Vowels

Both Kriol and Cape York Creole, have reduced the number of vowel phonemes of English to five: /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/ and /u/, allowing for some further differentiation on the basis of lengthening. Table 1 (below) shows the effects of this on the pronunciation of the 28 words in Wells’ (1982) list.

This table needs to be read with caution, since some of the words on it (those indicated with an asterisk) were identified by Kriol informants as not occurring in their language. Generally, the same trends are apparent in Kriol and Torres Strait Creole, though the monophthongization of diphthongs and the phonemically distinctive use of vowel length have been reported only with respect to the former. The open-close contrast among vowels is less significant than in StE. It has been suggested with respect to Fitzroy Valley Kriol (Fraser 1977) that – under the influence of the local language Walmajarri – the open-close contrast is less salient than the short-long contrast. This may well apply more widely. It is note-worthy that most Aboriginal languages have only three vowels, /i/, /a/ and /u/, though sometimes distinguishing long and short forms of these (Eagleson, Kaldor and Malcolm 1982: 41). The creole systems are closer to such a pattern than to the pattern of StE with the 28 discriminations represented in Wells’ (1982) table.