An acoustic description of the Canavesano Piedmontese vowel system

This study presents the first comprehensive acoustic analysis of the stressed and unstressed vowel system in Canavesano Piedmontese, an endangered variety of Piedmontese spoken in the Canavese subregion of northwest Italy. Nineteen native speakers from Rivarolo, Busano, Pont and Salassa Canavese, aged 57-83, participated in sociolinguistic interviews, generating a dataset of 2488 tokens analyzed for formant frequencies (F1 and F2). Results confirm the presence of nine stressed vowels /a,ɛ,e,ø,ə,y,o,u,i/, including the mid-central vowel /ə/, which exhibits distinct acoustic properties compared to surrounding vowels. The unstressed system is reduced to seven vowels /a,e,ø,ə,y,o,u,i/, where /ə/ presents an overlap with /e/. Despite individual variability among speakers and gender-differences, the community-level analysis reveals a stable vowel system similar to Piedmontese koinè and other varieties of Piedmontese. These findings contribute to the documentation of Canavesano Piedmontese, highlighting the importance of acoustic phonetic studies in understanding and conserving endangered languages.