Barbadian English is fully rhotic and full of glottal stops. One example of Barbadian English would be the pronunciation of departments, which is IPA:[dɪˈpaːɹʔmənʔs]. It is also notable, in comparison with standard American or British English, for the first vowel in price or prize. [1][2]
The realization of the KIT vowel /ɪ/ in Barbadian English is pretty much the same as in American English, the default [ɪ].
The FLEECE vowel /iː/ is [iː]. HAPPY is best identified as an allophone of this phoneme, thus /ˈhapiː/.
The FACE diphthong /eɪ/ varies by region and education/class: it manifests in educated speech generally as [eː] or sometimes [eɪ], and in rural and uneducated speech as the vowel [ɛ].
The PALM vowel /ɑː/ is mostly [aː]. The BATH diaphoneme is mostly to be identified with this vowel (see trap-bath split)
^ ab Schneider, E.W., and Kortmann, B. " A Handbook of Varieties of English: Morphology and syntax ". Mouton de Gruyter, 2004. In [1],
^ Michelle Straw, Peter L. Patrick. " Dialect acquisition of glottal variation in /t/: Barbadians in Ipswich ". Language Sciences 29 (2007) 385–407. In [2],
