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The distinction between rhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in which varieties of the English language are classified. In rhotic accents, the sound of the historical English rhotic consonant, /r/, is preserved in all phonetic environments. In non-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. For example, in isolation, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the words hard and butter as /ˈhɑːrd/ and /ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the /r/ sound and pronounces them as /ˈhɑːd/ and /ˈbʌtə/. When an r is at the end of a word but the next word begins with a vowel, as in the phrase "better apples," most non-rhotic speakers will preserve the /r/ in that position (the linking R) since it is followed by a vowel in this case.

The rhotic dialects of English include most of those in Scotland, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. As of the 21st century, the non-rhotic dialects include most of those in England, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Among certain speakers, like some in the northeastern coastal and southern United States, rhoticity is a sociolinguistic variable: postvocalic /r/ is deleted depending on an array of social factors, such as being more correlated in the 21st century with lower socioeconomic status, greater age, particular ethnic identities, and informal speaking contexts. These correlations have varied through the last two centuries, and in many cases speakers of traditionally non-rhotic American dialects are now rhotic or variably rhotic. Dialects of English that stably show variable rhoticity or semi-rhoticity also exist around the world, including many dialects of India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean.

Evidence from written documents suggests that loss of postvocalic /r/ began sporadically in England during the mid-15th century, but those /r/-less spellings were uncommon and were restricted to private documents, especially those written by women. In the mid-18th century, postvocalic /r/ was still pronounced in most environments, but by the 1740s to the 1770s, it was often deleted entirely, especially after low vowels. By the early 19th century, the southern British standard was fully transformed into a non-rhotic variety, but some variation persisted as late as the 1870s.

In the 18th century and possibly the 17th century, the loss of postvocalic /r/ in some British English influenced southern and eastern American port cities with close connections to Britain, causing their upper-class pronunciation to become non-rhotic, while other American regions remained rhotic. Non-rhoticity then became the norm more widely in many eastern and southern regions of the United States, as well as generally prestigious, until the 1860s, when the American Civil War began to shift American centers of wealth and political power to rhotic areas, which had fewer cultural connections to the old colonial and British elites. Non-rhotic American speech continued to hold some level of prestige up until the mid-20th century, but rhotic speech in particular became rapidly prestigious nationwide after World War II, for example as reflected in the national standard of mass media (like radio, film, and television) being firmly rhotic since the mid-20th century onwards.

History

England

The earliest traces of a loss of /r/ in English appear in the early 15th century and occur before coronal consonants, especially /s/, giving modern ass 'buttocks' (Old English: ears, Middle English: ers or ars), and bass (fish) (OE bærs, ME bars). A second phase of the loss of /r/ began during the 15th century and was characterized by sporadic and lexically variable deletion, such as monyng 'morning' and cadenall 'cardinal'. Those spellings without /r/ appeared throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, but they were uncommon and were restricted to private documents, especially those written by women. No English authorities described loss of /r/ in the standard language before the mid-18th century, and many did not fully accept it until the 1790s.

During the mid-17th century, several sources described /r/ as being weakened but still present. The English playwright Ben Jonson's English Grammar, published posthumously in 1640, recorded that /r/ was "sounded firme in the beginning of words, and more liquid in the middle, and ends." The next major documentation of the pronunciation of /r/ appeared a century later, in 1740, when the British author of a primer for French students of English said that "in many words r before a consonant is greatly softened, almost mute, and slightly lengthens the preceding vowel."

By the 1770s, postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation was becoming common around London even in formal educated speech. The English actor and linguist John Walker used the spelling ar to indicate the long vowel of aunt in his 1775 rhyming dictionary. In his influential Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791), Walker reported, with a strong tone of disapproval, that "the r in lard, bard,... is pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more than the middle or Italian a, lengthened into baa, baad...." Americans returning to England after the American Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, reported surprise at the significant changes in the fashionable pronunciation that had taken place.

By the early 19th century, the southern English standard had been fully transformed into a non-rhotic variety, but it continued to be variable in the 1870s. The extent of rhoticity in England in the mid-19th century is summarized as widespread in the book New Zealand English: its Origins and Evolution:

he only areas of England... for which we have no evidence of rhoticity in the mid-nineteenth century lie in two separate corridors. The first runs south from the North Riding of Yorkshire through the Vale of York into north and central Lincolnshire, nearly all of Nottinghamshire, and adjacent areas of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire. The second includes all of Norfolk, western Suffolk and Essex, eastern Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, Middlesex, and northern Surrey and Kent.

In the late 19th century, Alexander John Ellis found evidence of accents being overwhelmingly rhotic in urban areas that are now firmly non-rhotic, such as Birmingham and the Black Country, and Wakefield in West Yorkshire.

The Survey of English Dialects in the 1950s and the 1960s recorded rhotic or partially-rhotic accents in almost every part of England, including in the counties of West Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Kent, where rhoticity has since disappeared. The Atlas Linguarum Europae found that there was still rhoticity in the West Yorkshire site of Golcar as late as 1976. A study published in 2014 found that there is still some rhoticity amongst older residents of Berwick upon Tweed and Carlisle, both of which are close to the border with rhotic Scotland, but that this was absent from the majority of inhabitants.

United States

The loss of postvocalic /r/ in the British prestige standard in the late 18th and the early 19th centuries influenced the American port cities with close connections to Britain, which caused upper-class pronunciation to become non-rhotic in many Eastern and Southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah. Like regional dialects in England, however, the accents of other areas in the United States remained rhotic in a display of linguistic "lag", which preserved the original pronunciation of /r/.

Non-rhotic pronunciation continued to influence American prestige speech until the American Civil War of the 1860s began shifting the United States centers of wealth and political power to areas with fewer cultural connections to the old colonial and British elites. Still, the non-rhotic prestige persisted in the Eastern United States and among the upper class even into the early 20th century, by which time many speakers of the East and South were non-rhotic or variably rhotic, often even regardless of their class background.

The most decisive shift of the general American population towards rhoticity (even in previously non-rhotic regions) followed the Second World War. For instance, rapidly after the 1940s, the standard broadcasting pronunciation heard in national radio and television became firmly rhotic, aligned more with the General American English of Midwestern, Western, and non-coastal Americans. The prestige of non-rhoticity thus reversed, with non-rhoticity in the 20th century up until today increasingly associated with lower-class rather than higher-class speakers, as in New York City.

The biggest strongholds of non-rhoticity in the United States have always been eastern New England, New York City, and the former plantation region of the South: a band from the South's Atlantic Coast west to the Mississippi River. However, non-rhoticity has been notably declining in all three of these areas since the mid-20th century. In fact, a strongly articulated /r/, alongside full rhoticity, has been dominant throughout the South since then. African-American Vernacular English, meanwhile, continues to be largely non-rhotic since most African Americans originate from the former plantation region, where non-rhotic speech dominated in the past.

Modern pronunciation

In most non-rhotic accents, if a word ending in written "r" is followed immediately by a word beginning with a vowel, the /r/ is pronounced, as in water ice. That phenomenon is referred to as "linking R." Many non-rhotic speakers also insert an epenthetic /r/ between vowels when the first vowel is one that can occur before syllable-final r (drawring for drawing). The so-called "intrusive R" has been stigmatized, but many speakers of Received Pronunciation (RP) now frequently "intrude" an epenthetic /r/ at word boundaries, especially if one or both vowels is schwa. For example, the idea of it becomes the idea-r-of it, Australia and New Zealand becomes Australia-r-and New Zealand, the formerly well-known India-r-Office and "Laura Norder" (Law and Order). The typical alternative used by RP speakers (and some rhotic speakers as well) is to insert an intrusive glottal stop wherever an intrusive r would otherwise have been placed.

For non-rhotic speakers, what was once a vowel, followed by /r/, is now usually realized as a long vowel. That is called compensatory lengthening, which occurs after the elision of a sound. In RP and many other non-rhotic accents card, fern, born are thus pronounced , , or similar (actual pronunciations vary from accent to accent). That length may be retained in phrases and so car pronounced in isolation is , but car owner is . A final schwa usually remains short and so water in isolation is .

In RP and similar accents, the vowels /iː/ and /uː/ (or /ʊ/), when they are followed by r, become diphthongs that end in schwa and so near is and poor is . They have other realizations as well, including monophthongal ones. Once again, the pronunciations vary from accent to accent. The same happens to diphthongs followed by r, but they may be considered to end in rhotic speech in /ər/, which reduces to schwa, as usual, in non-rhotic speech. In isolation, tire, is pronounced and sour is . For some speakers, some long vowels alternate with a diphthong ending in schwa and so wear may be but wearing .

The compensatory lengthening view is challenged by Wells, who stated that during the 17th century, stressed vowels followed by /r/ and another consonant or word boundary underwent a lengthening process, known as pre-r lengthening. The process was not a compensatory lengthening process but an independent development, which explains modern pronunciations featuring both (bird, fur) and (stirring, stir it) according to their positions: was the regular outcome of the lengthening, which shortened to after r-dropping occurred in the 18th century. The lengthening involved "mid and open short vowels" and so the lengthening of /ɑː/ in car was not a compensatory process caused by r-dropping.

Even General American commonly drops the /r/ in non-final unstressed syllables if another syllable in the same word also contains /r/, which may be referred to as r-dissimilation. Examples include the dropping of the first /r/ in the words surprise, governor, and caterpillar. In more careful speech, all /r/ sounds are still retained.

Distribution

Rhotic accents include most varieties of Scottish English, Irish or Hiberno-English, Canadian English, American English, Barbadian English and Philippine English.

Non-rhotic accents include most varieties of English English, Welsh English, Australian English, South African English, Nigerian English, Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, Standard Malaysian English and Singaporean English.

Non-rhotic accents have been dominant in New Zealand English since the 1870s, but in general rhoticity is increasing quickly. Rhotic New Zealand English was historically restricted to Murihiku (the "Southland burr") but rhoticity now is widely used in a region stretching from South Auckland down into the upper North Island, and elsewhere particularly among Pasifika communities. This particular rhoticism manifests itself mostly in the nurse vowel, but with the force vowel often remaining non-rhotic.

Semi-rhotic accents have also been studied, such as Jamaican English, in which r is pronounced (as in even non-rhotic accents) before vowels, but also in stressed monosyllables or stressed syllables at the ends of words (e.g. in "car" or "dare"). It is not pronounced at the end of unstressed syllables (e.g. in "water") or before consonants (e.g. "market").

Variably rhotic accents are widely documented, in which deletion of r (when not before vowels) is optional. In these dialects the probability of deleting r may vary depending on social, stylistic, and contextual factors. Variably rhotic accents comprise much of Indian English, Pakistani English, and Caribbean English, for example, as spoken in Tobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, and the Bahamas. They include current-day New York City English, most modern varieties of Southern American English, New York Latino English, and some Eastern New England English, as well as some varieties of Scottish English.

Non-rhotic accents in the Americas include those of the rest of the Caribbean and Belize. There are people with non-rhotic accents who are children of at least one rhotic-accented parent but grew up, or were educated, in non-rhotic countries like Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, or Wales. By contrast, people who have at least one non-rhotic-accented parent but were raised or started their education in Canada, any rhotic Caribbean country, Ireland, Scotland, or the United States speak with rhotic accents.

England

Most English varieties in England are non-rhotic today, which stems from a trend in southeastern England that accelerated from the very late 18th century onwards. Rhotic accents are still found south and west of a line from near Shrewsbury to around Portsmouth (especially in the West Country), in the Corby area because of migration from Scotland in the 1930s, in some of Lancashire (north and west of the centre of Manchester, increasingly among older and rural speakers only), in some parts of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and in the areas that border Scotland.

The prestige form exerts a steady pressure toward non-rhoticity. Thus, the urban speech of Bristol or Southampton is more accurately described as variably rhotic, the degree of rhoticity being reduced as one moves up the class and formality scales.

Scotland

Most Scottish accents are rhotic. Non-rhotic speech has been reported in Edinburgh since the 1970s and Glasgow since the 1980s.

Wales

Welsh English is mostly non-rhotic, but variable rhoticity is present in accents influenced by Welsh, especially in North Wales. Additionally, while Port Talbot English is largely non-rhotic, some speakers may supplant the front vowel of bird with /ɚ/.

United States

American English is now predominantly rhotic. In the late 19th century, non-rhotic accents were common throughout much of the coastal Eastern and Southern United States, including along the Gulf Coast. Non-rhotic accents were established in all major U.S. cities along the Atlantic coast except for the Delaware Valley area, centered on Philadelphia and Baltimore, because of its early Scots-Irish rhotic influence.

After the American Civil War and even more intensely during the early-to-mid-20th century, presumably correlated with the Second World War, rhotic accents began to gain social prestige nationwide, even in the aforementioned areas that were traditionally non-rhotic. Thus, non-rhotic accents are increasingly perceived by Americans as sounding foreign or less educated because of an association with working-class or immigrant speakers in Eastern and Southern cities, and rhotic accents are increasingly perceived as sounding more "General American."

Today, non-rhoticity in the American South among Whites is found primarily among older speakers and only in some areas such as central and southern Alabama, Savannah, Georgia, and Norfolk, Virginia, as well as in the Yat accent of New Orleans. It is still very common all across the South and across all age groups among African American speakers.

The local dialects of eastern New England, especially that of Boston, Massachusetts and extending into the states of Maine and (less so) New Hampshire, show some non-rhoticity along with the traditional Rhode Island dialect, although this feature has been receding in recent generations. The New York City dialect has traditionally been non-rhotic, but William Labov more precisely classifies its current form as variably rhotic, with many of its sub-varieties actually being fully rhotic, such as that of northeastern New Jersey.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is largely non-rhotic, and in some non-rhotic Southern and AAVE accents, there is no linking r; that is, /r/ at the end of a word is deleted even when the following word starts with a vowel; thus, "Mister Adams" is pronounced . In a few such accents, intervocalic /r/ is deleted before an unstressed syllable even within a word if the following syllable begins with a vowel. In such accents, pronunciations like for Carolina, or for "bear up" are heard.

This pronunciation occurs in AAVE and occurred for many older non-rhotic Southern speakers. AAVE spoken in areas in which non-AAVE speakers are rhotic is likelier to be rhotic. Rhoticity is generally more common among younger AAVE-speakers.

Typically, even non-rhotic modern varieties of American English pronounce the /r/ in /ɜːr/ (as in "bird," "work," or "perky") and realize it, as in most rhotic varieties, as [ɚ] (an r-colored mid central vowel) or (a sequence of a mid central vowel and a postalveolar or retroflex approximant).

Canada

Canadian English is entirely rhotic except for small isolated areas in southwestern New Brunswick, parts of Newfoundland, and the Lunenburg English variety spoken in Lunenburg and Shelburne Counties, Nova Scotia, which may be non-rhotic or variably rhotic.

Ireland

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The prestige form of English spoken in Ireland is rhotic and most regional accents are rhotic, but some regional accents, particularly in the area around counties Louth and Cavan are notably non-rhotic and many non-prestige accents have touches of non-rhoticity. In Dublin, the traditional local dialect is largely non-rhotic, but the more modern varieties, referred to by Hickey as "mainstream Dublin English" and "fashionable Dublin English", are fully rhotic. Hickey used that as an example of how English in Ireland does not follow prestige trends in England.

Asia

The English spoken in Asia is predominantly rhotic. In the case of the Philippines, that may be explained because Philippine English is heavily influenced by the American dialect and because of Spanish influence in the various Philippine languages. Many East Asians in mainland China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan who have a good command of English generally have rhotic accents because of the influence of American English. That excludes Hong Kong, whose English dialect is a result of its almost 150-year history as a British Crown colony and later a British dependent territory.

The lack of consonant /r/ in Cantonese contributes to the phenomenon, but has rhoticity started to exist because of the handover in 1997 and influence by the US and East Asian entertainment industries. Many older and younger speakers among South and East Asians have a non-rhotic accent. Speakers of Semitic (Arabic, Hebrew, etc.), Turkic (Turkish, Azeri, etc.), Iranian languages (Persian, Kurdish, etc.) in West Asia speak English with a rhotic pronunciation because of the inherent phonotactics of their native languages.

Indian English can vary between being non-rhotic due to the traditional influence of Received Pronunciation (RP) or rhotic from the underlying phonotactics of the native Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and the growing influence of American English. Other Asian regions with non-rhotic English are Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei. A typical Malaysian's English would be almost totally non-rhotic because of the nonexistence of rhotic endings in both languages of influence. A more educated Malaysian's English may be non-rhotic because Standard Malaysian English is based on RP.

The classical English spoken in Brunei is non-rhotic. A change that seems to be taking place is that Brunei English is now becoming rhotic from the influence of American English, from the influence of Standard Malay, which is rhotic, and from influence of the languages of Indians in Brunei, Tamil and Punjabi. Rhoticity is used by Chinese Bruneians. The English in the neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore remains non-rhotic. In Brunei English, rhoticity is equal to Philippine dialects of English and Scottish and Irish dialects. Non-rhoticity is mostly found in older generations. The phenomenon is almost similar to the status of American English, which has greatly reduced non-rhoticity.

A typical teenager's Southeast Asian English would be rhotic, mainly from the prominent influence by American English. Spoken English in Myanmar is non-rhotic, but there are a number of English speakers with a rhotic or partially-rhotic pronunciation. Sri Lankan English may be rhotic.

Africa

The English spoken in most of Africa is based on RP and is generally non-rhotic. Pronunciation and variation in African English accents are largely affected by native African language influences, level of education, and exposure to Western influences. The English accents spoken in the coastal areas of West Africa are primarily non-rhotic because of the underlying varieties of Niger-Congo languages that are spoken in that part of West Africa.

Rhoticity may exist in the English that is spoken in the areas in which rhotic Afro-Asiatic or Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken across northern West Africa and in the Nilotic regions of East Africa. More modern trends show an increasing American influence on African English pronunciation particularly among younger urban affluent populations, which may overstress the American rhotic "r", which creates a pseudo-Americanised accent.

By and large, the official spoken English used in post-colonial African countries is non-rhotic. Standard Liberian English is also non-rhotic because its liquids are lost at the end of words or before consonants. South African English is mostly non-rhotic, especially in the Cultivated dialect, which is based on RP, except for some Broad varieties spoken in the Cape Province (typically in -er suffixes, as in writer). It appears that postvocalic /r/ is entering the speech of younger people under the influence of American English and perhaps of the Scottish dialect that was brought by the Scottish settlers.

Australia

Standard Australian English is non-rhotic. A degree of rhoticity has been observed in a particular sublect of the Australian Aboriginal English spoken on the coast of South Australia, especially in speakers from the Point Pearce and Raukkan settlements. These speakers realise /r/ as in the preconsonantal postvocalic position (after a vowel and before a consonant), though only within stems: "board", "church", "Perth"; but "flour", "doctor", "years". It has been speculated that the feature may derive from the fact that many of the first settlers in coastal South Australia, including Cornish tin-miners, Scottish missionaries, and American whalers, spoke rhotic varieties.

New Zealand

New Zealand English is predominantly non-rhotic. Southland and parts of Otago in the far south of New Zealand's South Island are rhotic from apparent Scottish influence. Many Māori and Pasifika people, who tend to speak a specific dialect of English, speak with a strong "r," but they are not the only ones to do so. Older Southland speakers use /ɹ/ variably after vowels, but younger speakers now use /ɹ/ only with the NURSE vowel and occasionally with the LETTER vowel. Younger Southland speakers pronounce /ɹ/ in third term /ˌθɵːɹd ˈtɵːɹm/ (General NZE pronunciation: /ˌθɵːd ˈtɵːm/) but only sometimes in farm cart /ˈfɐːm ˌkɐːt/ (usually the same as in General NZE).

Non-prevocalic /ɹ/ among non-rhotic speakers is sometimes pronounced in a few words, including Ireland /ˈɑɪəɹlənd/, merely /ˈmiəɹli/, err /ɵːɹ/, and the name of the letter R /ɐːɹ/ (General NZE pronunciations: /ˈɑɪələnd, ˈmiəli, ɵː, ɐː/). The Māori accent varies from the European-origin New Zealand accent. Some Māori speakers are semi-rhotic. That feature is not clearly identified to any particular region or attributed to any defined language shift. The Māori language tends to pronounce "r" as usually an alveolar tap , like in the Scottish dialect.

Mergers characteristic of non-rhotic accents

Some phonemic mergers are characteristic of non-rhotic accents and usually include one item that historically contained an R, which has been lost in the non-rhotic accent, and another that never did so.

/ɛə/–/ɛər/ merger

A merger of words like bad and bared occurs, in some dialects of North American English, as an effect of two historical developments. First, when the TRAP vowel is sporadically raised, creating a new phoneme /ɛə/ distinct from /æ/. Second, when this occurs in non-rhotic dialects, there is potential for the /ɛə/ phoneme to merge with SQUARE, causing bad and bared to become homophones. Thus, the merger occurs almost exclusively in some New York City English. In extreme cases, these two can also merge with NEAR, causing bad and bared to become homophonous with beard.

/ʌ/–/ɜːr/ merger

A merger of words like bud and bird (/ɜːr/ and /ʌ/) occurs for some speakers of Jamaican English and makes bud and bird homophones as /bʌd/. The conversion of /ɜːr/ to or is also found in places scattered around England and Scotland. Some speakers, mostly rural, in the area from London to Norfolk exhibit this conversion, mainly before voiceless fricatives. This gives pronunciation like first and worse .

Comma–letter merger

In the terminology of John C. Wells, this consists of the merger of the lexical sets comma and letter. It is found in all or nearly all non-rhotic accents and is present even in some accents that are in other respects rhotic, such as those of some speakers in Jamaica and the Bahamas.

In some accents, syllabification may interact with rhoticity and result in homophones for which non-rhotic accents have centering diphthongs. Possibilities include Korea–career, Shi'a–sheer, and Maia–mire, and skua may be identical with the second syllable of obscure.

Polysyllabic morpheme-final /ɪd/–/əd/–/ərd/ merger

A merger of words like batted and battered is present in non-rhotic accents which have undergone the weak vowel merger. Such accents include Australian, New Zealand, most South African and some non-rhotic English (e.g. Norfolk, Sheffield) speech. The third edition of Longman Pronunciation Dictionary lists /əd/ (and /əz/ mentioned below) as possible (though less common than /ɪd/ and /ɪz/) British pronunciations, which means that the merger is an option even in RP.

A large number of homophonous pairs involve the syllabic -es and agentive -ers suffixes, such as merges-mergers and bleaches-bleachers. Because they are so numerous, they are excluded from the list of homophonous pairs below.

Polysyllabic morpheme-final /oʊ/–/ə/–/ər/ merger

A conditioned merger of EME /oː/ and /ou/ with /ə/ and /ər/ is similar to the weak vowel merger, and like it occurs only in unstressed positions and only in certain words. In Cockney, the merged vowel is usually [ɐ], so that fellow is homophonous with feller and fella as (phonemically /ˈfɛlə/); thus, words like yellow, marrow, potato, follow, etc. take a similar path. The mid [ə] occurs in other non-rhotic accents, such as some older Southern American English. An r-colored /ər/ occurs instead in rhotic accents, for instance in parts of the west of England and in some deep Southern American English, like Appalachian English, preserving the Middle English phonotactic constraint against final /ə/: . In other words, in traditional Appalachian dialect, the final /ə/ (as in data and sofa) is distinctly r-colored, thus yielding the same merger as in Cockney but with a distinct phonetic output. Both phenomena are restricted to the broadest varieties of English.

In Cockney, the resulting /ə/ is subject to /r/-insertion, as in tomato and cucumber production .

In RP, there are certain prefixes such as crypto-, electro- and socio- that have a free variation between /əʊ/ and /ə/ before consonants, although in some words the unreduced /əʊ/ is preferred. Before vowels, only /əʊ/ occurs.

/eɪ/–/ɛər/–/ɪər/ merger

The merger of the lexical sets FACE, SQUARE and NEAR is possible in some Jamaican English and partially also in Northern East Anglian English.

In Jamaica, the merger occurs after deletion of the postvocalic /r/ in a preconsonantal position, so that fade can be homophonous with feared as , but day is normally distinct from dear , though vowels in both words can be analyzed as belonging to the same phoneme (followed by /r/ in the latter case, so that the merger of FACE and SQUARE/NEAR does not occur). In Jamaican Patois, the merged vowel is an opening diphthong and that realization can also be heard in Jamaican English, mostly before a sounded /r/ (so that fare and fear can be both and ), but sometimes also in other positions. Alternatively, /eː/ can be laxed to [ɛ] before a sounded /r/, which produces a variable Mary-merry merger: .

It is possible in northern East Anglian varieties (to [e̞ː]), but only in the case of items descended from ME /aː/, such as daze. Those descended from ME /ai/ (such as days), /ɛi/ and /ɛih/ have a distinctive /æi/ vowel. The merger appears to be receding, as items descended from ME /aː/ are being transferred to the /æi/ class; in other words, a pane-pain merger is taking place. In the southern dialect area, the pane-pain merger is complete and all three vowels are distinct: FACE is , SQUARE is [ɛː] and NEAR is .

A near-merger of FACE and SQUARE is possible in General South African English, but the vowels typically remain distinct as (for FACE) and [eː] (for SQUARE). The difference between the two phonemes is so sometimes subtle that they're can be misheard as they (see zero copula). In other varieties the difference is more noticeable, e.g. vs. in Broad SAE and vs. in the Cultivated variety. Even in General SAE, SQUARE can be or [ɛː], strongly distinguished from FACE . NEAR remains distinct in all varieties, typically as . Kevin Watson reports basically the same, subtle distinction between in FACE and [eː] in SQUARE in Scouse. The latter is used not only for SQUARE but also in the NURSE set, so that fur is homophonous with fair as - see square-nurse merger. The vowel is not necessarily as front/close as this and pronunciations such as and also occur, with being the more traditional variant.

In the Cardiff dialect SQUARE can also be similar to cardinal [e] (though long [eː], as in South Africa), but FACE typically has a fully close ending point and thus the vowels are more distinct than in the General South African accent. An alternative realization of the former is an open-mid monophthong [ɛː]. Formerly, FACE was sometimes realized as a narrow diphthong , but this has virtually disappeared by the 1990s. NEAR is phonemically distinct, normally as [iː] before any /r/ (a fleece–near merger) and a disyllabic elsewhere.

In Geordie, the merger of FACE and NEAR is recessive and has never been categorical (SQUARE [ɛː] has always been a distinct vowel), as FACE can instead be pronounced as the closing diphthong or, more commonly, the close-mid front monophthong [eː]. The latter is the most common choice for younger speakers, who tend to reject the centering diphthongs for FACE, which categorically undoes the merger for those speakers. Even when FACE is realized as an opening-centering diphthong, it may be distinguished from NEAR by the openness of the first element: or for FACE vs. for NEAR.

Some of the words listed below may have different forms in traditional Geordie. For the sake of simplicity, the merged vowel is transcribed with ⟨eː⟩. For a related merger not involving FACE, see near-square merger.

/ɑː/–/ɑːr/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the /ɑː/–/ɑːr/ merger consists of the merger of the lexical sets PALM and START. It is found in the speech of the great majority of non-rhotic speakers, including those of England, Wales, the United States, the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It may be absent in some non-rhotic speakers in the Bahamas.

Homophonous pairs resulting from this merger are rare in accents without the father-bother merger (see below). Two such pairs are father-farther and spa-spar

/ɒ/–/ɑːr/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the /ɒ/–/ɑːr/ merger is a merger of LOT and START. This merger occurs in accents with the /ɑː/–/ɑːr/ merger described above that have also undergone the father-bother merger. This includes most non-rhotic American English (in Rhode Island, New York City, some Southern U.S., and some African-American accents, but not the Boston accent). This results in a greatly expanded number of homophonous pairs, such as god-guard.

/ʌ/–/ɑːr/ merger

In Wells' terminology, this consists of the merger of the lexical sets STRUT and START. It occurs in Black South African English as a result of its STRUT-PALM merger, co-occurring with the /ɑ/–/ɑːr/ merger described above. The outcome of the merger is an open central vowel [ä] or, less frequently, an open-mid back vowel [ʌ].

In Australia and New Zealand, the two vowels contrast only by length: for both palm and start. This (as well as SQUARE-monophthongization in Australian English) introduces phonemic vowel length to those dialects. In Colchester English, the vowels undergo a qualitative near-merger (with the length contrast preserved) as [ɐ] and [äː], at least for middle-class speakers. A more local pronunciation of /ɑː/ is front [aː]. A qualitative near-merger is also possible in contemporary General British English, where the vowels come close as [ʌ̞̈] vs. [ɑ̟ː], with only a slight difference in height in addition to the difference in length.

A three-way merger of /ʌ/, /ɑː/ and /æ/ is a common pronunciation error among L2 speakers of English whose native language is Italian, Spanish or Catalan. Notably, EFL speakers who aim at the British pronunciation of can't /kɑːnt/ but fail to lengthen the vowel sufficiently are perceived as uttering a highly-taboo word, cunt /kʌnt/.

/ɔː/–/ɔr/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the caught–court merger consists of the merger of the lexical sets THOUGHT and NORTH. It is found in most of the same accents as the father–farther merger described above, including most British English, but is absent from the Bahamas and Guyana.

Labov et al. suggest that, in New York City English, this merger is present in perception not production. As in, although even locals perceive themselves using the same vowel in both cases, they tend to produce the NORTH/FORCE vowel higher and more retracted than the vowel of THOUGHT.

Most speakers with the pawn-porn merger also have the same vowels in caught and court (a merger of THOUGHT and FORCE), yielding a three-way merger of awe-or-ore/oar (see horse-hoarse merger). These include the accents of Southern England (but see THOUGHT split), non-rhotic New York City speakers, Trinidad and the Southern hemisphere.

The lot-cloth split, coupled with those mergers, produces a few more homophones, such as boss–bourse. Specifically, the phonemic merger of the words often and orphan was the basis for a joke in the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, The Pirates of Penzance.

/ɔː/–/ʊər/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the paw–poor or law–lure merger consists of the merger of the lexical sets THOUGHT and CURE. It is found in those non-rhotic accents containing the caught–court merger that have also undergone the pour–poor merger. Wells lists it unequivocally only for the accent of Trinidad, but it is an option for non-rhotic speakers in England, Australia and New Zealand. Such speakers have a potential four-way merger taw–tor–tore–tour.

/oʊ/–/oʊr/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the dough-door merger consists of the merger of the lexical sets GOAT and FORCE. It may be found in some southern U.S. non-rhotic speech, some speakers of African American Vernacular English, some speakers in Guyana and some Welsh speech.

/oʊ/–/ʊər/ merger

In Wells' terminology, the show–sure or toad–toured merger consists of the merger of the lexical sets GOAT and CURE. It may be present in those speakers who have both the dough–door merger described above, and also the pour–poor merger. These include some southern U.S. non-rhotic speakers, some speakers of African-American English (in both cases towards /oʊ/) and some speakers in Guyana.

In Geordie, the merger (towards /ʊə/, phonetically ) is variable and recessive. It is also not categorical, as GOAT can instead be pronounced as the close-mid monophthongs [oː] and [ɵː]. The central [ɵː] is as stereotypically Geordie as the merger itself, though it is still used alongside [oː] by young, middle-class males who, as younger speakers in general, reject the centering diphthongs for /oː/ (females often merge /oː/ with /ɔː/ instead, see thought-goat merger). This categorically undoes the merger for those speakers. Even when GOAT is realized as an opening-centering diphthong, it may be distinguished from CURE by the openness of the first element: or vs. .

Some of the words listed below may have different forms in traditional Geordie.

Tautosyllabic pre-consonantal /ɔɪ/–/ɜːr/ merger

A conditioned merger of CHOICE and NURSE is famously associated with early 20th-century New York City English; see coil-curl merger below.

Up-gliding NURSE

Up-gliding NURSE is a diphthongized vowel sound, , used as the pronunciation of the NURSE phoneme /ɜːr/. This up-gliding variant historically occurred in some completely non-rhotic dialects of American English and is particularly associated with the early twentieth-century (but now extinct or moribund) dialects of New York City, New Orleans, and Charleston, likely developing in the prior century. In fact, in speakers born before World War I, this sound apparently predominated throughout the older speech of the Southern United States that ranged from "South Carolina to Texas and north to eastern Arkansas and the southern edge of Kentucky." This variant happened only when /ɜːr/ was followed by a consonant in the same morpheme; thus, for example, stir was never ; rather, stir would have been pronounced .

Coil–curl merger

In some cases, particularly in New York City, the NURSE sound gliding from a schwa upwards even led to a phonemic merger of the vowel classes associated with the General American phonemes /ɔɪ/ as in CHOICE and /ɜːr/ as in NURSE; thus, words like coil and curl, as well as voice and verse, were homophones. The merged vowel was typically a diphthong , with a mid central starting point, rather than the back rounded starting point of /ɔɪ/ of CHOICE in most other accents of English. The merger is responsible for the "Brooklynese" stereotypes of bird sounding like boid and thirty-third sounding like toity-toid. This merger is also known for the word soitenly, used often by the Three Stooges comedian Curly Howard as a variant of certainly in comedy shorts of the 1930s and 1940s. The songwriter Sam M. Lewis, a native New Yorker, rhymed returning with joining in the lyrics of the English-language version of "Gloomy Sunday". Except for New Orleans English, this merger did not occur in the South, despite up-gliding NURSE existing in some older Southern accents; instead, a distinction between the two phonemes was maintained due to a down-gliding CHOICE sound: something like .

In 1966, according to a survey that was done by William Labov in New York City, 100% of the people 60 and over used for bird. With each younger age group, however, the percentage got progressively lower: 59% of 50- to 59-year-olds, 33% of 40- to 49-year-olds, 24% of 20- to 39-year-olds, and finally, only 4% of 8- to 19-year-olds used for bird. Nearly all native New Yorkers born since 1950, even those whose speech is otherwise non-rhotic, now pronounce bird as . However, Labov reports this vowel to be slightly raised compared to other dialects. In addition, a study from 2014 found variably in two participating native New Yorkers, one of whom was born in the early 1990s.

Effect of non-rhotic dialects on orthography

Certain words have spellings derived from non-rhotic dialects or renderings of foreign words through non-rhotic pronunciation. In rhotic dialects, spelling pronunciation has caused these words to be pronounced rhotically anyway. Examples include:

• Er and Erm, used in non-rhotic dialects to indicate a filled pause, which most rhotic dialects would instead convey with uh, eh, and um.
• The game Parcheesi, from Indian Pachisi.
• British English slang words:
  • char for cha from the Cantonese pronunciation of Chinese: 茶 (= "tea" (the drink))
• In Rudyard Kipling's books:
  • dorg instead of dawg for a drawled pronunciation of dog.
  • Hindu god name Kama misspelled as Karma (which is a concept in several Asian religions, not a god).
  • Hindustani काग़ज़ / کاغذ kāghaz ("paper") spelled as kargaz.
• The donkey Eeyore in A. A. Milne's stories, whose name comes from the sound that donkeys make, commonly spelled hee-haw in American English.
• Southern American goober and pinder from KiKongo and ngubá and mpinda
• Burma and Myanmar for Burmese and
• Orlu for Igbo
• Transliteration of Cantonese words and names, such as char siu (Chinese: 叉燒; Jyutping: caa¹ siu¹) and Wong Kar-wai (Chinese: 王家衞; Jyutping: Wong⁴ Gaa¹wai⁶)
• The spelling of schoolmarm for school ma'am, which Americans pronounce with the rhotic consonant.
• The spelling Park for the Korean surname 박 (pronounced [pak]), which does not contain a liquid consonant in Korean.
• The English spelling dumsor for the Akan term dumsɔ.

See also

• English-language vowel changes before historic /r/

Notes

1. Other terms synonymous with "non-rhotic" include "/r/-deleting", "r-dropping", "r-vocalizing", and "r-less"; synonyms for "rhotic" include "/r/-pronouncing", "r-constricting", and "r-ful".

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• Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Vol. 1: An Introduction (pp. i–xx, 1–278), Vol. 2: The British Isles (pp. i–xx, 279–466), Vol. 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511611759, 10.1017/CBO9780511611766. ISBN 0-52129719-2 , 0-52128540-2 , 0-52128541-0 .

• English phonology
• Rhotic consonants
• Splits and mergers in English phonology