2. Pronunciation of 'a'

2. Pronunciation of 'a'

Another major difference is in the pronunciation of the vowel sound in such words as laugh, fast,path,grass, dance, branch, demand, can't, half. Short in US speech, in British speech it is long and firm: Returning from the daaanse claaase, she ran a baaath. Near the end of the 18th century, southern England began to change from what is called a flat a to a broad a in these words, i.e. from a sound like the a in man to one like the a in father. The change affected words in which the vowel occurred before f, sk, sp, st, ss, th, and n followed by certain consonants. In parts of New England the same change took place, but in most other parts of the country the old sound was preserved, and fast,path, etc., are pronounced with the vowel of man. This, the flat a, must now be regarded as the typical American pronunciation. Although highly distinctive, however, the difference between the broad a and the flat a probably affects fewer than 250 words in common use.