Rasha El Khateeb

Production of the German Rounded Umlaut: Difficulties and Strategies of American and Arabic Native-speakers Rasha El Khateeb

This book investigates the difficulties and strategies of American and Arabic native-speakers in the production of the German rounded Umlaut. It attempts to compare between quantity based vowel systems (German and Arabic) and a quality based vowel system (English). Specifically, it acoustically examines the formant structure of vowels and their duration in German with clear and easy to understand illustrations. In addition, the author introduces the language families German, English and Arabic belong to, unfolding the historical development of the German and English vowel systems, by virtue of stemming from the same West Germanic language family; however, being separated within the ages. The book is a good reference for analyzing the German front vowels in depth from an acoustic phonetic perspective.