Introduction Chapter I

Part 1 of American English diphthongs[14]
Part 2 of American English diphthongs[14]
The vowels of American English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving American English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English, though not unknown elsewhere, such as in regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in the US.[15] As with New Zealand English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in American English: unstressed /ɪ/ is merged into /ə/ (schwa), unless it is followed by a velar consonant.
monophthongs diphthongs
short vowels long vowels
IPA examples IPA examples IPA examples
ʊ foot, hood, chook ʉː goose, boo, who’d ɪə near, beard, hear[nb 1]
ɪ kit, bid, hid, iː fleece, bead, heat æɔ mouth, bowed, how’d
ɛ dress, led, head eː square, bared, haired əʉ goat, bode, hoed
ə comma, about, winter ɜː nurse, bird, heard æɪ face, bait, made
æ trap, lad, had æː bad, sad, mad ɑɪ price, bite, hide
ɐ strut, bud, hud ɐː start, palm, bath[nb 2] oɪ choice, boy, oil
ɔ lot, cloth, hot oː thought, north, force
^ The boundary between monophthongs and diphthongs is somewhat fluid, /ɪə/, for example, is commonly realised as [ɪː], particularly in closed syllables, though also found in open syllables such as we're, here, and so on. In open syllables particularly the pronunciation varies from the bisyllabic [ɪːɐ] though the diphthong [ɪə] to the long vowel [ɪː].
^ Many words historically containing /æ/ have /ɐː/ instead, however the extent to which this development has taken hold varies regionally.
Consonants Edit
There is little variation in the sets of consonants used in different English dialects but there are variations in how these consonants are used. American English is no exception.

Consonant phonemes of American English[16]

Labial Dental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive p b t d tʃ dʒ k ɡ
Fricative f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h
Approximant ɹ j w
Lateral l
American English is non-rhotic; that is, the /r/ sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. However, a linking /r/ can occur when a word that has a final in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. An intrusive /r/ may similarly be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have in the spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel /oː/ and after word final /ə/. This can be heard in "law-r-and order," where an intrusive R is voiced after the W and before the A.
There is some degree of allophonic variation in the alveolar stops. As with North American English, Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a feature of American English: prevocalic /t/ and /d/ surface as the alveolar tap [ɾ] after sonorants other than /m, ŋ/ as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel in the same breath group. The wine–whine merger is complete in American English.
Yod-dropping occurs after /s/, /z/ and, /θ/. Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/, along with /tj/ and /dj/, have coalesced to /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively for many speakers. /j/ is generally retained in other consonant clusters.
In common with most varieties of Scottish English and American English, the phoneme /l/ is pronounced as a "dark" (velarised) L ([ɫ]) in all positions, unlike other dialects such as Received Pronunciation and Hiberno (Irish) English, where a light L (i.e., a non-velarised L) is used in many positions.
Pronunciation
Differences in stress, weak forms and standard pronunciation of isolated words occur between American English and other forms of English, which while noticeable do not impair intelligibility.
The affixes -ary, -ery, -ory, -bury, -berry and -mony (seen in words such as necessary, mulberry and matrimony) can be pronounced either with a full vowel or a schwa. Although some words like necessary are almost universally pronounced with the full vowel, older generations of Americans are relatively likely to pronounce these affixes with a schwa while younger generations are relatively likely to use a full vowel.
Words ending in unstressed -ile derived from Latin adjectives ending in -ilis are pronounced with a full vowel (/ɑɪl/), so that fertile rhymes with fur tile rather than turtle.
In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to seemingly random words. For example, as with American English, the vowel in yoghurt and the prefix homo- (as in homosexual or homophobic) is pronounced as /əʉ/ ("long o") rather than /ɔ/ ("short o"); vitamin, migraine and privacy are pronounced with /ɑɪ/ (as in mine) rather than /ɪ/, /iː/ and /ɪ/ respectively; paedophile is pronounced with /ɛ/ (as in red) rather than /iː/; urinal is pronounced with schwa /ə/ rather than /ɑɪ/ ("long i"); and harass and harassment are pronounced with the stress on the second, rather than the first syllable. As with British English, advertisement is pronounced with /ɪ/; tomato and vase are pronounced with /ɐː/ (as in father) instead of /æɪ/; zebra is pronounced with /ɛ/ (as in red) rather than /iː/; basil is pronounced with /æ/ ("short a") rather than /æɪ/ ("long a"); and buoy is pronounced as /boɪ/ (as in boy) rather than /ˈbʉːiː/. Examples of miscellaneous pronunciations which contrast with both standard American and British usages are data, which is pronounced with /ɐː/ ("dah") instead of /æɪ/ ("day"); garage, pronounced /ˈɡæɹɑː(d)ʒ/ instead of British /ˈɡæɹɪdʒ/ or American /ɡəˈɹɑː(d)ʒ/ (although the American pronunciation is also used); and maroon (colour), pronounced with /əʉ/ ("own") as
Spelling and style
As in most English-speaking countries, there is no official governmental regulator or overseer of normative spelling and grammar. The Macquarie Dictionary is used by some universities and some other organisations as a standard for American English spelling. The Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers, the Cambridge Guide to American English Usage and the American Guide to Legal Citation are prominent style guides.
American spelling is closer to British than American spelling. As with British spelling, the u is retained in words such as colour, honour, labour and favour. While the Macquarie Dictionary lists the -our ending and follows it with the -or ending as an acceptable variant, the latter is rarely found in actual use today. American print media, including digital media, today strongly favour -our endings. A notable exception to this rule is the American Labor Party, which officially adopted the -or spelling in its name in 1912, after a period where both spellings seem to have been used indiscriminately (some sources have attributed the official decision for the party to use the American spelling to King O'Malley, who was born in the United States and was reputedly an advocate of spelling reform; the spelling without a ⟨u⟩ is the standard form in American English.[34][35] It has been suggested that the adoption of the spelling without a ⟨u⟩ "signified one of the ALP's earliest attempts at modernisation", and served the purpose of differentiating the party from the American labour movement as a whole and distinguishing it from other British Empire labour parties). Consistent with British spellings, -re, rather than -er, is the only listed variant in American dictionaries in words such as theatre, centre and manoeuvre. Unlike British English, which is split between -ise and -ize in words such as organise and realise, with -ize favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary and -ise listed as a variant, -ize is rare in American English and designated as a variant by the Macquarie Dictionary. Ae and oe are often maintained in words such as manoeuvre and paedophilia (excepting those listed below); however, the Macquarie Dictionary lists forms with e (e.g., pedophilia) as acceptable variants and notes a tendency within American English towards using only e.
Individual words where the preferred spelling is listed by the Macquarie Dictionary as being different from the British spellings include "program" (in all contexts) as opposed to "programme", "analog" (antonym of "digital") as opposed to "analogue", "livable" as opposed to "liveable", "guerilla" as opposed to "guerrilla", "verandah" as opposed to "veranda", "burqa" as opposed to "burka", "pastie" (food) as opposed to "pasty".[28][36][37] Unspaced forms such as "onto", "anytime", "alright" and "anymore" are also listed as being as acceptable as their spaced counterparts.[28]
Different spellings have existed throughout Australia's history. A pamphlet entitled The So-Called "American Spelling", published in Sydney some time in the 19th century, argued that "there is no valid etymological reason for the preservation of the u in such words as honor, labor, etc."[38] The pamphlet also claimed that "the tendency of people in Australasia is to excise the u, and one of the Sydney morning papers habitually does this, while the other generally follows the older form." What are today regarded as American spellings were popular in Australia throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the Victorian Department of Education endorsing them into the 1970s and The Age newspaper until the 1990s. This influence can be seen in the spelling of the American Labor Party and also in some place names such as Victor Harbor. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has been attributed with re-establishing the dominance of the British spellings in the 1920s and 1930s.[39] For a short time during the late 20th century, Harry Lindgren's 1969 spelling reform proposal (Spelling Reform 1 or SR1) gained some support in Australia: in 1975, the American Teachers' Federation adopted SR1 as a policy.[40] SR1 calls for the short /e/ sound (as in bet) to be spelt with E (for example friend→frend, head→hed).
Both single and double quotation marks are in use (with double quotation marks being far more common in print media), with logical (as opposed to typesetter's) punctuation. Spaced and unspaced em-dashes remain in mainstream use, as with American and Canadian English. The DD/MM/YYYY date format is followed and the 12-hour clock is generally used in everyday life (as opposed to service, police, and airline applications).
Language tag comparison
American[41] American[42] British[43] Canadian[44]
anaemia anemia anaemia anemia
analog analog analogue analogue
analyse analyze analyse analyze
burqa burka burka burka, burqa
catalogue catalog catalogue catalog
centre center centre centre
colour color colour colour

defence defense defence defence

encyclopedia encyclopedia encyclopaedia encyclopedia
fetus fetus foetus fetus
gaol, jail jail jail jail
guerilla guerilla guerrilla guerrilla
enquire (informal),
inquire (formal) inquire enquire (informal),
inquire (formal) inquire
judgement,
judgment (legal) judgment judgement,
judgment (legal) judgment
livable livable liveable livable
manoeuvre maneuver manoeuvre manoeuvre
pastie pasty pasty pasty
practise (v.) practice practise (v.) practise (v.)
program program programme,
program (computer code) program
realise realize realise realize
travelling traveling travelling travelling
verandah veranda veranda veranda
yoghurt yogurt yoghurt yogourt