Japanese “street seller’s voice”

The term “Street Seller’s Voice” (henceforth SSV) refers to a category of voice quality which can be uttered only by, but not all, Japanese young girls, especially selling something cute and fashionable. We can hear this voice at cake shops, but never at “wagashi” (i.e., Japanese cake) shops, since “wagashi” is not cute and fashionable, unlike western cake which for Japanese people is cute. In order to catch the nature of SSV we recorded voices of several street sellers, and also conducted MRI experiments with 3 subjects. The results suggest that SSV has a twang quality [e.g., Estill et al. 1983, Proc. Stockholm Music Acoustics Conference, 157-174; Honda et al. 1995, Vocal Fold Physiology; Voice Quality Control, 23-38], which is manifested in the acoustic signal by, among other things, sustained high energy in the upper frequency regions, and may possibly be produced with high larynx and change in pharyngeal cavity size. One advantage to this type of voice production is it is easily heard in a noisy environment and puts minimum strain on the vocal folds [Estill, personal communication]. [This work was supported by the following grants: JSPS Grants A #15H02605 and A #25240026.]