RP centring diphthongs

Like RP, GhE pronunciation is non-rhotic. In words containing a final orthographic r GhE retains the diphthongization of RP word-final /ɪə/ and /ʊə/, while /eə/ is mostly monophthongized to [ε]. The latter is often realized with a falling tone , which to ears not accustomed to tone languages makes it sound like a diphthong.

One particularity of GhE is that RP /u:/ is rendered as [iu] rather than [u] in words with orthographic u, ue, eu, or ew, e.g. blew [bliu] (hypercorrect forms such as two /tiu/ and do /diu/ are also heard). This cuts across all age groups and ethnicities, but there is also intra-speaker variability. Roughly, /iu/ occurs about twice as often as /u/. There are a number of possible sources of GhE [iu]: it may result from an analogy to other ew spellings such as in new, or sewage, whose RP /ju:/ is rendered as /iu/ in GhE and/or an attempt to approximate the slightly centralized and diphthongized realization of /u:/ in advanced RP, in the region of [ʊʉ]. Another not unlikely source of GhE /iu/ is the historical Scottish influence through missionaries or the good number of Scotsmen in the Colonial Service.