A Phonetic and Acoustic Study of Dento-Alveolar Phonemes in Balti

The present study attempts to classify consonants (Dento-Alveolar phonemes sounds only) of Balti language which  is  spoken  in  Baltistan  region  of  Gilgit-Baltistan  of  Pakistan.  The  study  selects  Balti language because it is one of the lesser known languages in Pakistan and no significant work on  the  sounds  and  sound  system  of  Balti  language  has  ever  been  conducted.  In  order  to classify  Balti  consonants,  120  different  words  were  selected  from  different  Balti  books. Acoustic  analysis  of  Balti  consonants  have  been  checked  in order  to  show  their  physical features  by  using  the software  PRAAT.  To  record  the  samples  of  different  Balti consonant sounds, the researcher selected 20 native Balti speakers between the age group of 16 to 35 studying  in  the  Govt  College  (boys)  Model  Town and  University  of  Management  and Technology,  Lahore  Pakistan.  The physical features of the sound samples of Balti native speakers were shown in the form of spectrograms for each sound. Acoustic analyses of Balti consonant sounds demonstrate that there are 5Dento-Alveolar phonemes in Balti language.