Sonic Portrait

This artwork traces the acquisition of the Danish vowel /y/, as in hygge. Through repeated attempts, the speaker's pronunciation shifts - each spectrogram capturing a moment of articulation in transition. These four images are voiceprints: acoustic and visual records of a phoneme being learned. Subtle changes in formant structure reflect the fine motor adjustments of speech. The data were generated and analyzed using Praat, an open-source tool for phonetic research. Together, the images form a sonic portrait of a vowel, a study in adaptation, where speech and language takes shape through repetition and time.