Heavy nasalization

Despite its variable occurrence in English in general, vowel nasalization is also strongly associated with the Southern American English dialect. What seems to elicit negative comment from speakers of Southern English about CajVE is not so much the nasalization of the vowel but when the nasalization process spreads to adjacent sounds. “Heavy nasalization” in CajVE is likely to appear in monosyllabic words and can be characterized by a heavier than normal degree of nasalization, that is the nasalization spreads to the consonant before the vowel (e.g. where the [b] in a word like Alabama is nasalized). More front closed vowels are nasalized than back vowels.