“Short” vowels

DRESS

The main variant of this vowel around the globe is a front half-open [ε], to be heard in the British Isles, America and the Caribbean, most of West Africa, SouthEast Asia, and the Pacific region. Raising to [e] is restricted to a small number of regional dialects in L1 varieties and occurs with some currency in AusE and NZE, and a few African and Asian countries (EAfE, CamP, some SAfE accents, PakE and, less commonly, elsewhere in Asia). Other variants are quite restricted, including lowering (in South-East Asia), backing (e.g. in northern AmE dialects), and offgliding (SAmE, again).