In some North American speech (not sure about Canada;), I have long noted the pronunciation of certain consonant combinations that seem to have drifted to what sounds like some form of glottalised stop. The most common example is in the second syllable of the word 'didn't ': the second 'd' sound to my ears is not the classical 'd' standardly spoken of English speakers, native or non-; it comes out as 'di'n't'. What the hay???
As far as I can tell, it is not obviously regionalised to any particular geographical area, socio-economic sector or ethnic background. That is, it seems to be pretty pervasive across the States. (Hawaii I don't know about; I'm always busy at the luau).
I am very interested to note that Blacks and Hispanics are as likely to use it as N. Americans of European descent. That may be because I have not paid enough attention, or that these afford larger sample groups by far and swamp out the rest.
The literature - that includes disclosures/reports by non-academic speaker/users and cross-generational accounts - surprisingly, contains lots of references to such changes right across the globe, including the States but none seem to touch on this particular glottalisation. What's the haps?
