Posted on 01/28/2024 11:07:22 AM PST by nickcarraway
Does the word "here" have one syllable or two? Does "France" rhyme with "pants" or "aunts"?
Across Australia, linguists are revolutionising the understanding of how Aussies' voices differ from one another, fuelling new insights into what was once thought to be a monolithic accent.
Felicity Cox is one of the researchers leading this effort at Macquarie University's School of Linguistics.
"We didn't really start thinking about this wide range of variation until recently," Professor Cox says.
Some regional accent differences:
Here: WA says hee-YUH; NSW says HEER
Pool: Queensland says PEWWL; SA says POOW
Dance: In SA it sounds like aunts, in Queensland like ants
"What we're finding now is that Australian English is diversifying in really interesting ways."
These differences can span particular communities, regions, cultures and generations.
In a 2023 research paper, Debbie Loakes and other linguists at the University of Melbourne found the Victorian habit of pronouncing "el" and "al" the same way (eg "celery" becomes "salary") was dying out among young people in the state's north, but persisting in the south.
"What I found was in Warrnambool the sound change was advancing, so that meant that more people were merging those sounds together, whereas in Mildura only the old people were doing that," Dr Loakes says.
Three types of Aussie accents or more?
Historically, researchers have classified Australian accents as broad, general, and cultivated.
These variations are still heard today, with broad accents being the strongest (Steve Irwin), general accents the most common (Kevin Rudd) and cultivated accents the most practised and posh (Cate Blanchett).
a woman smiling towards the camera
Felicity Cox is one of the linguists working to understand the diversity of Australian accents.(Supplied: Felicity Cox) However, recent research has moved away from this perspective.
"In the 60s, 70s and 80s there was this idea that Australian English had three varieties but they were really focusing on that mainstream Australian English," Professor Cox says.
Instead, Macquarie University's Department of Linguistics lists ethnocultural, mainstream and Aboriginal Australian English as the three primary subgroups of the Australian accent today.
Dr Loakes says linguists used to think younger Australians were trending away from the broad and cultivated accents toward a more general voice, but that recent work suggests the changes are more complicated.
"There are lots of sound changes going on in communities that we're not aware of and they may advance and they may not advance," she says.
The death of the ABC accent ABC listeners may be familiar with the archetypal cadence and tone of Australia's national broadcaster, which certainly falls into the cultivated accent camp.
However, listening to archival recordings makes it clear that the "ABC accent" is far milder today than it was just a few decades ago, and many presenters actively reject it.
Voice of the People: The Aussie Accent: Whaddya reckon, mate?
ABC WA presenter Andrew Collins says times have changed since he first applied for a job at the national broadcaster.
"This was in Broken Hill 17 years ago – I really struggled to get the tick because I didn't have an ABC voice," he says.
"But I snuck in and 17 years later the mould is out the window."
Collins is not alone in thinking the ABC has dropped its signature voice.
"There 100 per cent is an ABC voice but I don't feel any pressure to use it," ABC Science reporter Belinda Smith says.
"I think our voice and our accent really helps make us who we are and I always encourage ABC reporters not to do the classic news reporter voice," ABC Indigenous reporter Tom Forrest says.
Aboriginal English The concept of Aboriginal Australians having a unique accent, or accents, has long been familiar to linguists and is the focus of much recent work.
What is Kriol? Kriol interpreter services are used across Australia and often form a bridge between Indigenous communities and the wider population. Yet many people don't see the need.
Read more Understanding Aboriginal accents is complicated by vast geographic, dialect and language separation.
"I've worked with Aboriginal people a lot in Mildura and Warrnambool and talked to people about what they think about their accents," Dr Loakes says.
"The way that Aboriginal English speakers use vowels is changing at a different rate and there's different changes [in different places]."
Tom Forrest, who grew up in an Aboriginal community in far north-west Australia, agrees.
"When it comes to Aboriginal communities, whether they're speaking Kriol or Aboriginal English or their own dialect, that accent definitely changes across the regions," he says.
"When I interact with Indigenous people in New South Wales we don't use the same lingo and our accents are definitely different compared to the mob back home in the Kimberley."
Fitting in Despite not changing his voice for the ABC, Mr Forrest says he does change it to fit in elsewhere.
two men kneel on a beach
"Being able to change the way I talk and change my accent is really great and comes in really handy to the point that I don't even think about it," he says.
"But not everyone can do that and it absolutely is an obstacle because people can judge you on your accent.
"They may think you're less educated or not as intellectual because maybe you aren't being so articulate with the words you use."
Researchers have found similar biases at work against other ethnocultural groups speaking varieties of Australian English.
"People will play recordings and say, 'Do you think this person is employable?', 'do you think this person sounds like a nice person?' and if they don't have a mainstream Australian accent the judgements will be more negative," Dr Loakes says of the research.
"It can lead to a lot of discrimination for people."
Despite recognising that people perceive varieties of Australian English differently, linguists have shied away from classifying them as separate accents.
"It's similar to asking what's the difference between a language and a dialect – it's not an easy question to answer," Professor Cox says.
All Aussies are concerned with is that it’s still called “Bee-ah.”
I like to listen to Kojak to hear how New Yorkers used to talk. I used to think they were cool.
G’day, Bruce.
As long as they still sound like Mick Dundee from Crocodile Dundee, who cares?
One wit spelled it ‘Arstrylia’.
Let stalk strine = Let’s talk Australian.
Nick Carraway:
Didn’t you die or something?
Call me Lazarus.
My grandmother was not only interested in different accents, but quite like the Henry Higgins character in My Fair Lady, who was able to tell just WHERE someone was from ( in N.Y.C. ), when they spoke.
She told me that NYC accents vary from borough to borough, neighborhood to neighborhood, and in some cases, change withing an area of a block or three.
And I learned a LOT from her and am still VERY interested in all kinds of accents, from everywhere.
Also, there has always been a generational change in the way people pronounce words.
Alistair Cook wrote many books, one of which has a very large section on the different accents in America and WHY they can be SO very different! He said that it was due to WHERE the original settlers came from in the UK. He was 100% correct!
One sort of NYC accent, where "TH" ( thirty =Turty, third=TOID,for example ) was due to the Irish immigrants' pronunciation. Some people in Ireland, TODAY, still have that same way of speaking!
Washington state has some very interesting accents as well. I am told it is New England influence. Many older Washingtonians say Sqruash, Worshington, Worshing Machine. It’s very strange.
Born here 1954, still here, never heard a native talk like that.
No Pooftahs!
Not only that, but I think all the girls are named Sheila.
Re "WORSH" for "WASH" has nothing at all to do with any New England's state accent that I have EVER heard. And I now live in one, went to college in N.H., knew/still know people from Mass., Maine, CT., and Vermont...so while I don't know EVERY single accent from there, I DO know many of them!
Another consideration, vis-a-vis regional American accents, is that besides WHERE one lives, which generation one learned English from, there's also "CLASS" to consider! And that is all VERY true, no matter what country, state, or area, world wide, is considered.
Example...Katherine Hepburn had an accent that was/is ONLY heard in a few areas in Ct. and Long Island, N.Y.! It was known as "LONG ISLAND LOCKJAW" and was an upper middle, upper class/boarding school accent, WHICH afaik, has died out long ago. It certainly was NOT heard when I was in boarding school, and NOT heard at all when my progeny were.
In 2019 I went to Massachusetts for vacation. I was expecting a lot of the people to sound like Major Winchester from MASH, boy was I disappointed.
“pants” or “aunts”
Those are the same sound to me..
Ayuh
How can a family make up an accent?
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