Comparison on the Frequency of Occurrence of Phonemes in Calicut Dialects

Malayalam is a Dravidian language primarily spoken in the southwest of India.The purpose of the present study was to obtain the frequency of occurrence of various phonemes in Calicut, Quilandi, Coastal dialects using Malayalam conversation samples. Sixty people participated in this study. Each participants were classified in to four groups (Group I-20-30, Group II-31-40, Group III-41-50, Group IV-51-60) based on those from Calicut dialect, Quilandi dialect and Costal dialect. Each group was comprised of 10 males and 10 females with an age range of 20 to 60 participated in the study. The samples obtained were transcribed using IPA transcription. Further analysis was done manually. The results showed that the short central vowel /a/ was the most occurring vowel in Quilandi, dialects, Calicut dialect, coastal dialect. Comparing to the each dialect Quilandi was higher significant productions of vowel because of the number of participants is higher in the Quilandi dialect. In Quilandi dialect the most occurring consonant was dental nasal/n̪/, In Calicut and Coastal dialect voiceless velar stop /k/ was more occurring consonants. Comparing to the each dialect Quilandi was higher significant productions of consonants.To conclude, the current study helps us to understand the most frequency of occurrence of phoneme in each dialects (Calicut, Quilandi, Coastal) in Calicut. There is a significant difference between the all the three dialects. The results obtained will be made available to communication professionals to develop and update several test materials in Malayalam for evaluation and speech and language therapy purpose.