Australian accent

Origins

Convicts sent to Australia came mostly from large English cities and included a significant proprtion of Cockneys from London. They were joined by free settlers, military personnel and administrators, often with their families.

The early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney. This very first generation of children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation.

The children in the new colony would have been exposed to a wide range of different dialects from all over England but mainly the south east, particularly from London. They would have created the new dialect from factors present in the speech they heard around them in response to their need to express peer solidarity. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect of the children would have been strong enough to deflect the influence of new children.

There is evidence from early written sources that a new and distinct dialect was present in the colony by the 1830s

Influences

A large part of the convict body were also the Irish, with at least 25% directly from Ireland, and others indirectly via Britain. There were other populations of convicts from non-English speaking areas of Britain, such as the Welsh and Scots. In 1827 Peter Cunningham, in his book Two Years in New South Wales, reported that native-born white Australians of the time — known as "currency lads and lasses" — spoke with a distinctive accent and vocabulary, different to any of their parents but with a strong Cockney influence. The distinctive accent continued to develop amongst the native born, even after transportation of convicts to Australia ended in 1868, as immigration of free settlers from Britain, Ireland and elsewhere continued.

The first of the Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, began a much larger wave of immigration which would significantly influence the language. During the 1850s, when the UK was under economic hardship, about two per cent of its population emigrated to the Colony of New South Wales and the Colony of Victoria.

Among the changes brought by the gold rushes was "Americanisation" of the language—the introduction of words, spellings, terms and usages from North American English. The words imported included some later considered to be typically Australian, such as dirt and digger. Bonzer, which was once a common Australian slang word meaning "great", "superb" or "beautiful", is thought to have been a corruption of the American mining term bonanza, which means a rich vein of gold or silver and is itself a loanword from Spanish. As the term was used interchangeably in the early twentieth century with the words boshter and bosker, the derivation from the Spanish 'bonanza' seems unlikely. The influx of American military personnel in World War II brought further American influence; though most words were short-lived; and only okay, you guys and gee have persisted.

Since the 1950s the American influence on language in Australia has mostly come from pop culture, the mass media (books, magazines and television programs), computer software and the internet. Some words, such as freeway and truck, have even been naturalised so completely that few Australians recognise their origin. Some American, British and Australian variants exist side-by-side; in many cases – freeway and motorway (used in New South Wales) for instance – regional, social and ethnic variation within Australia typically defines word usage.

Words of Irish origin are used, some of which are also common elsewhere in the Irish diaspora, such as tucker for "food", "provisions" (Irish tacar), as well as one or two native English words whose meaning have changed under Irish influence, such as paddock for "field", cf. Irish páirc, which has exactly the same meaning as the Australianpaddock.

To outsiders, Australian English seems most similar to New Zealand English. Both use the expression different to (also encountered in British English, but not American) as well asdifferent from, though sometimes with a semantic difference (different to highlights the "closeness" or "neutrality" of the difference, while different from highlights the difference).

Variation and changes

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 often, but not always, reflect the social class or educational background of the speaker.

Broad Australian English is recognisable and familiar to English speakers around the world because it is used to identify Australian characters in non-Australian films and television programmes (often in the somewhat artificial "stage" Australian English version). Examples are film/television personalities Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. Slang terms ocker, for a speaker, and Strine, a shortening of the word Australian for the dialect, are used in Australia.

The majority of Australians speak with the general Australian accent. This predominates among modern Australian films and television programmes and is used by, for example, Eric Bana, Dannii Minogue and Hugh Jackman.

Cultivated Australian English has some similarities to British Received Pronunciation, and is often mistaken for it. Cultivated Australian English is spoken by some within Australian society, for example Kevin Rudd, Cyril Ritchard, Errol Flynn, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis.

Regional variations and pronunciations

There are no strong variations in accent and pronunciation across different states and territories. Regional differences in pronunciation and vocabulary are small in comparison to those of the British and American English, and Australian pronunciation is determined less by region than by social, cultural and educational influences. There is some subtle regional variation. In Tasmania and Queensland, words such as "dance" and "grant" are usually heard with the older pronunciation of these words, using [æː]. In South Australia [aː] is the norm. In other states both pronunciations can be heard. Some speakers in those areas where [æː]/[æ] is found prefer to use [aː] in such words as a sign of higher social class. In words such as "pass", "can't", "last", all regional variants use [aː].

There are a few regionally-distributed phonetic features. Here are some examples:

Centring diphthongs

Centring diphthongs, which are the vowels that occur in words like ear, beard and air, sheer. In Western Australia there is a trend for centring diphthongs like the vowels in the words "ear" and "air" to be pronounced as full diphthongs (i.e. vowels that require the tongue, jaw and lips to move during their production). Those in the eastern states will tend to pronounce "fear" and "sheer" like "fee" and "she" respectively, without any jaw movement, while the westerners would pronounce them like "fia" and "shia", respectively.

Salary vs. Celery

In Victoria, many speakers have interesting vowels in words like "alps" and "Alan" and also "Ellen" and "elk". For many young speakers from Victoria, the first vowel in "celery" and "salary" are the same, so that both words sound like "salary". The speaker from Victoria will also tend to say "halicopter" instead of "helicopter". This feature is present in New Zealand English as well.

For some, mainly older, speakers from Victoria, the words "celery" and "salary" also sound the same but instead both sound like "celery". Most older Victorians will tends to say "elps" compared to the speaker from NSW, that say "alps".

School

The vowel in words like "pool", "school" and "fool" varies regionally. People who live in the south Australia will tend to say "pool" and "school" like "pewl" and "skewl", respectively, while the rest of the Australian population pronounces them as they are spelt.

Hurled

The tendency for some /l/ sounds to become vowels (/l/ vocalisation) is more common in South Australia than other states. "Hurled" in South Australia has a vocalised /l/ whereas the word as said from New South Wales does not. For the New South Wales speaker the /l/ is pronounced as a consonant.

France

In Australian English, words vary regionally according to the type of vowel that occurs before the sounds "ns, nt, nch, mple", in words like "chance, plant, branch, sample" and in words containing the suffix "-mand", e.g., "demand". The typical pronunciation for this vowel is the short /æ/ vowel like the vowel in "cat" but there are many speakers who use the vowel in "cart" in these words, particularly in South Australia. The long vowel is also used in New Zealand. This is probably the result of later settlement.

South Australia had a different settlement chronology and type than other parts of the country and does appear to have a number of regionally-based features.