Vowels

The phonetic realizations of the vowels depend on whether they occur in open or closed syllables. Vowels may be laxed and slightly lowered in closed syllables, such that /e/ will be realized as [з] and /o/ as [ɔ] in such environments; cf. [drεs] ‘dress’ and [hɔt] ‘hot’.

Many speakers also make a phonetic distinction between long and short vowels, such as between the short [a] of puskat ‘cat’ and the long [a:] of baa ‘bar’, and between the [u] of tufala ‘two’ and the [u:] of tuu ‘also’.

Finally, there are speakers who use more than the three main diphthongs [ae], [ao] and [oe]. In these more anglicized varieties, they will thus also make a distinction between [ao] and [au], in such pairs as haos [haos] ‘house’ and maut [maut] ‘mouth’. Other speakers use tense [ai] rather than [ae], distinguishing between the diphthongs in baitim [baitim] ‘bite’, and bae [bae] (future/Tense-Mood-Aspect [TMA] marker).

Some examples of the vowels are given in the following set of Pijin words: