Diphthongs

The diphthong of words like PRICE and PRIZE shows quite a bit of variability ethnically and generationally in the Bahamas. Older Anglo-Bahamian speakers show a backed nucleus much like that of the Pamlico Sound area of coastal North Carolina, as well as a number of dialect areas in Southern England and in the Southern Hemisphere; they also have a fairly strong offglide. Younger speakers tend to show a less backed nucleus and a weakened glide preceding voiced consonants, not unlike that found in Southern American English varieties. Childs, Reaser and Wolfram (2003) show that Afro-Bahamians exhibit a pattern comparable to that found in African American English in the US, with a fully glided offglide for price (preceding voiceless consonants) and a drastically reduced glide for prize (preceding voiced consonants). There is also less of a tendency to back the nucleus of /ai/ among Afro-Bahamian speakers.

Some observers have mistakenly associated the diphthong of MOUTH in The Bahamas with Canadian raising. In Canadian raising the nucleus of the /au/ diphthong of MOUTH is raised before voiceless consonants so that out is realized as ; however, this type of raising is not found in Anglo-Bahamian or Afro-Bahamian speech. Instead, in Anglo-Bahamian speech /au/ is front-glided and produced as [aε], while in Afro-Bahamian speech the diphthong is produced with a backing glide. Although the production of /au/ by the Afro-Bahamian population is fairly standard, the production of /au/ with a front glide by the Anglo-Bahamian population is a noteworthy departure from standard productions in The Bahamas and the US, though it is fairly typical of some coastal varieties on the Pamlico Sound area of North Carolina and the Chesapeake (Thomas 2001).