As we said in
English Diphthongs, words in the groups NEAR and SQUARE have different pronunciations in Rhotic and Non-rhotic accents. This was how it was set up:
Rhotic Non-rhotic NEAR SQUARE
However, a newer, monophthongal pronunciation is becoming common in
Britain, and is regular in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa: instead of
and
you will hear legnthened
versions of DRESS and KIT:
and
. We can set it up in this
way:
Rhotic RP, South of England Newer Non-rhotic NEAR SQUARE