2026 Theses Bachelor's

An Acoustic Sketch of Kalmyk-Oirad

Parkhurst, Benjamin

Kalmyk-Oirad (Kalmyk) is an endangered Western Mongolic language primarily spoken in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia. This thesis provides an overview of the phonetic properties of Kalmyk's 26 consonants and 17 vowels, and acoustically quantifies correlates to the phonological processes of voiced stop lenition, voiced fricative fortition, and nasal place assimilation, using modern acoustic analysis methods and technologies. Preliminary neural network-based analysis of assimilatory devoicing is also performed. Phonetic and phonological research on Kalmyk is limited in English, and to the author's knowledge, this is the first quantitative, acoustic-phonetic study of Kalmyk to use these modern tools. This investigation is conducted with the goal of contributing to the revitalization and protection of Kalmyk by using phonetic data to improve existing dictionaries and develop resources for heritage and second-language learners.

Keywords: Kalmyk, Kalmyk-Oirat, Phonetics, Acoustics, Acoustic Phonetics, Mongolic, Linguistics