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.
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.
Australian English is most similar to British English in spelling and sentence construction, although its accent and vocabulary are very distinct from the UK.
The Aussie accent started with kids
The parents spoke with all different kinds of English accents because they came from many places in England. 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.
English was introduced into Australia on British settlement in 1788 and in the following decades gradually overtook Indigenous languages to become the majority language of Australia. Although English is not the official language of Australia in law, it is the de facto official and national language.
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.
In Australia, 22.3% of people used a language other than English at home in 2021. Australia's language statistics show the proportion of the population who use a language at home other than English.
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.
The Australian accent is famous for its vowel sounds, absence of a strong “r” pronunciation and the use of an inflection – or intonation – at the end of sentences, which can make statements sound like questions. According to Felicity, the way vowels are pronounced is the most peculiar feature of Australian English.
1. G'day. One of the first things you'll hear when in Australia, is the classic “G'day, mate”, which is basically the same as saying, “good day”, or “hello”.
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”.
The harsh environment in which convicts and new settlers found themselves meant that men and women closely relied on each other for all sorts of help. In Australia, a 'mate' is more than just a friend and is a term that implies a sense of shared experience, mutual respect and unconditional assistance.
Apparently, it is harder to fully pronounce certain words in a non-native accent, for instance, while singing. In singing, some syllables and vowels naturally get stressed to go with the cadence, rhythm, and melody of the music. As a result, some singers tend to naturally drop the accent without even realizing it.
One reason why people sometimes lose or modify their accents when singing is that the vocal mechanics inherent to singing are different to those of speech, and this can mean that reproducing one's spoken accent while singing is difficult or impossible.
Today, this means that there are three types of Australian accent. Some people speak with a “general” accent, which is more or less the way it has been for centuries. Other people speak with an accent that is closer to RP English. The third group of people have a “broad” Australian accent.
The results revealed that women and men find different accents attractive, and the only common accents on both lists were Australian and Southern. While men desired Israeli and Colombian accents the most, this was not mirrored amongst the women who were surveyed, who ultimately preferred British and Spanish accents.
#1 The Australian accent is non-rhotic
This is a key feature that only occasionally has exceptions. Sometimes native speakers will pronounce the /r/ sound at the end of the word if linking two words closely but only if the next word contains a vowel sound at the start.
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.
Article Talk. Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
According to linguists, there are three main kinds of Aussie accent: broad (think former Prime Minister Bob Hawke), general (closer to Kevin Rudd) and cultivated (like Malcolm Fraser).
One of the first things you'll notice about Australia will no doubt be the very unique speaking habits of its people. Australians speak fast, 'chew' words and skip pronunciation of letters – combine this with their penchant for slang and abbreviations, and you have a language that's quite difficult to comprehend!
Of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who spoke an Australian Indigenous language at home, the majority (82%) reported speaking English well or very well, while 17% reported they did not speak English well or at all.
After Dutch navigators charted the northern, western and southern coasts of Australia during the 17th Century this newly found continent became known as 'New Holland'. It was the English explorer Matthew Flinders who suggested the name we use today.