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This article covers the phonological system of South African English. While there is some variation among speakers, SAE typically has a number of features in common with English as it is spoken in southern England , such as non-rhoticity and the '"`UNIQ--templatestyles-00000004-QINU`"'TRAP–BATH split.
The two main phonological features that mark South African English as distinct are the behaviour of the vowels in KIT and PALM. The KIT vowel tends to be "split" so that there is a clear allophonic variation between the front and central or. The PALM vowel is characteristically back in the General and Broad varieties of SAE. The tendency to monophthongise /ɐʊ/ and /aɪ/ to and respectively, are also typical features of General and Broad White South African English.
General South African English features phonemic vowel length as well as phonemic roundedness, so that fairy /ˈfeːriː/ is distinguished from furry /ˈføːriː/ by roundedness.
Features involving consonants include the tendency for /tj/ and /dj/ to be realised as and , respectively , and /h/ has a strong tendency to be voiced initially.