Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
Australian English arose from a dialectal melting pot created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland, though its most significant influences were the dialects of Southeast England.
According to Richards, the beginning of our Australian accent emerged following the arrival of European settlers in 1788. "It emerged from a process called levelling down because you had all these people who came here on 11 ships from different dialect areas, regional dialect areas across England," he said.
The distinctive Australian accent is the result of a “drunken slur” caused by the heavy drinking of the early settlers, according to a communication expert from the country. "It's not just about pronunciation; vocal quality or timbre matters, as does intonation – the way the pitch of the voice rises and falls."
Perhaps the most significant influencers on Australian English is that of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.
The Aussie accent started with kids
But their children born in Australia formed friendship groups and started to talk in ways that were more like each other and less like their parents. Over the years the children's accent was carried on by each generation and became the main accent of English across Australia.
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: broad, general and cultivated. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always, reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.
A few historians believe that the slight 'drool' or 'slurring' which with Australians speak can be traced back to the fact that so many of the first Englishmen, colonizers, sailors and prisoners were drunk often, and that the children, upon hearing this garbled, mushy type of speaking, picked it up and passed it along.
Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
Early European settlers to Australia — many of whom were convicts — were from all over Great Britain and Ireland, and their speech patterns blended to form the new Australian accent.
The New Zealand and Australian accent are close, but mistaking one for the other is a big faux pas. Here's how to keep them straight.
Australian English is most similar to British English in spelling and sentence construction, although its accent and vocabulary are very distinct from the UK.
Generally speaking though, it can be said that the Welsh accent is probably closest to an Australian one. This is due to their similarities in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary choices – both Welsh and Australians tend to end words on a 'v' sound rather than an 'r' sound like other English speakers do.
Yeah nah yeah = yes. No wonder you're confused! A commonly-used word here is mate, which normally means friend.
People who speak with a Broad Australian accent tend to pronounce bait with, /^'i/. The general accent is more neutral, but still has many of the same features (albeit not as strongly emphasised). Bait is usually pronounced with /^I/ when a general accent is used.
When it comes to American, British, and Australian accents, there are a few differences that are easy to spot. For instance, most American English accents pronounce 'r' sounds more clearly while most Australian and British accents drop the 'r' sound.
In our recent poll of the sexiest accents in the world, the Australian accent came in at No. 5.
Broad Australian accents are typically strong and more difficult to understand. This is the one most commonly known by people outside of Australia or joked about by comedians. However it is not the most commonly spoken. Cultivated Australian accents tend to sound more proper and resemble formal British English.
While some Australian speakers would pronounce “no” as a diphthong, starting on “oh” as in dog and ending on “oo” as in put, others begin with an unstressed “a” (the sound at the end of the word “sofa”), then move to the “oh” and then “oo”.
An Australian speakers' tongue, comparatively, is low and to the back, resulting in an 'ah' hesitation sound. Other common traits in the Aussie dialect include lack of enunciation and a particular kind of flow - but Macpherson suggests that that could all be quite different in 100 years' time.
Of foreign accents, the British accent is the #1 most liked, chosen by 69% of respondents. In addition to being the general favorite, it also ranked among the sexiest and most intelligent.
(Noun) An uncouth or uncultured person, usually. See also: feral, ratbag, reptile, bevan etc. “I can't understand that bogan's broad Australian accent.”
The Mainstream Australian Accent is a distinct accent produced by native English speakers in Australia. It's a tough accent to replicate, even for actors in Hollywood. At Voice Science™ we assist internationals to learn core features of the Australian accent by training the rules of Mainstream Australian pronunciation.
Break 'beautiful' down into sounds: [BYOO] + [TUH] + [FUHL] - say it out loud and exaggerate the sounds until you can consistently produce them.