including those spoken in different geographical regions of Great Britain in the Early Modern period (approx. 1500-1800). The dialect of these island communities developed in almost complete isolation for over 250 years. High Tider English shares features with other regional dialects of the US Atlantic coast. Certain pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical constructions can be traced to eastern and southwestern England (see Westcountry dialect). The distinctness of the dialect has survived because the community continues to depend on traditional trades, like fishing, boat building, and decoy carving, and the coastal tourism trade developed much later on islands like Ocracoke. As many as 500 islanders on Harkers Island are directly descended from the Harkers Island and Outer Banks original settlers that developed this distinct dialect. Linguists from North Carolina State University, East Carolina University, and other academic institutions continue to conduct research on the island dialect. It has been in slow decline in the 21st century. Phonological features The chart below lists the vowel sounds in two High Tider accents: one of Smith Island (Maryland) in the Chesapeake Bay and the other of Ocracoke (North Carolina) in the Outer Banks. The symbol "~" is used here to indicate that pronunciations on either side of it form a spectrum of possibilities. The symbol ">" indicates that the pronunciations to its left are more widespread and pronunciations to its right are more marginal. Phonologically, these two example accents are united under the High Tider dialect primarily by their similar and vowels; both also show a greater or lesser degree of "vowel breaking" (or drawling) of the front vowels especially when positioned before the consonant . The phonology, or pronunciation system, of High Tider English is highly different from the English spoken in the rest of the United States. The High Tider dialect is marked with numerous unique phonological features and sound changes: The diphthong is , starting very far back in the mouth and retaining its glide, unlike its neighboring Southern dialects. It may also begin with a round-lipped quality, thus , or may even have a triphthongal quality as . Thus, a word like high may sound like something between HAW-ee and HUH-ee, similar to its sound in Cockney or Australian accents. (This is sometimes mischaracterized by outsiders as sounding very close, like (the vowel, leading to the spelling "Hoi Toider" for "High Tider.") Realization of as , so that fire may begin