Liberian English - Standard Liberian English

Standard Liberian English

Standard Liberian English is the language of those people whose African American ancestors immigrated to Liberia in the nineteenth century. This variety is a transplanted variety of African American Vernacular English. It is most distinctive in isolated settlements such as Louisiana, Lexington, and Bluntsville, small communities upriver from Greenville in Sinoe County. According to 1993 statistics, approximately 69,000 people, or 2.5% of the population, spoke Standard Liberian English as a first language. The vowel system is more elaborate than in other West African variants; Standard Liberian English distinguishes from, and from, and uses the diphthongs, and . Vowels can be nasalised. The final vowel of happy is . It favours open syllables, usually omitting, or a fricative. The interdental fricatives appear as initially, and as finally. The glottal fricative is preserved as is the sequence . Affricates have lost their stop component, thus > . Between vowels, may be flapped (>) as in North American English. Liquids are lost at the end of words or before consonants, making Standard Liberian English a non-rhotic dialect.