Vowels happY

Although  in happY persisted longer in the South than in other parts of North America, the shift to [i] is now essentially complete and only speakers in a few isolated communities (such as islands in the Chesapeake Bay) and some older speakers elsewhere still show . The final vowels of many other words, such as borrow, soda, okra, and Sarah, were once commonly pronounced with  in the rural South, especially among speakers with less education, but this process is now highly recessive.