Tense vowels FACE

In StNfldE, the usual realization is standard North American upglided [ei] or [eɪ]. Vernacular NfldE varieties, however, display a range of variants, including a lowered onset (). Older speakers – particularly on the Irish Avalon, but by no means only in this area – often exhibit the historically earlier non-upglided pronunciations, whether monophthongal [e:, ε:] or, in closed syllables, inglided [e(j)ə,ε(j)ə] . Such realizations occur both for words which in Middle and Early Modern English contained a long monophthong (e.g. made) as well as those that contained an upglided diphthong (e.g. maid); however, these two subsets continued to be distinguished by some conservative speakers in rural English-settled Newfoundland until fairly recently.