Abstract:
Objective: To documenting the voice onset time in voiced and unvoiced stop consonants in Sinhala and
to investigating the effects of age and gender on voice onset time values in Sinhalese speakers.
Methods: Three groups of participants were employed. Group 1 included 20 children, Group 2 included
20 adults and Group 3 consisted of 20 elderly subjects. All the subjects spoke the dialect of central province
of Sri Lanka. Words consisting of three Sinhala short vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/ in were recorded. Voice onset
time values from two voiced and voiceless stop consonants were extracted.
Results: Voiced stop consonants had significantly longer voice onset time values compared to voiceless
stop consonants. Significant effect of age as well as gender on voice onset time values were also observed.
Conclusion: Supplementary investigations on the normative aspects of voice onset time among the
Sinhala population would provide additional insights and validated tools for indexing the articulatory and
acoustic characteristics of stop consonants in Sinhalese.
