Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Sound correspondences between English accents
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language.
![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
These charts give a diaphoneme for each sound, followed by its realization in different dialects. The symbols for the diaphonemes are given in bold, followed by their most common phonetic values.
Remove ads
Abbreviations list
The following abbreviations are used in this article for regional varieties of English:
See Pronunciation respelling for English for phonetic transcriptions used in different dictionaries.
Remove ads
Consonants
- /t/, is pronounced [ɾ] in some positions in AmE, AuE, and sometimes in EnE.
- /t/ is pronounced [ʔ] in some positions in ScE, EnE, AmE and AuE.
- /t/ is pronounced [t̞] non-initially in IrE.
- /d/ is pronounced [ɾ] if preceded and followed by vowels in GA and Australian English.
- /θ/ is pronounced as a dental stop [t̪] in Irish English, Newfoundland English, Indian English, and New York English, merges with /f/ in some varieties of English English, and merges with /t/ in some varieties of Caribbean English. The dental stop [t̪] also occurs in other dialects as an allophone of /θ/.
- /ð/ is pronounced as a dental stop [d̪] in Irish English, Newfoundland English, Indian English, and New York English, merges with /v/ in some varieties of English English, and merges with /d/ in some varieties of Caribbean English. [d̪] also occurs in other dialects as an allophone of /ð/.
- /h/ is pronounced [ç] before the palatal approximant /j/, sometimes even replacing the cluster /hj/, and sometimes before high front vowels.
- In some dialects, such as Brummie, words like ringer [ˈɹɪŋə], sing [sɪŋ], which have a velar nasal [ŋ] in most dialects, are pronounced with an additional /ɡ/, like "finger": [ˈfɪŋɡə].
- L-vocalization in which l is pronounced as a kind of a back vowel ([ɤ] or [o], or non-syllabic [ɤ̯, o̯], forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel) occurs in New Zealand English and many regional accents, such as African-American Vernacular English, Cockney, New York English, Estuary English, Pittsburgh English, Standard Singapore English.
- /r/ is pronounced as a tap [ɾ] in some varieties of Scottish, Irish, Indian, Welsh, Northern England and South African English.
- The alveolar trill [r] only occurs in some varieties of Scottish, Welsh, Indian and South African English.
- R-labialization, in which r is pronounced as [ʋ], is found in some accents in Southern England.
- Some dialects, such as Scottish English, Irish English, and many American South and New England dialects, distinguish voiceless [ʍ] from voiced [w]; see wine–whine merger and voiceless labiovelar approximant.
- Marginal in most accents, and otherwise merged with /k/, see Lock–loch merger.
- This common English interjection is usually pronounced with [x] in unscripted spoken English, but it is most often read /ʌɡ/ or /ʌk/
- /hj/ can be /ç/ in Conservative RP.
- ɬ exists in Welsh English as an allophone of /l/ in Welsh loan words. Other dialects usually replace it with l.
- This sound exists in South African English in Zulu loan words.
Remove ads
Vowels
Summarize
Perspective
In the vowels charts, a separate phonetic value is given for each major dialect, alongside the words used to name their corresponding lexical sets. The diaphonemes for the lexical sets given here are based on RP and General American; they are not sufficient to express all of the distinctions found in other dialects, such as Australian English.
The groups are defined such that no mergers of each group's sets take place outside them. Note that in most cases, the first set in the group will never merge with the last set, similar to how the furthest points of a dialect continuum are not mutually intelligible.
TRAP to THOUGHT
- In most of the United States (with high dialectal variation), and to a lesser degree in Canada, special /æ/ tensing systems occur.
- See bad–lad split for this distinction.
- In American accents without the cot–caught merger, CLOTH words (usually words with a vowel written ⟨o⟩ preceding the fricatives /f/, /θ/ and /s/ and the velar nasal /ŋ/, e.g. off, cloth, boss, long), are pronounced with the vowel of THOUGHT, rather than the vowel of LOT as is the case in most other dialects of English, see Lot–cloth split. In American accents with the cot–caught merger (about half of today's speakers), LOT, CLOTH and THOUGHT all have the same vowel.
- ɒ~ɔ occurs in American accents without the cot–caught merger (about half of today's speakers); the rest have ɑ.
commA to FLEECE
- It is not clear whether this a true phonemic split, since the distribution of the two sounds is predictable; see Kit–bit split.
STRUT to GOOSE
- The STRUT vowel in BrE is highly variable in the triangle defined by ə, ʌ and ɑ, see 'STRUT for Dummies'
PRICE to CHOICE
- Some dialects of North American English have a vowel shift called Canadian raising, in which the first element of the diphthongs /aɪ, aʊ/ is raised in certain cases, yielding [ʌɪ̯, ʌʊ̯] or [əɪ̯, əʊ̯]. Canadian English has raising of both diphthongs, but most dialects in the United States only have raising of /aɪ/. In monosyllables, raising occurs before voiceless consonants, so right [ɹʌɪ̯t] and out [ʌʊ̯t] have raised vowels, but eyes [aɪz] and loud [laʊd] do not.
NEAR to lettER
- See Fern–fir–fur merger for this distinction in some varieties.
NORTH to CURE
Unmerged sets
The lexical sets FACE, DRESS, GOAT, MOUTH, and START do not merge with other sets.
- Some dialects of North American English have a vowel shift called Canadian raising, in which the first element of the diphthongs /aɪ, aʊ/ is raised in certain cases, yielding [ʌɪ̯, ʌʊ̯] or [əɪ̯, əʊ̯]. Canadian English has raising of both diphthongs, but most dialects in the United States only have raising of /aɪ/. In monosyllables, raising occurs before voiceless consonants, so right [ɹʌɪ̯t] and out [ʌʊ̯t] have raised vowels, but eyes [aɪz] and loud [laʊd] do not.
Remove ads
See also
References
Further reading
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads