the early non-Aboriginal Australians especially Cockney convicts, and it also coincides with some other nonstandard varieties of English. But it is a mistake to
assume that the pronunciation of words without h is uneducated English. It is just as much a part of the Aboriginal accent, as the sophisticated and charming
vowel pronunciations of French speakers of English are part of the French accent. It should be respected as part of the Aboriginal accent, and recognized as a feature
of which many Aboriginal people are proud. While this feature of Aboriginal English pronunciation is shared with a
number of other non-standard English varieties, there is a related characteristic of Aboriginal English pronunciation which is much less commonly found in non-
Aboriginal varieties of English: namely the addition of the h sound to English words which start in a vowel, as in:
Standard English: Uncle Sam Aboriginal English: Huncle Sam
This tendency to overcompensate in using the h sound at the beginning of a word is an example of a general linguistic pattern, technically known as
hypercorrection. Different examples of hypercorrection can be found in diverse language situations throughout the world.
b. African American Vernacular English Ebonics
Nasalized vowels: When a nasal n or m follows a vowel, AAVE speakers sometimes delete
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the nasal consonant and nasalize the vowel. This nasalization is written with a tilde ~ above the vowel. So man becomes mã.
Nasals consonants and front vowels: In many varieties of English, including standard varieties, the vowels i in
pin and e in pen sound different in all words. In AAVE, these sounds are merged before a nasal like n or m. So in AAVE pin and pen are pronounced with the
same vowel. Most Southern US varieties of English merge these vowels too, so this is only a distinctive feature of AAVE in the northern United States.
Diphthongs:
Some vowels like those in night and my or about and cow are called
diphthongs. This means that when the vowel is pronounced, the tongue starts at one place in the mouth and moves as the vowel is being pronounced. In AAVE the
vowel in night or in my is often not a diphthong. So when pronouncing the words with this diphthong, AAVE speakers and speakers of Southern varieties as
well do not move the tongue to the front top position. So my is pronounced ma as in hes over at ma sisters house.
c. Cameron English Kamtok There are 7 vowels in Kamtok: a, e, eh, i, o, oh, u. a, e and o are
pronounced similar to the pure vowels of Spanish; eh is similar to the e sound in English bet; oh is similar to the aw sound in awful. Note that eh is
usually written as a small backwards 3, and oh as a backwards c. But these
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symbols are hard to produce over the web.
Many speakers do not differentiate the vowels in the English words
cot, court and cut, pronouncing all these words as koht.
Many speakers of Kamtok. especially uneducated, rural speakers use the sounds and sound patterns of their mother tongues.
d. Papua New Guinea The Tok Pisin The Tok Pisin vowels are a, e, i, o and u. In English, the letter for a
vowel might have many different pronunciations -- for example, compare the sound of the u in rule, put, but, and fuse. But in Tok Pisin, each vowel
has only one pronunciation, much like the pure vowels in languages such as Spanish.
a is pronounced similar to the a in the English word father. e is ppronounced similar to the e in vein.
i is pronounced similar to the i in machine. o is pronounced similar to the o in boat.
u is pronounced similar to the u in rule.
Because Tok Pisin doesnt have some of the sounds that English has, and because of the rules just mentioned, what are different words in English may be
the same word in Tok Pisin. For example, hat means hat, hot, heart, and hard.
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e. Hawaii Creole English
