Vowels and diphthongs PRICE, CHOICE, MOUTH

The PRICE/CHOICE merger, general in JamC (Thomas 2001: 163) but carefully distinguished by StJamE speakers, does not hold for BrC, where some back round diphthongs occur in CHOICE words. Use of /w/ to distinguish these (/bwai/ ‘boy’, as in JamC) from PRICE words is a salient marker of BrC, and may occur even where vowel quality makes it redundant. Both diphthongs contain strong glides; they may be more peripheral before unvoiced consonants. For UK-born speakers, both onset and target may be slightly retracted or lowered. However, Sutcliffe and Figueroa (1992: 98) observe a fronting and raising of the onset in Rastafarian identified speakers in Dudley.

MOUTH generally does not show the [o] or  starting point common in JamC but is lowered and/or fronted, converging with London realizations; the glide may be abbreviated to a centring one, targeting [ə] . Exceptions to this are lexicalized pronunciations of common words ending in a velar nasal, realized /Λŋ/ in BrC, where LonVE has the MOUTH diphthong followed by /n/ or /nd/, as in down  town, round.