Vowel systems FOOT

FOOT words with ME /ŭ/ preserved in EModE are represented in Suriname creoles by English words like bush, full, cushion, look, cook, wood, woman, etc. The normal realization of these u- words in the Suriname creoles is [u], a short high back rounded vowel. The split between the STRUT set and the FOOT set is at least partially phonologically conditioned in EModE, the latter class having a concentration of items with initial labials and, to a lesser extent, with postvocalic /k/.

The odd word that belongs to this incidence set in RP and AmE has the phoneme /o/ in the Suriname creoles. However, as we will shortly see, the exceptions in the other direction are more numerous.

The fact that a number of words where Standard English has /Λ/ have /u/ in the Suriname creoles has to be seen in connection with the fact that the change in Standard English (of London) is first evidenced around 1640 (Dobson 1957). It was just after this that Suriname was colonized. The following words have unexpected /u/.

Note that four of the words exhibit variation between /u/ and /o, ɔ/ among the languages, suggesting the presence of variable pronunciations in the seventeenth century.