Paper presented at NSA 2009 1 SPEECH RHYTHM IN KANNADA SPEAKING CHILDREN Savithri S. R. 1 , Sreedevi N. 2 & Kavya V. 3 1 Professor, Department of Speech-Language Sciences 2 Lecturer, Department of Speech-Language Sciences 3 Research Officer, Department of Speech-Language Sciences All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Manasagangothri, Mysore – 6 ABSTRACT The present study investigated the type of speech rhythm in normally developing Kannada speaking children. Five children in the age group of 8-9 years were selected and screened for oral mechanism and function, speech, language and hearing. A five-minute speech sample of each child was elicited using pictures depicting simple stories which was audio-recorded. The speech samples were transferred on to Adobe Audition software and the Vocalic (V) and Intervocalic (IV) durations were measured. The duration difference between successive vocalic and intervocalic segments was calculated and averaged to get the normalized Pairwise Variability Index (nPVI) and raw Pairwise Variability Index (rPVI), respectively. The results indicated high nPVI and low rPVI values and therefore the rhythmic pattern remains ‘unclassified’. Keywords: Speech rhythm, Vocalic duration, Intervocalic duration, Pairwise Variability Index Introduction Rhythm, a prosodic feature, refers to an event repeated regularly over a period of time. Rhythm depends on the language and the types of syllables used in a language. Languages differ in characteristic rhythm and with respect to adult speakers, have been organized under stress-timed, syllable-timed and mora-timed based on the Rhythm Class Hypothesis. The hypothesis states that each language belongs to one of the prototypical rhythm. When a language has simple syllabic structure, for e.g. VC or CCV, the durational difference between the simplest and most complicated syllable is not wide. This durational difference maybe less than 330ms. Under these circumstances, the rhythm of the language is said to be a fast syllable-timed rhythm. If the syllabic structure is still simpler, for e.g. VC or CV, then the durational difference between syllables is negligible and it is called a mora- timed language. When a language has complex syllabic structure, for e.g. V and CCCVCC,