Vowel diagram

The vowel triangle is a graphical arrangement of human vowels according to their place of articulation ( tongue arch or opening degree), especially the monophthongs. The first representation of the vowel triangle goes to the 1781 published doctoral work of the German physician Christoph Friedrich Hellwag ( 1754-1835 ) back:

Representation of the position of the tongue

The base of the triangle formed by the ( as far as the position of the tongue ) "deep" vowel a; the peaks form the "high" vowels i and u ( with lip rounding ) in the front place of articulation and the " high " vowel u at the rear of articulation. An intermediate degree of opening point e and ö ( with lip rounding ) in the front place of articulation and o at the rear articulation point on. It is also another diagram showing the indication of the respective mouth, and which is sometimes called vocal trapezoid.

Representation of the first two formants

From an acoustic point of view, the vowel triangle is better described by the formants of vowels. These are resonances of certain overtones that a special role for the sounds of the musical instruments and the singing voices play in the sound, because they shape the timbre crucial and contribute to recognition. By his tone Laws (1929 ) Erich Schumann was known.

In the shaping sound ( sound design ), a vowel triangle is represented by the two first formant frequencies f1 and f2 are added to the axis of the diagram. When editing a sound recording studio recording the inner perception and memory of the singing vocal timbre of each vowel and the knowledge of the location of their center frequencies is advantageous, and also the sound formative formants important musical instruments are quite helpful in the imagination.