Bahamian English

Bahamian English is a group of varieties of English spoken in the Bahamas and by members of the Bahamian diaspora. The standard for official use and education is British-based with regard to spelling, vocabulary, and pronunciation;[1] however, perceptions of the standard are more recently changing towards American norms. In particular, younger and modern news-media Bahamian English pronunciations are often more influenced by General American English, or sometimes even African-American Vernacular English.[1]

Not to be confused with Bahamian Creole.

Bahamian English
Region	The Bahamas
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Frisian Anglic English North American English Caribbean English Bahamian English
Early forms	Old English Middle English Early Modern English
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

Pronunciation

The Bahamian accent is traditionally non-rhotic, but often rhotic among young speakers.[1][2]

The realization of vowels in Bahamian English is as follows. The vowels below are named by the lexical set they belong to:

• The Kit vowel: The same as in American English, the default [ɪ].
• The Dress vowel: The vowel is [ɛ].
• The Trap vowel: This vowel is mostly [a] or [æ].
• The Lot vowel: As mostly of the US, this vowel is usually [ɑ].
• The Strut vowel: It is the same as in the US English, [ʌ].
• The Foot vowel: It is [ʊ].
• The Fleece vowel: It is [i] or a diphthong [ɪi].
• The Face diphthong: It is generally [eɪ] or [ɛɪ].
• The Palm vowel: It is mostly [ɑ].
• The Thought vowel: The vowel is [ɔ].
• The Goat diphthong: It is generally [ɵʊ] or [oʊ].
• The Near diphthong: It is [eə] or [iə].
• The Square diphthong: It is [eə].
• The Start vowel: It is [ɑː].
• The North diphthong: usually [ɔə].
• The Force diphthong: usually [oə].
• The Cure diphthong: usually [uə].
• The Bath vowel: This vowel is mostly [a] or [æ].
• The Cloth vowel: It is mostly [ɔ].
• The Nurse vowel: It varies among [ə], [ɜ] and [ɜi].
• The Goose vowel: It is mostly [ʉː].
• The Price/Prize Dithphong: It's generally [ɑɪ].
• The Choice diphthong: It is [oɪ] or [ɑɪ].
• The Mouth diphthong: It varies among [ao], [aɵ] [aɛ] and [ɑə].
• The happY vowel: It is pretty much the kit vowel: [ɪ].
• The lettEr-horsEs-commA vowel is [ə] (schwa).

There is poor distinction between the [v] and [w] sounds in Bahamian English.[3] The contrast is often neutralized or merged into [v], [b] or [β], so village sounds like [wɪlɪdʒ], [vɪlɪdʒ] or [βɪlɪdʒ]. This also happens in the Vincentian, Bermudian and other Caribbean Englishes.

Dental fricatives are usually changed to alveolar plosives (th-stopping):

• Voiced th becomes /d/, e.g. "That" turns into "dat"; "Those" > "Dose"; "There" > "Dere"; "They" > "Dey".
• Unvoiced th becomes /t/, e.g. "Thanks" becomes "tanks"; "Throw" > "Trow"; "Three" > "Tree".

Grammar

Vocabulary

References

1. Ammon, Ulrich; Dittmar, Norbert; Mattheier, Klaus J. (2006). Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society. Walter de Gruyter. p. 2069. ISBN 978-3-11-018418-1. British-based standard Bahamian English is the official language [...] Although standard Bahamian is non-rhotic, many Bahamians view r-full American pronunciations as "correct" and try to imitate them, even to the extent of introducing a hypercorrect /r/ in [...] Baharmas.
2. Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English. 3: Beyond the British Isles. Cambridge U. Press. p. 570. ISBN 978-0-521-28541-4. The accents of Trinidad and the other Windward and Leeward Islands, and of the Bahamas, are non-rhotic. Jamaica and Guyana occupy intermediate positions, with variable semi-rhoticity.
3. Childs, Becky; Wolfram, Walt (2008). "Bahamian English: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W. (ed.). Varieties of English. 2: The Americas and the Caribbean. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 239–255.

• https://bahamasrealestateblog.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-to-talk-like-bahamian.html
• Kortmann, Bernd (2004). A Handbook of Varieties of English: Phonology. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5.