Phonology

Overview

The two main phonological indicators of White South African English are the behavior of the vowels in KIT and BATH. The KIT vowel tends to ‘split’, so that there is a clear allophonic variation between the close, front [ɪ] and a somewhat more central [ї]. The BATH vowel is characteristically open and back in the General and Broad varieties of WSAfE. The tendency to monophthongize both MOUTH and PRICE to [a:] are also typical features of General and Broad WSAfE.

Consonantal indicators include the tendency for voiceless plosives to be unaspirated in stressed word-initial environments; [ʧ] tune and [ʤ] dune tend to be realized as [tj] and [dj] respectively; and I have noticed a strong tendency for /h/ to be voiced initially.