Acoustic Features and Perceptive Cues of Songs and Dialogues in Whistled Speech: Convergences with Sung Speech

Abstract

Whistled speech is a little studied local use of language shaped by several cultures of the world either for distant dialogues or for rendering traditional songs. This practice consists of an emulation of the voice thanks to a simple modulated pitch. It is therefore the result of a transformation of the vocal signal that implies simplifications in the frequency domain. The whistlers adapt their productions to the way each language combines the qualities of height perceived simultaneously by the human ear in the complex frequency spectrum of the spoken or sung voice (pitch, timbre). As a consequence, this practice underlines key acoustic cues for the intelligibility of the concerned languages. The present study provides an analysis of the acoustic and phonetic features selected by whistled speech in several traditions either in purely oral whistles (Spanish, Turkish, Mazatec) or in whistles produced with an instrument like a leaf (Akha, Hmong). It underlines the convergences with the strategies of the singing voice to reach the audience or to render the phonetic information carried by the vowel (tone, identity) and some aesthetic effects like ornamentation.