The Vowel Quadrilaterals for Stereotypical National Accents

Vowels of American English

Here the vowels of American English are plotted according to the point of primary obstruction by the tongue in the articulation of the sound. "Low" refers not only to the position of the tongue but the jaw as well. (NB--the symbols are clickable and should return an .au file of the sound. If you get an error message, move your mouse-pointer ever so slightly and click again.)

Vowels of British English

Here is another quadrilaterial with samples of British vowels as posted by Tony Robinson. His samples are of one person pronouncing words with a 'hVd' frame (hood, hid, had, who'd, hayed, etc.) To get the database sample, click hVd-UK

white=no sample in database for sound
Note: This dialect is non-rhotic ("r-drop"); the superscripted schwas represent centering diphthongs before r: beard, heard.

You may wish to compare Peter Ladefoged's contrasting sets of General American English vowels and BBC vowels

For a more detailed comparative table of vowels in all the countries where English is spoken natively, go here