Vowels and diphthongs NEAR, SQUARE

JamC is variably (semi-)rhotic but BrC is less so. This may be due to the sociolinguistic confusion of values attached to rhoticity, which is more often present in StJamE than basilectal JamC, but less often present in both standard and vernacular varieties of South East England. Rhotic pronunciations may be interpreted as either basilectal or acrolectal in Jamaican contexts, depending on linguistic environment, but are non-local in London and thus not especially likely to surface in BrC, on either count. These two word-classes are salient environments for post-vocalic /r/ appearance in BrC, as it may coincide with basilectal in-glides [ier, iεr], which are less stigmatized in this environment. However, both in BrC and basilectal JamC, non-pre-vocalic /r/ is generally limited to morpheme-final position. Wells (1973: 95–101), describing JamC adults undergoing long-term accommodation to BrE, gives frequencies of appearance before a variety of final consonants.

In BrC focused on basilectal JamC, the two word-classes may merge in NEAR with an in-glide, thus contrasting strongly with LonVE. For British-born speakers, the occasional acrolectal StJamE merging in SQUARE (in which cheers may be pronounced with a mid monophthong, as though it were chairs ) is not typical of BrC, since the two word-classes may be distinguished on height, as  and [ε:] , with or without a centring glide.