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Society & Culture Our shared language

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KDSnap

KDSnap

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Sep 13, 2011
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Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
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Hello, I am American who is somewhat fascinated with the differences in our English language around the world. Not so much the different words that we use for some things... but I have been wondering about accents lately. I recognize an Australian accent, or a New Zealand or proper British accent, just as I am sure you would recognize my American accent. But are there regional accents within Australia? For instance, here in the U.S., I can easily recognize the speech of a person from the south, or a person from New York or Boston, and somewhat, Chicago. And there is a distinct accent for part of Canada. Are there distinctions like that within Australia?
 
different accents Yes

Noticeable? Not so much
Unless you listen closely you'll only notice 3 accents in Australia

broad Aussie accent (most well known internationally)
General Aussie accent (spoken by most people)
"posh" Aussie accent (spoken by w***ers)

Their are regional accent's but as they also are influenced by the 3 over arching accents spoken, most people other then linguist would have trouble identifying them correctly. (apart from the S.A accent)

As Australia is "new" country transport and communication was more developed as such accents have a much broader range because people weren't as isolated as they were settled.
 
Sydney Bloods said:
Their are regional accent's but as they also are influenced by the 3 over arching accents spoken, most people other then linguist would have trouble identifying them correctly. (apart from the S.A accent)
Click to expand...

So is there a distinct South Australian accent? Are you being general in referring to the south, or specifically talking about the state of South Australia? And would you be able to tell the difference between a person from Adelaide and one from Melbourne or Sydney?

I know what you mean about more recent development... places here in the U.S. that have seen tremendous growth over the past century, like Florida or anyplace west of Chicago, speak with what broadcasters call "common Midwestern diction," (just as Veronica Corningstone practiced in "Anchorman, and what I grew up speaking.)
 
The state of South Australia has a reasonably distinctive accent to an Australian ear. Not nearly as much as the US though.

As Sydney Bloods notes the main differences in accents are sociocultural rather than regional and you generally have three categories - broad (e.g. Crocodile Dundee), general (e.g. Hugh Jackman), and cultivated (e.g. Geoffrey Rush). General is by far the most common. The other two tend to be associated with the lower and upper classes respectively, although it's not really a strong correlation these days.
 

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South Australians sound more 'posh'. As Sydney Bloods said this is because Adelaide is full of w***ers. :D

Rural areas also seem more likely to have the broad accent.

It is easier to pick up where a person is from by what they say, rather than by accents.

It is interesting that you talked about a 'proper' British accent given that in Britain it is possible to pick out what a city a person is from by how they speak.

EDIT: I have a slight feeling that there may be a regional difference in the pronunciation of different cities - mainly in regards to Melbourne and Newcastle.

I'm Western Australian and I pronounce Melbourne as Melb'n, which is also how I pronounce Brisbane (Brisb'n).
I pronounce Newcastle as Newcarsil.

I think this is Australia wide but I pronounce Canberra as Canbra and Cairns as Cans. I'd pronounce Geelong as J'Long.

Western Australians also pronounce Derby as Derby whilst eastern staters use Darby.
 
South Australian's speak proper English. Graph, Castle, Class. Three words that will let you see if a person has a proper grasp of how to enunciate the English language as it's meant to be.

Still at least with word pronunciation it isn't as bad as the abominations of color, armor and immunize. The missing u's and love for the letter z. WTF?
 
Andre said:
South Australian's speak proper English. Graph, Castle, Class. Three words that will let you see if a person has a proper grasp of how to enunciate the English language as it's meant to be.

Still at least with word pronunciation it isn't as bad as the abominations of color, armor and immunize. The missing u's and love for the letter z. WTF?
Click to expand...

Is that because Adelaide didn't have any convicts?
 
Andre said:
South Australian's speak proper English. Graph, Castle, Class. Three words that will let you see if a person has a proper grasp of how to enunciate the English language as it's meant to be.

Still at least with word pronunciation it isn't as bad as the abominations of color, armor and immunize. The missing u's and love for the letter z. WTF?
Click to expand...

See, w***ers.
 
Andre said:
South Australian's speak proper English. Graph, Castle, Class. Three words that will let you see if a person has a proper grasp of how to enunciate the English language as it's meant to be.

Still at least with word pronunciation it isn't as bad as the abominations of color, armor and immunize. The missing u's and love for the letter z. WTF?
Click to expand...

Parmi, enough said really.
 
There was a thread about this on GD a while back which was basically some guy asking how people pronounced certain words and from memory it didn't seem to have a huge locational bias other than some country vs city things.

I'm born and raised Melbourne metro and I say carstle, clarse, grarse but also graph, Grant.

I find it much easier to distinguish American/British local variations than Australian ones.

It's easy to tell someone who sounds like a bogan, but I can't tell if they're a mullet sporting, flannel wearing South Aussie bogan, or just a bogan from somewhere else.

Oh and Queenslanders add 'ay' onto the end of every sentence ay?
 

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There's just posh, normal and bogan accents.
 

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The Reaper said:
How would you pronounce Castlemaine?
Click to expand...

Car-sel-main. Just like the brewery

Is it pronounced Casselmain? If so, that may be why some Vics say Newcassel

Also Kyneton was an amusing one - when I visited Vic as a kid, my dad told me it was pronounced like Kinnerton :eek:
 

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