“Short” vowels

TRAP

For the TRAP vowel, two major realizations seem to be competing globally. The half-open front [æ] is the traditional variant of conservative RP and many L1 dialects, predominant throughout North America, in many BrE accents (mostly throughout the South), and in the southern hemisphere (SAfE, AusE). However, even in southern types of BrE and modern RP this seems currently to be giving way to a lowered [a], the type which has traditionally characterized northern as against southern BrE dialects and is characteristic of the Caribbean and L2-varieties in West and East Africa (in Asia it is restricted to PhlE). Other variants are considerably less widespread; they include raising (characteristic of NZE; a possibility in some BrE and AmE dialects, and fairly common in South African and South-East Asian accents, AbE, and on Fiji and Hawai’i) and offgliding (regular in SAmE and AAVE, and possible in some other dialects of AmE as well as BrE).