Influence of Khasi Language on Nasal and Oral Passages in English: A Nasometric Study

Speech is a overlaid function of respiratory, phonatory, resonatory, articulatory systems . Nasalance can be defined as the relative amounts of oral and nasal acoustic energy in speech done by modification of oral and nasal cativities that is complex activity of the resonator system. Nasometer was developed by Samuel Fletcher, Larry Adams, and Martin McCutcheon at the University is a computer based instrument facilitating accurate analysis of signal yielding nasalance scores. There is no report regarding nasalence score variance in khasi language speakers speaking English. Materials and Methods The study aims at analysing and measuring nasalence score in Khasi speakers reading English passages. A total of 5 female subjects were chosen who were native speakers of khasi language and who had exposure of English language since childhoods were selected. Nasometer II Model 6400 (Software version 2.6) of Key Elemetrics Corporation was used. Three standardized passages (Zoo passage, Rainbow passage and nasal sentences) were used for the study. Results The mean nasalance scores obtained for zoo, rainbow and nasal sentences in female were 19.39± 12.21 SD, 38.13 ± 14.83 SD, 68.33 ± 15.29 SD and 18.26 ± 3.53 SD, 33.13 ± 1.68 SD, 63.20 ± 88 SD respectively. Standard norms show significant differences in nasalance scores obtained for Zoo, Rainbow and Nasal Sentences. Paired t-test was used for comparison among the sentences and computation of data show more significant differences for nasal sentences as compared to zoo and rainbow sentences, that is significant (p>0.05). Rainbow sentences revealed more nasalance scores than zoo sentences (p>0.05) i.e. level of significance. Conclusion The reported normative Nasalance data can be used by several voice clinicians for assessing resonance quantitively for khasi speakers using austrioasiatic language.