Trap–bath split

[1] In that context, the lengthened vowel in words such as bath, laugh, grass and chance in accents affected by the split is referred to as a broad A (also called in Britain long A).

Phonetically, the vowel is [ɑː] ⓘ in Received Pronunciation (RP), Cockney and Estuary English; in some other accents, including Australian and New Zealand accents, it is a more fronted vowel ([ɐː] ⓘ or [aː] ⓘ) and tends to be a rounded and shortened [ɒ~ɔ] in Broad South African English.

An isogloss runs across the Midlands from the Wash to the Welsh border, passing to the south of the cities of Birmingham and Leicester.

[3] There is some variation close to the isogloss; for example in the dialect of Birmingham (the so-called 'Brummie') most of the affected words have a short-a, but aunt and laugh usually have long vowels.

[7] AF Gupta's study of students at the University of Leeds found that (on splitting the country in two halves) 93% of northerners used [a] in the word bath and 96% of southerners used [ɑː].

Here is the set of words that underwent transition and counterexamples with the same environment: The split created a handful of minimal pairs, such as ant–aunt, caff–calf, cant–can't, have–halve, and staph-staff.

AF Gupta writes, 'Many of the northerners were noticeably hostile to /ɡrɑːs/, describing it as "comical", "snobbish", "pompous" or even "for morons"'.

[9] Writing on a Labovian study of speech in West Yorkshire, K. M. Petyt stated in 1985 that several respondents 'positively said that they did not prefer the long-vowel form or that they really detested it or even that it was incorrect'.

[11] However, Joan Beal said in a 1989 review of Petyt's work that those who disliked the pronunciation still associated it with the BBC and with the sort of professional positions to which they would aspire.

[12] Evidence for the date of the shift comes from the Southern Hemisphere accents in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

In Australian English, there is generally agreement with Southern England in words like path, laugh, class.

[13] Related but distinct phenomena include the following: In North American English, the non-front realization of continental ⟨a⟩ in loanwords such as pasta /ˈpɑstə/ (U.S. only; cf.