There are quite some dialects that use vowel-beginning diphthongs like [ɪu] for what is /juː/ in the Received Pronunciation and General American dialects.
Do speakers of these dialects (tend to/want to) use an, not a, before words beginning with this diphthong, e.g., do they say:
an university
Do they use an nearly all the time, sometimes, or about never? If they do use a, is there an explanation? Is there a pattern of distribution of the two forms of the singular indefinite article?
In some American dialects, people only use [ɪu] for /juː/ when it doesn't start a word.
In my speech, I always use [ɪu]1 after some consonants like /n/ and /l/. And I use [ɪu], [juː], or [uː] after other consonants. But words like ewer, Ewing, university always begin with [juː].
But if I did begin a word with [ɪu], I would definitely use an. If I try to say a ewer [ə ɪuər], it feels wrong, whereas an ewer [ən ɪuər] feels right.
1It's actually closer to [yu], where the first element of the diphthong is the French vowel in tu.
