Consonants

Stops: P/T/K, B/D/G

A weakened aspiration in word-initial voiceless stops is most characteristic of the South Asian varieties of English (IndE and PakE; also SgE and PhlE), and also reported for CajE and, in weaker form, some dialects in Britain, America, and South Africa; conversely, aspiration is said to be particularly strong in Wales (but largely missing from Maori English and FijE as well as the Pacific contact varieties except for HawC). The lenisation and voicing of intervocalic /t/ characterizes North America, IrE, south-western English dialects, and antipodean accents, but is rare elsewhere. Replacing a word-final or intervocalic /t/ by a glottal stop is a process which is common throughout the British Isles and in Malaysia and sometimes found in dialects of AmE, AusE and NZE. The palatalization of word-initial velar stops (e.g. kyan’t ‘can’t’, gyarden ‘garden’) as well as the emergence of /w/ after initial /b/, as in bwoy ‘boy’, is distinctive of the Caribbean and only very rarely noted elsewhere. Affricate realizations of /t/ are reported for Dublin, the Liverpool area, and, most characteristically, certain strata of AusE; GhE may have /ts/. South Asian Englishes have retroflexed realizations of /t/ and /d/, and Saramaccan has implosive voiced stops.