This chapter sketches the range of variation exhibited by the vowel and consonant systems of contemporary NLE. In terms of its pronunciation – and despite the fact that Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) did not join Canada until 1949 – NLE is clearly a North American variety. As we shall see, both Irish- and English-origin speech in the province (NIE and NBE, respectively) share many phonological features, particularly with respect to their vowel systems. This situation is not as surprising as it might appear given the historical relationship between southeast Irish English and the traditional English spoken in the western regions of southern England (Hickey 2002). As we shall also see, however, NIE and NBE differ in terms of a number of consonant and vowel features, some of which are highly salient.

NLE is currently undergoing considerable change, the general direction of which is a shift, on the part of younger generations, away from traditional local community norms towards more geographically widespread or supralocal forms. While this chapter includes some mention of the features of innovative NLE, language change is treated in greater depth in Chapter 5.

Since accurate description of sounds and sound change requires a specialised vocabulary, along with a set of specialised International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) sound symbols, this chapter is by far the most technical of the volume. For those without a phonetics background, section 2.1 below provides an introduction to basic phonetic terminology.