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; 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.

Pronunciation

The Bahamian accent is traditionally non-rhotic, but often rhotic among young speakers.
The realization of vowels in Bahamian English is as follows. The vowels below are named by the lexical set they belong to:
There is poor distinction between the and sounds in Bahamian English.
The contrast is often neutralized or merged into, or, so village sounds like, or. This also happens in the Vincentian, Bermudian and other Caribbean Englishes.
Dental fricatives are usually changed to alveolar plosives :

Vocabulary