The study investigates dispersion and variability of the vowels of three Chinese dialects,namely Yongding (Hakka or Kejia),(Hong Kong) Cantonese,and Wenling (Wu) with three,seven,and eleven vowel phonemes,respectively.Measurements of formant frequencies were obtained through a spectral analysis of speech data from ten male and ten female speakers of each dialect.Results show that a larger inventory of vowels of Cantonese results in a larger vowel space in the F1F2 plane than a smaller vowel inventory in Yongding.However,the difference in vowel space between Cantonese and Wenling is small,despite a larger vowel inventory in Wenling.The findings in this study do not fully support the vowel dispersion theory which predicts that the larger the vowel inventory is the more expanded vowel space will be.The theoretical prediction that variability in vowel formants is inversely related to vowel inventory size is also not supported by the vowel formant data from the three Chinese dialects.