The Voice-Onset Time of Arabic Loanwords in Swahili

Abstract

In their recent survey of loanword adaptation, Paradis and LaCharité (2011) note that voice-onset time (VOT) is useful in distinguishing between phonetic and phonological approximation. The present study considers the role of VOT in Arabic-adapted Swahili words, focusing on initial stops. The results are mixed. On the one hand, it is found that voiceless stops have lower VOT values in Swahili than in Arabic, supporting the idea that Swahili lacks aspiration for Arabic loans, further suggesting that the borrowings have a phonological basis. On the other hand, the voiced stops in both languages show very similar negative values, which substantiate the influence of phonetics on adaptations. The VOT facts reported in this study are valuable independently of adaptation phenomena, as relatively little is known about VOT in Arabic and especially Swahili, in spite of a long tradition of VOT studies (see especially Lisker & Abramson 1964, and Cho & Ladefoged 1999).