Concept

American and British English pronunciation differences

Summary
Differences in pronunciation between American English (AmE) and British English (BrE) can be divided into differences in accent (i.e. phoneme inventory and realisation). See differences between General American and Received Pronunciation for the standard accents in the United States and Britain; for information about other accents see regional accents of English speakers. differences in the pronunciation of individual words in the lexicon (i.e. phoneme distribution). In this article, transcriptions use Received Pronunciation (RP) to represent BrE and General American (GAm) to represent AmE. In the following discussion: superscript A2 after a word indicates that the BrE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in AmE. superscript B2 after a word indicates that the AmE pronunciation of the word is a common variant in BrE. superscript A1 after a word indicates that the pronunciation given as BrE is also the most common variant in AmE. superscript B1 after a word indicates that the pronunciation given as AmE is also the most common variant in BrE. Subscript a or b means that the relevant unstressed vowel is also reduced to ə or ɪ in AmE or BrE, respectively. For many loanwords from French, AmE has final-syllable stress, while BrE stresses an earlier syllable. French loanwords that differ in stress only are listed below. Most 2-syllable verbs ending in -ate have first-syllable stress in AmE and second-syllable stress in BrE. This includes castrate, collate, cremateA2, curate, dictateA2, donateA2, frustrate, gestate, gradate, gyrate, hydrate, locateA2, migrate, mutate, narratebA2, notate, phonate, placatebB2, prostrate, pulsate, rotate, serrateA2, spectate, stagnate, striate, translateA2, truncate, vacateb*A2, vibrateA2. Examples where AmE and BrE match include conflate, create, debate, equate, elate, inflate, negate; and mandate and probate with first-syllable stress. Derived nouns in -ator retain the distinction, but those in -ation do not. Also, migratoryB2 and vibratoryB2 sometimes retain the distinction.
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