Examples of a rhotic and a non-rhotic speaker

Rhotic (American) speaker

/ˈfɑrmər/ forfarmer

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Non-rhotic (British) speaker

/ˈfɑːmə/ forfarmer

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The distinction betweenrhoticity and non-rhoticity is one of the most prominent ways in whichvarieties of the English language are classified. Inrhotic accents, the sound of the historical Englishrhotic consonant,/r/, is preserved in allphonetic environments. Innon-rhotic accents, speakers no longer pronounce/r/ inpostvocalic environments: when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel.^[1][2] For example, a rhotic English speaker pronounces the wordshard andbutter as/ˈhɑːrd/ and/ˈbʌtər/, but a non-rhotic speaker "drops" or "deletes" the/r/ sound and pronounces them as/ˈhɑːd/ and/ˈbʌtə/.^[a] When anr 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 (thelinking R), because it is followed by a vowel.^[5]

The rhotic dialects of English include most of those inScotland,Ireland, theUnited States, andCanada. The non-rhotic dialects include most of those inEngland,Wales,Australia,New Zealand, andSouth Africa. Among certain speakers, like some in the northeastern coastal and southern United States,^[6][2] rhoticity is asociolinguisticvariable: postvocalic/r/ is deleted depending on an array of social factors,^[7] such as being more correlated in the 21st century with lower socioeconomic status, greater age, particular ethnic identities, andinformal 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 ofIndia,Pakistan, and theCaribbean.

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.^[2] 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 afterlow 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.^[8]

In the 18th 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.^[9] Non-rhoticity then became the norm more widely in many eastern and southern regions of the United States, as well as generallyprestigious, until the 1860s, when theAmerican 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.^[10] 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 afterWorld War II,^[11] for example as reflected in thenational standard of mass media (like radio, film, and television) being firmly rhotic since the mid-20th century onwards.

The earliest traces of a loss of/r/ in English appear in the early 15th century. They occur beforecoronal consonants, especially/s/, giving modernass 'buttocks' (Old English:ears,Middle English:ers orars), andbass (fish) (OEbærs, MEbars).^[2] A second phase of the loss of/r/ began during the 15th century and was characterized by sporadic and lexically variable deletion, such asmonyng 'morning' andcadenall 'cardinal'.^[2] 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.^[2] 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.^[2]

During the mid-17th century, several sources described/r/ as being weakened but still present.^[14] The English playwrightBen Jonson'sEnglish Grammar, published posthumously in 1640, recorded that/r/ was "sounded firme in the beginning of words, and more liquid in the middle, and ends."^[8] 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 wordsr before a consonant is greatly softened, almost mute, and slightly lengthens the preceding vowel."^[15]

By the 1770s, postvocalic/r/-less pronunciation was becoming common around London even in formal educated speech. The English actor and linguistJohn Walker used the spellingar to indicate the long vowel ofaunt in his 1775 rhyming dictionary.^[4] In his influentialCritical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791), Walker reported, with a strong tone of disapproval, that "ther inlard,bard,... is pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more than the middle or Italiana, lengthened intobaa,baad...."^[8] Americans returning to England after theAmerican Revolutionary War, which lasted from 1775 to 1783, reported surprise at the significant changes in the fashionable pronunciation that had taken place.^[16]

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.^[8] The extent of rhoticity in England in the mid-19th century is summarized as widespread in the bookNew Zealand English: its Origins and Evolution:

[T]he only areas of England... for which we haveno 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.^[17]

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 asBirmingham and theBlack Country,^[18] andWakefield inWest Yorkshire.^[19]

TheSurvey 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 ofWest Yorkshire,^[20]East Yorkshire,^[21]Lincolnshire^[22] andKent,^[23] where rhoticity has since disappeared. TheAtlas Linguarum Europae found that there was still rhoticity in the West Yorkshire site ofGolcar as late as 1976.^[24] A study published in 2014 found that there is still some rhoticity amongst older residents ofBerwick upon Tweed andCarlisle, both of which are close to the border with rhotic Scotland, but that this was absent from the majority of inhabitants.^[25]

The loss of postvocalic/r/ in the Britishprestige 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 asNew York City,Boston,Alexandria,Charleston, andSavannah.^[9] 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/.^[9]

Non-rhotic pronunciation continued to influence American prestige speech until theAmerican 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.^[10] Still, the non-rhotic prestige persisted in theEastern 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 theSecond World War.^[11] For instance, rapidly after the 1940s, the standard broadcasting pronunciation heard in national radio and television became firmly rhotic, aligned more with theGeneral American English of Midwestern, Western, and non-coastal Americans.^[10] 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.^[26]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.^[27]

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 inwater ice. That phenomenon is referred to as "linking R." Many non-rhotic speakers also insert anepenthetic/r/ between vowels when the first vowel is one that can occur before syllable-finalr (drawring fordrawing). The so-called "intrusive R" has been stigmatised, but many speakers ofReceived Pronunciation (RP) now frequently "intrude" anepenthetic/r/ at word boundaries, especially if one or both vowels isschwa. For example,the idea of it becomesthe idea-r-of it,Australia and New Zealand becomesAustralia-r-and New Zealand, the formerly well-knownIndia-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 intrusiveglottal stop wherever an intrusiver would otherwise have been placed.^[28][29]

For non-rhotic speakers, what was once a vowel, followed by/r/, is now usually realized as along vowel. That is calledcompensatory lengthening, which occurs after the elision of a sound. In RP and many other non-rhotic accentscard, fern, born are thus pronounced[kɑːd],[fɜːn],[bɔːn] or similar (actual pronunciations vary from accent to accent). That length may be retained in phrases and socar pronounced in isolation is[kɑː], butcar owner is[ˈkɑːrəʊnə]. A final schwa usually remains short and sowater in isolation is[wɔːtə].^[30]

In RP and similar accents, the vowels/iː/ and/uː/ (or/ʊ/), when they are followed byr, becomediphthongs that end in schwa and sonear is[nɪə] andpoor is[pʊə]. They have other realizations as well, including monophthongal ones. Once again, the pronunciations vary from accent to accent. The same happens to diphthongs followed byr, 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[taɪə] andsour is[saʊə].^[30] For some speakers, some long vowels alternate with adiphthong ending in schwa and sowear may be[wɛə] butwearing[ˈwɛːrɪŋ].

The compensatory lengthening view is challenged by Wells, who stated that during the 17th century, stressed vowels followed by/r/ and another consonant orword 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[ɜː] (bird,fur) and[ɜːr] (stirring,stir it) according to their positions:[ɜːr] was the regular outcome of the lengthening, which shortened to[ɜː] afterr-dropping occurred in the 18th century. The lengthening involved "mid and open short vowels" and so the lengthening of/ɑː/ incar was not a compensatory process caused byr-dropping.^[31]

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 asr-dissimilation. Examples include the dropping of the first/r/ in the wordssurprise,governor, andcaterpillar. In more careful speech, all/r/ sounds are still retained.^[32]

Rhotic accents include most varieties ofScottish English,Irish or Hiberno-English,Canadian English,American English,Barbadian English andPhilippine English.

Non-rhotic accents include most varieties ofEnglish English,Welsh English,Australian English,South African English,Nigerian English,Trinidadian and Tobagonian English, StandardMalaysian English andSingaporean English.

Non-rhotic accents have been dominant inNew Zealand English since the 1870s, but in general rhoticity is increasing quickly. Rhotic New Zealand English was historically restricted toSouthland (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 amongPasifika communities. This particular rhoticism manifests itself mostly in thenurse vowel, but with theforce vowel often remaining non-rhotic.^{[34][35][36][37]}

Semi-rhotic accents have also been studied, such asJamaican English, in whichr 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").^[38]

Variably rhotic accents are widely documented, in which deletion ofr (when not before vowels) is optional. In these dialects the probability of deletingr may vary depending on social, stylistic, and contextual factors. Variably rhotic accents comprise much ofIndian English,^[39]Pakistani English,^[40] andCaribbean English, for example, as spoken inTobago, Guyana, Antigua and Barbuda, and the Bahamas.^[41] They include current-dayNew York City English,^[42] most modern varieties ofSouthern American English,New York Latino English, and someEastern New England English, as well as some varieties ofScottish English.^[43]

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.

MostEnglish 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 nearShrewsbury to aroundPortsmouth (especially in theWest Country), in theCorby area because of migration fromScotland in the 1930s,^[44] in some ofLancashire (north and west of the centre ofManchester, increasingly among older and rural speakers only), in some parts ofYorkshire andLincolnshire, and in the areas that border Scotland.^[45]

The prestige form exerts a steady pressure toward non-rhoticity. Thus, the urban speech ofBristol orSouthampton is more accurately described as variably rhotic, the degree of rhoticity being reduced as one moves up the class and formality scales.^[45]

Most Scottish accents are rhotic. Non-rhotic speech has been reported inEdinburgh since the 1970s andGlasgow since the 1980s.^[43]

Welsh English is mostly non-rhotic, but variable rhoticity is present in accents influenced byWelsh, especially inNorth Wales. Additionally, whilePort Talbot English is largely non-rhotic, some speakers may supplant the front vowel ofbird with/ɚ/.^[46]

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 theGulf Coast. Non-rhotic accents were established in all major U.S. cities along the Atlantic coast except for theDelaware Valley area, centered onPhiladelphia andBaltimore, because of its earlyScots-Irish rhotic influence.^[11]

After the American Civil War and even more intensely during the early-to-mid-20th century, presumably correlated with the Second World War,^[11] 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."^[47]

Today, non-rhoticity in theAmerican South among Whites is found primarily among older speakers and only in some areas such as central and southernAlabama,Savannah, Georgia, andNorfolk, Virginia,^[6] as well as in theYat accent ofNew Orleans. It is still very common all across the South and across all age groups among African American speakers.

Thelocal dialects of eastern New England, especiallythat of Boston, Massachusetts and extending into the states ofMaine and (less so)New Hampshire, show some non-rhoticity along with the traditionalRhode Island dialect, although this feature has been receding in recent generations. TheNew York City dialect has traditionally been non-rhotic, butWilliam Labov more precisely classifies its current form as variably rhotic,^[48] with many of its sub-varieties actually being fully rhotic, such asthat of northeastern New Jersey.

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is largely non-rhotic, and in some non-rhotic Southern and AAVE accents, there is nolinkingr; 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[mɪstə(ʔ)ˈædəmz].^[49] In a few such accents, intervocalic/r/ is deleted before anunstressedsyllable even within a word if the following syllable begins with a vowel. In such accents, pronunciations like[kæəˈlaːnə] forCarolina, or[bɛːˈʌp] for "bear up" are heard.^[50][51]

This pronunciation occurs in AAVE^[52] and occurred for many older non-rhotic Southern speakers.^[53] 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.^[54]

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]^ⓘ (anr-colored mid central vowel) or[əɹ] (a sequence of a mid central vowel and a postalveolar or retroflex approximant).^{[citation needed]}

Canadian English is entirely rhotic except for small isolated areas in southwesternNew Brunswick, parts ofNewfoundland, and theLunenburg English variety spoken inLunenburg andShelburne Counties, Nova Scotia, which may be non-rhotic or variably rhotic.^[55]

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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 countiesLouth andCavan 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.^[56]

The English spoken in Asia is predominantly rhotic. In the case of the Philippines, that may be explained becausePhilippine 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 ofAmerican English. That excludesHong 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 ofSemitic (Arabic,Hebrew, etc.),Turkic (Turkish,Azeri, etc.),Iranian languages (Persian,Kurdish, etc.) inWest 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 ofReceived Pronunciation (RP)^[57] or rhotic from the underlyingphonotactics of the nativeIndo-Aryan andDravidian languages and the growing influence of American English.^[39][58] Other Asian regions with non-rhotic English are Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.^[59] 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.^[60][61]

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 ofIndians in Brunei,Tamil andPunjabi. Rhoticity is used byChinese 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.^[60][61]

A typical teenager's Southeast Asian English would be rhotic,^[62] mainly from the prominent influence by American English.^[62] Spoken English in Myanmar is non-rhotic,^{[citation needed]} but there are a number of English speakers with a rhotic or partially-rhotic pronunciation.Sri Lankan English may be rhotic.^{[citation needed]}

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. StandardLiberian English is also non-rhotic because its liquids are lost at the end of words or before consonants.^[63] South African English is mostlynon-rhotic, especially in the Cultivated dialect, which is based on RP, except for some Broad varieties spoken in theCape Province (typically in -er suffixes, as inwriter). 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.^[64][65]

StandardAustralian English is non-rhotic. A degree of rhoticity has been observed in a particular sublect of theAustralian Aboriginal English spoken on the coast ofSouth Australia, especially in speakers from thePoint Pearce andRaukkan settlements. These speakers realise/r/ as[ɹ] in the preconsonantalpostvocalic position (after a vowel and before a consonant), though only withinstems:[boːɹd] "board",[tʃɜɹtʃ] "church",[pɜɹθ] "Perth"; but[flæː] "flour",[dɒktə] "doctor",[jɪəz] "years". It has been speculated that the feature may derive from the fact that many of the first settlers in coastal South Australia, includingCornish tin-miners,Scottish missionaries, andAmerican whalers, spoke rhotic varieties.^[66]

New Zealand English is predominantly non-rhotic.Southland and parts ofOtago in the far south of New Zealand'sSouth 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.^[67] Older Southland speakers use/ɹ/ variably after vowels, but younger speakers now use/ɹ/ only with theNURSE vowel and occasionally with theLETTER vowel. Younger Southland speakers pronounce/ɹ/ inthird term/ˌθɵːɹdˈtɵːɹm/ (General NZE pronunciation:/ˌθɵːdˈtɵːm/) but only sometimes infarm cart/ˈfɐːmˌkɐːt/ (usually the same as in General NZE).^[68]

Non-prevocalic/ɹ/ among non-rhotic speakers is sometimes pronounced in a few words, includingIreland/ˈɑɪəɹlənd/,merely/ˈmiəɹli/,err/ɵːɹ/, and the name of the letter R/ɐːɹ/ (General NZE pronunciations:/ˈɑɪələnd,ˈmiəli,ɵː,ɐː/).^[69] The Māori accent varies from the European-origin New Zealand accent. SomeMāori speakers are semi-rhotic. That feature is not clearly identified to any particular region or attributed to any definedlanguage shift. TheMāori language tends to pronounce "r" as usually analveolar tap[ɾ], like in the Scottish dialect.^[70]

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.

A merger of words likebad andbared occurs, in some dialects of North American English, as an effect of two historical developments. First, when theTRAP vowel issporadically 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 withSQUARE, causingbad andbared to become homophones. Thus, the merger occurs almost exclusively in someNew York City English. In extreme cases, these two can also merge withNEAR, causingbad andbared to become homophonous withbeard.^[71]

A merger of words likebud andbird (/ɜːr/ and/ʌ/) occurs for some speakers ofJamaican English and makesbud andbird homophones as/bʌd/.^[72] The conversion of/ɜːr/ to[ʌ] or[ə] is also found in places scattered around England and Scotland. Some speakers, mostly rural, in the area fromLondon toNorfolk exhibit this conversion, mainly before voiceless fricatives. This gives pronunciation likefirst[fʌst] andworse[wʌs].

In the terminology ofJohn C. Wells, this consists of the merger of thelexical setsCOMMA andLETTER. 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.^[73]

In some accents,syllabification may interact with rhoticity and result in homophones for which non-rhotic accents have centering diphthongs. Possibilities includeKorea–career,^[74]Shi'a–sheer, andMaia–mire,^[75] andskua may be identical with the second syllable ofobscure.^[76]

A merger of words likebatted andbattered is present in non-rhotic accents which have undergone theweak vowel merger. Such accents include Australian, New Zealand, most South African and some non-rhotic English (e.g. Norfolk, Sheffield) speech. The third edition ofLongman 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 andagentive-ers suffixes, such asmerges-mergers andbleaches-bleachers. Because they are so numerous, they are excluded from the list of homophonous pairs below.

A conditioned merger of EME/oː/ and/ou/ with/ə/ and/ər/ is similar to theweak vowel merger, and like it occurs only in unstressed positions and only in certain words. In Cockney, the merged vowel is usually[ɐ], so thatfellow is homophonous withfeller andfella as[ˈfelɐ] (phonemically/ˈfɛlə/); thus, words likeyellow,marrow,potato,follow, etc. take a similar path. The mid[ə] occurs in other non-rhotic accents, such as someolder 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, likeAppalachian English, preserving the Middle English phonotactic constraint against final/ə/:[ˈjɛlɚ]. In other words, in traditional Appalachian dialect, the final/ə/ (as indata andsofa) is distinctlyr-colored, thus yielding the same merger as in Cockney but with a distinct phonetic output. Both phenomena are restricted to thebroadest varieties of English.^[77]

In Cockney, the resulting/ə/ is subject to/r/-insertion, as intomato and cucumber production[təˈmɑːʔ(ə)ɹənˈkjʉːkʌmbəpɹəˈdʌkʃn̩].^[78]

In RP, there are certain prefixes such ascrypto-,electro- andsocio- 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.^[79]

The merger of the lexical setsFACE,SQUARE andNEAR is possible in someJamaican English and partially also in NorthernEast Anglian English.

In Jamaica, the merger occurs after deletion of the postvocalic/r/ in a preconsonantal position, so thatfade can be homophonous withfeared as[feːd], butday[deː] is normally distinct fromdear[deːɹ], 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 ofFACE andSQUARE/NEAR does not occur). In Jamaican Patois, the merged vowel is an opening diphthong[iɛ] and that realization can also be heard in Jamaican English, mostly before a sounded/r/ (so thatfare andfear can be both[feːɹ] and[fiɛɹ]), but sometimes also in other positions. Alternatively,/eː/ can be laxed to[ɛ] before a sounded/r/, which produces a variableMary-merry merger:[fɛɹ].^[80]

It is possible in northern East Anglian varieties (to[e̞ː]), but only in the case of items descended from ME/aː/, such asdaze. Those descended from ME/ai/ (such asdays),/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, apane-pain merger is taking place. In the southern dialect area, the pane-pain merger is complete and all three vowels are distinct:FACE is[æi],SQUARE is[ɛː] andNEAR is[ɪə].^[81]

A near-merger ofFACE andSQUARE is possible in GeneralSouth African English, but the vowels typically remain distinct as[eɪ] (forFACE) and[eː] (forSQUARE). The difference between the two phonemes is so sometimes subtle thatthey're[ðeː] can be misheard asthey[ðe̞e~ðee̝] (seezero copula). In other varieties the difference is more noticeable, e.g.[ðeː] vs.[ðʌɪ] in Broad SAE and[ðɛə] vs.[ðeɪ] in the Cultivated variety. Even in General SAE,SQUARE can be[ɛə] or[ɛː], strongly distinguished fromFACE[eɪ].NEAR remains distinct in all varieties, typically as[ɪə].^[82][83] Kevin Watson reports basically the same, subtle distinction between[eɪ] inFACE and[eː] inSQUARE inScouse. The latter is used not only forSQUARE but also in theNURSE set, so thatfur is homophonous withfair as[feː] - seesquare-nurse merger. The vowel is not necessarily as front/close as this and pronunciations such as[fɛː] and[fəː] also occur, with[fəː] being the more traditional variant.^[84]

In theCardiff dialectSQUARE can also be similar to cardinal[e] (though long[eː], as in South Africa), butFACE typically has a fully close ending point[ei] 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[eɪ], but this has virtually disappeared by the 1990s.NEAR is phonemically distinct, normally as[iː] before any/r/ (afleece–near merger) and a disyllabic[iːə] elsewhere.^[85]

InGeordie, the merger ofFACE andNEAR is recessive and has never been categorical (SQUARE[ɛː] has always been a distinct vowel), asFACE can instead be pronounced as the closing diphthong[eɪ] 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 forFACE, which categorically undoes the merger for those speakers. Even whenFACE is realized as an opening-centering diphthong, it may be distinguished fromNEAR by the openness of the first element:[ɪə] or[eə] forFACE vs.[iə] forNEAR.^[86][87][88]

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 involvingFACE, seenear-square merger.

In Wells' terminology, the /ɑː/–/ɑːr/ merger consists of the merger of the lexical setsPALM andSTART. 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.^[73]

Homophonous pairs resulting from this merger are rare in accents without thefather-bother merger (see below). Two such pairs arefather-farther andspa-spar^[89]

In Wells' terminology, the /ɒ/–/ɑːr/ merger is a merger ofLOT andSTART. This merger occurs in accents with the /ɑː/–/ɑːr/ merger described above that have also undergone thefather-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 theBoston accent).^[90] This results in a greatly expanded number of homophonous pairs, such asgod-guard.

In Wells' terminology, this consists of the merger of the lexical setsSTRUT andSTART. It occurs in BlackSouth African English as a result of itsSTRUT-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:[äforstrut,andäː] for bothpalm andstart. This (as well asSQUARE-monophthongization in Australian English) introduces phonemic vowel length to those dialects.^[91][92] InColchester 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].^[93] 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.^[94]

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 ofcan't/kɑːnt/ but fail to lengthen the vowel sufficiently are perceived as uttering a highly-taboo word,cunt/kʌnt/.^[95][96][97]

In Wells' terminology, thecaught–court merger consists of the merger of the lexical setsTHOUGHT andNORTH. It is found in most of the same accents as thefather–farther merger described above, including most British English, but is absent from the Bahamas and Guyana.^[73]

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 theNORTH/FORCE vowel higher and more retracted than the vowel ofTHOUGHT.^[98]

Most speakers with the pawn-porn merger also have the same vowels incaught andcourt (a merger ofTHOUGHT andFORCE), yielding a three-way merger ofawe-or-ore/oar (seehorse-hoarse merger). These include the accents of Southern England (but seeTHOUGHT split), non-rhotic New York City speakers, Trinidad and the Southern hemisphere.

Thelot–cloth split, coupled with those mergers, produces a few more homophones, such asboss–bourse. Specifically, the phonemic merger of the wordsoften andorphan was the basis for a joke in theGilbert and Sullivanmusical,The Pirates of Penzance.

In Wells' terminology, thepaw–poor orlaw–lure merger consists of the merger of the lexical setsTHOUGHT andCURE. It is found in those non-rhotic accents containing thecaught–court merger that have also undergone thepour–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 mergertaw–tor–tore–tour.^[99]

In Wells' terminology, thedough-door merger consists of the merger of the lexical setsGOAT andFORCE. It may be found in some southern U.S. non-rhotic speech, some speakers ofAfrican American Vernacular English, some speakers in Guyana and some Welsh speech.^[73]

In Wells' terminology, theshow–sure ortoad–toured merger consists of the merger of the lexical setsGOAT andCURE. It may be present in those speakers who have both thedough–door merger described above, and also thepour–poor merger. These include some southern U.S. non-rhotic speakers, some speakers ofAfrican-American English (in both cases towards/oʊ/) and some speakers in Guyana.^[73]

InGeordie, the merger (towards/ʊə/, phonetically[uə]) is variable and recessive. It is also not categorical, asGOAT can instead be pronounced as the close-mid monophthongs[oː] and[ɵː]. The central[ɵː] is as stereotypicallyGeordie 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, seethought-goat merger). This categorically undoes the merger for those speakers. Even whenGOAT is realized as an opening-centering diphthong, it may be distinguished fromCURE by the openness of the first element:[ʊə] or[oə] vs.[uə].^{[86][87][100]}

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

A conditioned merger ofCHOICE andNURSE is famously associated with early 20th-century New York City English; seecoil–curl merger below.

Southern up-glidingNURSE

Examples of up-glidingNURSE in the speech ofOlder Southern American English speakerStrom Thurmond ("thirtieth", "thirty-first", "first", "heard", "urge")

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Up-glidingNURSE is a diphthongized vowel sound,[əɪ], used as the pronunciation of theNURSE phoneme/ɜːr/. This up-gliding variant historically occurred in some completely non-rhotic dialects ofAmerican English and is particularly associated with the early twentieth-century (but now extinct or moribund) dialects ofNew York City,New Orleans, andCharleston,^[101] likely developing in the prior century. In fact, in speakers born beforeWorld War I, this sound apparently predominated throughout theolder speech of the Southern United States that ranged from "South Carolina to Texas and north to eastern Arkansas and the southern edge of Kentucky."^[102] This variant happened only when/ɜːr/ was followed by a consonant in the same morpheme; thus, for example,stir was never[stəɪ];^[103] rather,stir would have been pronounced[stə(ɹ)].

In 1966, according to a survey that was done byWilliam Labov in New York City, 100% of the people 60 and over used[əɪ] forbird. 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[əɪ] forbird. Nearly all native New Yorkers born since 1950, even those whose speech is otherwise non-rhotic, now pronouncebird as[bɚd].^[104] However, Labov reports this vowel to be slightly raised compared to other dialects.^[105] In addition, a study from 2014 found[əɪ] variably in two participating native New Yorkers, one of whom was born as late as the early 1990s.^[106]

In some cases, particularly in New York City, theNURSE sound gliding from a schwa upwards even led to aphonemic merger of the vowel classes associated with theGeneral American phonemes/ɔɪ/ as inCHOICE and/ɜːr/ as inNURSE; thus, words likecoil andcurl, as well asvoice andverse, were homophones. The merged vowel was typically a diphthong[əɪ], with a mid central starting point, rather than the back rounded starting point of/ɔɪ/ ofCHOICE in most other accents of English. The merger is responsible for the "Brooklynese" stereotypes ofbird sounding likeboid andthirty-third sounding liketoity-toid. This merger is also known for the wordsoitenly, used often by theThree Stooges comedianCurly Howard as a variant ofcertainly in comedyshorts of the 1930s and 1940s. The songwriterSam M. Lewis, a native New Yorker, rhymedreturning withjoining in the lyrics of the English-language version of "Gloomy Sunday". Except forNew Orleans English,^{[107][108][109]} this merger did not occur in the South, despite up-glidingNURSE existing in some older Southern accents; instead, a distinction between the two phonemes was maintained due to a down-glidingCHOICE sound: something like[ɔɛ].

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 andErm, used in non-rhotic dialects to indicate afilled pause, which most rhotic dialects would instead convey withuh,eh, andum.
• The gameParcheesi, from IndianPachisi.
• British English slang words:
  • char forcha from theCantonese pronunciation ofChinese:茶 (= "tea" (the drink))^{[citation needed]}
• InRudyard Kipling's books:
  • dorg instead ofdawg for adrawled pronunciation ofdog.
  • Hindu god nameKama misspelled asKarma (which is a concept in several Asian religions, not a god).
  • Hindustaniकाग़ज़ /کاغذkāghaz ("paper") spelled askargaz.
• The donkeyEeyore inA. A. Milne's stories, whose name comes from the sound that donkeys make, commonly spelledhee-haw in American English.
• Southern Americangoober andpinder fromKiKongo andngubá andmpinda
• Burma,Bamar andMyanmar forBurmese[bəmà] (first two) and[mjàmmà]
• Orlu forIgbo[ɔ̀lʊ́]
• Transliteration of Cantonese words and names, such aschar siu (Chinese:叉燒;Jyutping:caa¹ siu¹) andWong Kar-wai (Chinese:王家衞;Jyutping:Wong⁴ Gaa¹wai⁶)
• The spelling ofschoolmarm forschool ma'am, which Americans pronounce with the rhotic consonant.
• The spellingPark for the Korean surname박 (pronounced[pak]), which does not contain aliquid consonant in Korean.
• The English spellingdumsor for theAkan termdumsɔ.

• English-language vowel changes before historic /r/
• Resh

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

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