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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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This article has previously been nominated to be moved. Please review the prior discussions if you are considering re-nomination. Discussions Moved, 25 February 2005, from Standard Midwestern to General American, see discussion. Moved, 25 August 2019, from General American to General American English, see discussion.

Shall we include the written from, grammar, usage, etc. of General American English? --西城東路 (talk) 02:19, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You'd be wrong about that—presumably the article you'd want is American English. Remsense 🌈 论 02:23, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not wrong. We mean the written from, grammar, usage, etc. that is common or regulated thoughout the United States and Canada. --西城東路 (talk) 02:35, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Before we develop this discourse ion further, would you mind citing your sources that demonstrate this description of GA as having non-phonetic features, presumably specifically those considered separate from those of the AmE varieties at-large? Remsense 🌈 论 02:41, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See /Archive 7#Requested move 2 August 2019 and the move review for how we ended up with this article name despite what you've identified. If disambiguation is the problem we should at least move it to General American accent. Nardog (talk) 03:10, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Open central unrounded vowel.ogg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:37, 2 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder about how General American should be transcribed phonemically. For example:

• The vovel in "dictionAry": /e/ or /ɛ/
• The vovel in "brEAd": /e/ or /ɛ/
• Flap T: /t/ or /d/ or /t̬/
• The STRUT vovel: /ə/ or /ʌ/
• One-syllable words e.g. "cat": /ˈkæt/ or /kæt/

1. Is any of these ways better than the others? Or all are equally correct?

2. Which one should be used in this article? ~2026-22477-76 (talk) 15:34, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is already a pattern followed on the page. What exactly are you looking for or seeking to do? Wolfdog (talk) 19:09, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly the answers to the questions 1 and 2. Do you know them perhaps? ~2026-22637-04 (talk) 06:48, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The current convention on the page is that bread and dictionary use /ɛ/, the flap t is /t/ [ɾ], STRUT is /ʌ/, and one-syllable words do not need a stress marking. In terms of what is "correct", there are different linguistic analyses, so we tend to follow what a consensus of scholarly sources does. Wolfdog (talk) 11:53, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, okay, it makes sense! If you don't mind my asking, do you know where I can find summarries or arguments for each of these phonemic analysis? I'd like to learn which kind of transcription I should use or when to use which

And, btw, I believe it might be useful to describe different phonemic analyses in the article. I see that the article about Received Pronunciation does it e.g. it mentions the transcription that can be found in OED ~2026-22811-16 (talk) 18:36, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We're starting to get a little far from constructive talks to this specific page. So hit me up on my user talk page if you want to continue chatting! The analysis here is inspired by John C. Wells (e.g. his Accents of English). Geoff Lindsey is the linguist largely introducing "new RP" (or really SSBE) transcriptions. He also occasionally discusses American analyses on his Youtube channel. Wolfdog (talk) 11:25, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The following quote from this article: Phonetically, the vowels of GA are short [ɪ, i, ʊ, u, eɪ, oʊ, ɛ, ʌ, ɔ, æ, ɑ, aɪ, ɔɪ, aʊ] when they precede the fortis consonants /p, t, k, tʃ, f, θ, s, ʃ/ within the same syllable and long [ɪː, iː, ʊː, uː, eːɪ, oːʊ, ɛː, ʌː, ɔː, æː, ɑː, aːɪ, ɔːɪ, aːʊ] elsewhere. is highly misleading. The checked KIT, FOOT, DRESS, STRUT do not have the same length as FACE, GOAT, tensed TRAP (before nasals) and LOT/THOUGHT. If you mispronounce the first set as too long, they're likely to be misinterpreted as the second set, even before lenes. [mɪːd] would be heard as made, not mid (the slight centralization is not enough to distinguish them). [kʊːd] (at least when it's more back than central) as 'code', not stressed 'could'. [kɛːn] as can, not Ken ([kɛːn] for 'Ken' strikes me as awfully Ulster). [bʌːd] possibly as bod, rather than bud (the height difference is likely not enough to distinguish them, and millions of Brits use [ʌː] for /ɑː/. OK, British /ɑː/ has a wildly different distribution, but it's still something that you must've heard in the internet era). There's still that original length difference (kept in the UK and Australia) on a phonetic level. Can we improve that description? Also, if the tensed TRAP is more commonly [ɛː] in dialects with phonemic ae tensing, that would reintroduce phonemic vowel length to those dialects! As far as I can tell, that idea has not been entertained very often.

I'd say that the argument of a potential merger is somewhat weaker for /ʊ, ʌ/ than /ɪ, ɛ/, but I'm actually not sure about /ʌ/. A lengthened STRUT does sound a lot like LOT when it's back.

Scottish vowel length rule#Rule specifics and exceptions states similarly that "/ɪ/ and /ʌ/ (vowels 15 and 19) are usually short in all environments." which sounds a lot like GA (ignoring /ʊ/ that doesn't exist in Scotland and /ɛ/ which may undergo lengthening). I honestly can't hear much length difference between pre-fortis and pre-lenis contexts in GA, ditto for RP. The recording of the kit-kid distinction sounds exaggerated to me (or possibly Southern/AAVE). I think that the original length of ME /i, u, e/ (and /o/, where it still exists as a separate phoneme) has been (on the whole) very well preserved in English dialects.

I think what we really need is a table illustrating the mean duration of the vowels in miliseconds in pre-fortis and pre-lenis contexts. Sol505000 (talk) 13:56, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]