Please see How to Work on an Accent for advice on using this breakdown.
Listening Sample Subjects
A range of sample subjects is offered here, intended to represent options for:
- The eloquent George of the Act 1 letters–the George of Esther’s imagination
- The rougher, less educated, real-life George of Act 2
Key Sounds
For each sound, I’ve included audio examples and a dropdown section of practice phrases.
Unless otherwise indicated, practice phrases are excerpted from Lexical Sets for Actors by Eric Armstrong under a creative commons license.
Key Consonant Sounds
TH-Stopping
TH sounds are pronounced as D and T (e.g. “these things”–>”dese tings”.)
Glottal Stops
The T sound at the end of a word is pronounced by stopping the air at the vocal folds rather than with the tongue. This can also apply (but less consistently) to P and K sounds.
Other Consonant Features
Cluster Reduction
Partly as a result of glottalization, final consonant clusters may be simplified. For instance, words ending in “-nd” may pronounce only the N.
G-Dropping
Words with the -ing suffix are pronounced -in’.
R-Coloring (Rhoticity)
Barbadian English is rhotic, meaning that R is generally pronounced in all positions. (This is different from some other Caribbean accents.)
Palatalization of Open Vowels After Velars
This feature doesn’t show up that often, but it’s an interesting detail. After K and G sounds, open vowels such as AH will receive a little Y-glide, so “car” may sound like the middle of the word “bacKYARd”.
Vowel Sounds
Words like FACE and GOAT
FACE
GOAT
These words tend to use a single steady vowel quality or an opening diphthong, rather than the closing diphthong heard in many other varieties of English.
Words like NEAR and SQUARE
The vowel sound in words like NEAR and SQUARE are pronounced similarly.
Words like PRICE
The PRICE vowel starts in a fairly central place similar to the unstressed syllable in “commA”.
Words like MOUTH
The MOUTH sound starts fairly far back in the mouth, with some degree of lip rounding from the outset.
Words like TRAP and BATH
The vowel sound in words like TRAP and BATH is quite open and central.
Words like LOT and THOUGHT
This vowel sound is open, back, and has some lip rounding.
Syllable Rhythm
Minimize Vowel Reduction
Unstressed syllables keep some of their full vowel quality, resisting the tendency to “reduce” toward schwa. As a result, syllables may sound more evenly weighted than in some other varieties of English. Practice giving some extra length to unstressed syllables or keeping an evenly-timed syllable rhythm throughout.
Intonation
This accent favors downward pitch inflections. The following pitch and rhythm information is extracted from the Austin Husbands clip above. Notice the absence of rising pitch contours.