSN 2045-2322
    DOI 10.1038/s41598-021-89445-4
    Database MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System OnLINE

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  5. Article ; Online: The

    Ćwiek, Aleksandra / Fuchs, Susanne / Draxler, Christoph / Asu, Eva Liina / Dediu, Dan / Hiovain, Katri / Kawahara, Shigeto / Koutalidis, Sofia / Krifka, Manfred / Lippus, Pärtel / Lupyan, Gary / Oh, Grace E / Paul, Jing / Petrone, Caterina / Ridouane, Rachid / Reiter, Sabine / Schümchen, Nathalie / Szalontai, Ádám / Ünal-Logacev, Özlem /
    Zeller, Jochen / Perlman, Marcus / Winter, Bodo

    Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences

    2021  Volume 377, Issue 1841, Page(s) 20200390

    Abstract: ... ...

    Abstract The
    MeSH term(s) Data Collection ; Humans ; Language ; Phonetics ; Social Change ; Writing
    Language English
    Publishing date 2021-11-15
    Publishing country England
    Document type Journal Article ; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
    ZDB-ID 208382-6
    ISSN 1471-2970 ; 0080-4622 ; 0264-3839 ; 0962-8436
    ISSN (online) 1471-2970
    ISSN 0080-4622 ; 0264-3839 ; 0962-8436
    DOI 10.1098/rstb.2020.0390
    Database MEDical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System OnLINE

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