Weak vowels

happY

Throughout the English-speaking world the realization of a word-final high front vowel tends to be the tense, peripheral [i] type. The more centralized [ɪ] realization occurs in some British and, less commonly, American dialects, and rarely in Africa; as the main variant, it is reported only for the T&TCs, IndE, CajE, and BrC. Mid-front realizations, like [e], occur in British dialects only, notably in ScE, also in IrE and northern England. The same applies to a central [ə], found in East Anglia.