An Investigation of Indian Native Language Phonemic Influences on L2 English Pronunciations

TL;DR

This study analyzes how phonemic features of 18 Indian languages influence Indian English pronunciations, providing detailed phonetic insights to improve accent adaptation in speech systems.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive phonological analysis of Indian language influences on Indian English, validated through speech data from 80 speakers, aiding accent conversion and speech system adaptation.

Findings

Identification of phonemic variations from 18 Indian languages affecting IE pronunciation

Validation of phonological influence through speech data and literature comparison

Provision of rules for accent adaptation in ASR and TTS systems

Abstract

Speech systems are sensitive to accent variations. This is especially challenging in the Indian context, with an abundance of languages but a dearth of linguistic studies characterising pronunciation variations. The growing number of L2 English speakers in India reinforces the need to study accents and L1-L2 interactions. We investigate the accents of Indian English (IE) speakers and report in detail our observations, both specific and common to all regions. In particular, we observe the phonemic variations and phonotactics occurring in the speakers' native languages and apply this to their English pronunciations. We demonstrate the influence of 18 Indian languages on IE by comparing the native language pronunciations with IE pronunciations obtained jointly from existing literature studies and phonetically annotated speech of 80 speakers. Consequently, we are able to validate the intuitions of Indian language influences on IE pronunciations by justifying pronunciation rules from the perspective of Indian language phonology. We obtain a comprehensive description in terms of universal and region-specific characteristics of IE, which facilitates accent conversion and adaptation of existing ASR and TTS systems to different Indian accents.