Postvocalic r

The pronunciation of postvocalic /r/ in door, mother, and bird is quite variable, although most speakers exhibit r-lessness to some degree (Wells 1982). The speech of both black and white speakers tends to be non-rhotic, aligning with many dialects of England and with American English in the earlier Plantation South. The use of postvocalic /r/ in The Bahamas shows a pattern similar to that found for African American Vernacular English (Fasold and Wolfram 1970). Vocalization occurs in a word-final position when followed by a consonant (e.g. four cats) or vowel (e.g. four apples), with a following consonant favoring postvocalic r loss over a following vowel. Stressed nuclear r in bird or sir is more likely to be rhotic, with some ethnic division; black Bahamians are more likely to vocalize stressed nuclear r than their white counterparts. Finally, there is some intra-word intervocalic r loss as in ma’y for marry or Ca’ol for Carol. These cases of intervocalic, intra-word absence are not consistent and appear to be lexically based. Hackert (2004) notes that even though most Bahamian varieties are non-rhotic, some speakers now perceive r-full pronunciations as standard because of the influence of the American media. It may well be that this influence will eventually lead to a more rhotic variety, if this trend has not started already among some younger speakers.

Afro-Bahamians also vocalize postvocalic l in items such as steal and well, as do AAVE speakers, but Anglo-Bahamians tend to use an alveolar or “light” l regardless of phonetic environment, setting them apart from varieties such as American English.

In syllable-coda and intervocalic position, voiced sibilants may be devoiced in Anglo-Bahamian English. Thus, items like buzz and booze may be produced with a final [s] and easy and lazy may be produced with a voiceless sibilants, as ea[s]y la[s]y, respectively, and measure and treasure may be produced as mea [ʃ] ure and tread [ʃ] ure, respectively. Although many varieties of English have partial devoicing of obstruents in syllable-coda position, the final sibilant in Bahamian English may be fully voiceless. Furthermore, this devoicing even may apply to segments that are followed by a voiced segment, as in hu[s]band for husband and bu[s]iness for business. Although this pattern is quite prominent for Anglo speakers, it is not as extensive among Afro-Bahamians.

Older speakers in more remote areas of the islands may sometimes use [sr] for [θr] clusters, so that three and through may be pronounced as [sri] and [sru], respectively. However, this production is somewhat idiosyncratic; some speakers use it predominantly while others do not use it at all.