Abstract
To The Editor:
Ha S, Kuehn DP. Temporal Characteristics of nasalization in speakers with and without cleft palate. Cleft Palate Craniofac J. 2011;48:134-144.
We read with interest excellent paper by Ha and Kuehn (2011) in which they reported their study on temporal characteristics of nasalization between English speakers with cleft palate with or without cleft lip (CP±L). They demonstrated that measurements of nasalization duration in English speakers with CP±L are more extensive rather than that of English speakers without CP±L. This result was also consistent with study of the Ha et al. (2004), which surveyed temporal characteristics of nasalization in Korean children with and without CP±L (Ha and Kuehn, 2011).
However, some investigations suggest that the degree of coarticulated nasality is language specific and that different languages may show different patterns of timing, magnitude, duration, and velocity of velopharyngeal movements. The English and Korean languages are similar in terms of nasalization durations and acoustic temporal measures. It should be noted that the English and Korean languages have similar nasal consonants (/m, n, η/) and no phonemically nasalized vowels or diphthongs (Ha and Kuehn, 2006).
Performing an investigation on temporal patterns of nasalization in Persian children with and without CP±L we found the same results. Our results indicated that Persian children with CP±L have significantly longer nasalization duration than children without CP±L (Baghban et al., 2015). Although the Persian language has two nasal consonants (/m, n/), similar to the Korean and English languages, there are no phonemically nasalized vowels or diphthongs. Our study, as well as the study of Ha et al. (2004), showed that the vowel /i/ context would better show the difference between children with and without CP±L in terms of nasalization durations.
Thus, it seems that these three languages (English, Korean, and Persian) have similar temporal patterns of nasalization, so more investigation needs to be performed to prove the language-specific nature of nasalization. Until then, language specificness of temporal characteristics should be noted with caution, at least in languages that have common nasal consonants.
These comparisons give us a better view of similarities and differences between languages in the area of temporal patterns of nasalization in speakers with and without CP±L, and this could be basis for more diagnostic activities.