American regional features

• Southern r-vocalization after a vowel, as in river (Americans say that the second r is gone with the wind);

• Monophthongization of the diphthong [ai] which is unmarked before a voiced consonant as in side, tide [sa:d, ta:d] but is socially marked before a voiceless: light, sight [lat, sat];

• Southern drawl in that [д€aәt];

• /i/ in men, ten [mim, tin).

Other regional features are stereotyped in American spelling by their citizens:

• New York open [a]: Noo Yawk Tawk;

• Boston vocalised r in Pahk the cah in liahvahd yahd;

• Afro-American dental plosives instead of dental fricatives: dese, dose, I tink so.

• Western cot — caught merger (70% of the lexicon as compared to 21% in Pennsylvania, for instance).

General Canadian (Gen Can) shares a few features with the North of the U.S.A., such as raising of/ae/ in cad and the cot — caught merger.

General Australian (Gen Aus) shares a few features with London pop­ular speech (Cockney). The most salient vowel characteristic is /ai/ in day, take. Within the country they also distinguish, besides Gen Aus, Cultivat­ed Australian and Broad Australian. Cultivated Australian is closer to RP than General Australian. Broad Australian is applied to a heavy local ac­cent, most often of people in the countryside, the part of the land often referred to as "the Bush".