Phonetics experts have completed a project that reveals the hidden workings of the human tongue and vocal tracts using 1,500 ultrasound videos.
The unique corpus of ultrasound videos was compiled as part of a research project looking at how speakers of different accents move their tongues and lips.
Researchers on the Dynamic Dialects project, led by the University of Glasgow used Ultrasound Tongue Imaging equipment to reveal how the hidden mechanics of our lips and tongues, combine to produce the distinct accents from different speakers of English around the world.
The most extensive study of its kind, the project looked at native English speakers from 48 regions and 16 different countries around the world, building up a comprehensive picture of how and why different accents of English are distinct from one another.
The publicly accessible corpus is designed to be used as a teaching tool for speech and language professionals, as well as a resource for future study by teachers, students and researchers of phonetics.
The three-year project was a collaboration between researchers at the University of Glasgow, Queen Margaret University, UCL and Edinburgh Napier University, and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland.
The videos in the Dynamic Dialects accent database include sets of 27 reference words, along with and a brief sample of spontaneous conversational speech from each speaker.
The ultrasound videos have been synchronised with audio and video of moving lips so that researchers are afforded a clearer view than ever before of how the precise mechanics of speech is produced.
Currently it has imaged English speakers from the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, India, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Tanzania, Trinidad and the Philippines.
The team will also be re-launching a phonetics teaching resource, Seeing Speech, which contains 360 moving 2-D videos showing the inside of the vocal tract.
The videos were obtained using ultrasound tongue imaging and magnetic resonance imaging technology.
The updated version of the Seeing Speech website contains 60 2-D vocal tract animations, based on MRI recordings, with moving tongue, jaw, lips, larynx, epiglottis and velum.
Together with the new Dynamic Dialects resource, the two video-based corpora will provide a unique and extensive visual resource for study of speech and will be a key resource for both students and teachers of linguistics and speech therapy.
Started in 2011, Seeing Speech is a collaboration between the University of Glasgow, Queen Margaret University, UCL, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh University, Strathclyde University and the University of Aberdeen.
The new Web resources will be launched at a public event in the Glasgow Science Centre on May 30 where members of the public will be invited to get their tongues imaged using ultrasound technology.
