Sound correspondences between English accents

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) can be used to represent sound correspondences among various accents and dialects of the English language.

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.

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.

Consonants

Vowels

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 mostly defined such that no mergers of the sets in each group take place outside them. However, there are several mergers which are not described in the tables for practical reasons (see "Sets not merged here"). 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

comm A to FLEECE

STRUT to GOOSE

PRICE to CHOICE

NEAR to lett ER

NORTH to CURE

Sets not merged here

In the tables above, the mergers of the FACE, DRESS, GOAT, MOUTH, and START lexical sets are not included because of space limitations. These mergers[citation needed] are instead described below:

• FACE may merge with happY in Scottish English.
• DRESS may completely merge with TRAP in Singaporean Standard English and Hong Kong English.
• GOAT may merge with THOUGHT in various North England Englishes.
• MOUTH may merge with PRICE in General South African English.
• START may completely merge with TRAP, BATH and PALM in Cameroonian English.
• CURE may merge with THOUGHT in many varieties, including Standard Southern British English.

See also

• English phonology
• List of dialects of the English language
• Phonetic alphabets
• Pronunciation respelling for English
• Help:IPA/English
• Help:IPA/Conventions for English

Further reading

• Bauer, Laurie; Warren, Paul; Bardsley, Dianne; Kennedy, Marianna; Major, George (2007), , Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (1): 97–102, doi:
• Boberg, Charles (2004). "English in Canada: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). A Handbook of Varieties of English. Vol. 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 351–365. ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5.
• Bekker, Ian (2008). (PDF).
• Coupland, Nikolas; Thomas, Alan R., eds. (1990), , Multilingual Matters Ltd., ISBN 1-85359-032-0
• Gimson, A. C. (1980). An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English (3rd ed.). London: Edward Arnold. ISBN 0-7131-6287-2.
• Harrington, J.; Cox, F.; Evans, Z. (1997). "An acoustic phonetic study of broad, general, and cultivated Australian English vowels". Australian Journal of Linguistics. 17 (2): 155–84. doi:.
• Cox, Felicity; Palethorpe, Sallyanne (2007), (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 37 (3): 341–350, doi:
• Kenyon, John S. (1950). American Pronunciation (10th ed.). Ann Arbor: George Wahr.
• Kenyon, John S.; Knott, Thomas A. (1953) [1944]. A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster. ISBN 0-87779-047-7. {{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Lass, Roger (2002). "South African English". In Mesthrie, Rajend (ed.). Language in South Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521791052.
• Mannell, R.; Cox, F.; Harrington, J. (2009). An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. Macquarie University.
• Roach, Peter (2004). . Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 34 (2): 239–245. doi:.
• Sailaja, Pingali (2009). . Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd. pp. –38. ISBN 9780748625949.
• Schneider, Edgar W.; Kortmann, Bernd (2004). A Handbook of Varieties of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-017532-0.
• Scobbie, James M.; Gordeeva, Olga B.; Matthews, Benjamin (2006). "Acquisition of Scottish English Phonology: an overview" (Document). Edinburgh: QMU Speech Science Research Centre Working Papers.
• Wells, John C. (2000). (2nd ed.). Harlow, Essex: Pearson Education Limited. ISBN 0-582-36468-X.
• Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Vol. II: The British Isles. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-28541-0.
• Deterding, David; Wong, Jennie; Kirkpatrick, Andy (April 2008). "The pronunciation of Hong Kong English". English World-Wide. doi:.
• Hung, Tony; Bolton, Kingsley (2002). "Towards a phonology of Hong Kong English". Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9622095534.
• Cummings, Patrick J.; Wolf, Hans-Georg (2011). A Dictionary of Hong Kong English: Words from the Fragrant Harbor. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
• Setter, Jane; Wong, Cathy S. P.; Chan, Brian H. S. (2010). Dialects of English: Hong Kong English. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 9780748635955.