Vowels of Akan

The tongue arching model has been used in the traditional description of vowels using the approximate height and backness of the tongue, where the vowel qualities of languages, including Akan, have been presented in the form of a quadrilateral with the points representing the vowels. These points are said to have a direct relationship with the highest point to which the tongue is raised in the production of the vowel. Research has however shown that the labels "height" and "backness" should only be regarded as labels with respect to the determination of vowel quality because they only reflect a listener s auditory impressionistic judgements. This book is a cross-dialect acoustic study of the vowels of Akan, a Kwa language of Ghana by using the first and second formants to determine vowel quality in Akan. Results of this study revealed slight differences between the Fante and Twi dialects in terms of the vowels they each use. The results should be useful to professionals in the field of phonetics and phonology and anyone who might be interested in experimental phonetics.