Regional Dialects

[Fat Red]

WWB, you're right about the phonetics (except I think the Adelaide pronunciation of grant is not /graent/ but /gr(a in a serif font which I can't reproduce here)nt/ in other words the sound which I as a Victorian say in the first syllable of Carlton, although not as drawn out.

However, I am always amazed by the differences in vocab that you pick up around the country, of the pot/middy or bathers/swimmers/cozzie variety, that for some reason you don't seem to see these words used on TV or whatever.

 

[ptw]

Originally posted by Waltzing Woof Biscuit
Sainter,

Australia is renowned for it's lack of phonetic variation when it comes to regional dialect; there is some, but it is subtle. We tend to vary more distinctly in terms of social dialect. Put simply, the more you move up the socio-economic scale, the more likely one is to speak something close to 'received pronunciation,' (RP). You can most vividly hear it in old newsreels, where announcers sound 'quasi-educated British' in their pronunciation ("Bradman scores another century, and the crowd all stands to applaud...."). In phonetic terms, vowels in RP are sounded with a 'more-open mouth' - this is a feature of 'Educated' english - and the mouth is gradually 'more-closed' as you move to 'Standard' and 'Broad' English. But there does seem to be dialectal difference in Adelaide of the regional variety. I've heard it said that some Croweaters sound like Kiwis - ie. more open-mouthed with some vowels. Spelling phonetically (without IPA symbols on the keypad) 'plant' or 'grant' is almost /plent/ and /grent/ in Broad Australian. Regional Adelaide seems closer to /plaent/ and /graent/. This has probably been studied by some academic, but I'm not aware of it.

I have a small theory on that WWB.

Adelaide was founded largely by English settlers, without the large influenceof the Irish and Scottish you found in other colonies. Adelaide was also for a long time predominantly prodestant, again probably duetot he lack of influence of the above groups.

South Australian's pronounce grant and graph in exactly the same way as people from Southern England hence the nub of my theory.

An alternative may also be the at***udes to education in the colonies. South Australia has had a long tradition of public education, something that Victoria has not. In fact it was illegal to build public schools in inner Melbourne until about 1930 IIRC. This has led to a couple of things:

1. a continuing significance placed on what school you went to in Melbourne, as a private education was essentially the only way to get into university for a long time, and a heavy emphasis on private vs public schooling.

2. for quite a while I would guess that the average working person in Adelaide received a higher standard of education than their equivalent in Melbourne. This coupled with your comments, and the general "Englishness" of the South Australian population could all be contributing factors.

ptw

 

[Fat Red]

ptw, I agree with some of that but some of it is plain crap.

Victoria has had free public education since the 1880s. I don't know about where they were or werent' allowed to build the schools, but they were somewhere in town.

I think basically that Adelaide is historically very English, proper, city of churches cultural cringey, and that is why they sound more like Poms.

 

[Darky]

Originally posted by ptw


I have a small theory on that WWB.

Adelaide was founded largely by English settlers, without the large influenceof the Irish and Scottish you found in other colonies. Adelaide was also for a long time predominantly prodestant, again probably duetot he lack of influence of the above groups.

South Australian's pronounce grant and graph in exactly the same way as people from Southern England hence the nub of my theory.

An alternative may also be the att.itudes to education in the colonies. South Australia has had a long tradition of public education, something that Victoria has not. In fact it was illegal to build public schools in inner Melbourne until about 1930 IIRC. This has led to a couple of things:

1. a continuing significance placed on what school you went to in Melbourne, as a private education was essentially the only way to get into university for a long time, and a heavy emphasis on private vs public schooling.

2. for quite a while I would guess that the average working person in Adelaide received a higher standard of education than their equivalent in Melbourne. This coupled with your comments, and the general "Englishness" of the South Australian population could all be contributing factors.

ptw

Wasn't South Australia also the only state which did not start as a convict settlement? This may also explain a difference in the educational and social clas.ses in the days of early settlement, and slightly different pronunciation and vocabulary is something that may have survived over the last century and a half.

 

[ptw]

Originally posted by Fat Red
ptw, I agree with some of that but some of it is plain crap.

Victoria has had free public education since the 1880s. I don't know about where they were or werent' allowed to build the schools, but they were somewhere in town.

I think basically that Adelaide is historically very English, proper, city of churches cultural cringey, and that is why they sound more like Poms.

Fat Red

I don't think it is crap. I did not say that Victoria did not have free education. There was a geogrphic restriction on where the schools could be built, I presume in order to protect the interests of the private schools which had established themselves in inner Melbourne.

If you look around Melboune inner city then I do not see too many public schools which are more than 65-70 years old. There is a large amount of schools built in the burbs but not in inner Melbourne.

Surely you would agree that there is (or at leadt has been) a preoccupation in Melbourne with with school you went to. No-one gives a hoot in Adelaide.

Happy to be proved wrong but I heard the story about Melbourne and its public schools on John Faine on 3LO so it must be right

ptw

 

[ptw]

Originally posted by Darky


Wasn't South Australia also the only state which did not start as a convict settlement? This may also explain a difference in the educational and social clas.ses in the days of early settlement, and slightly different pronunciation and vocabulary is something that may have survived over the last century and a half.

Yes...sort of.

Melbourne did not really have convicts. It was originally settled as a penal colony in 1801 (?) near Sorrento but they packed up and moved to Tasmania (property prices on the pennensula or something !). Still, that original colony is very useful now in that we have the wood over you bread stealers.

With Batman there were no convicts to my knowledge. I think the influence in Melbourne was through the gold rush and the large numbers of "working" people who flocked to Victoria as a result.

who knows????

ptw

 

[Waltzing Woof Biscuit]

Some interesting comments. Re. the English connection, a Professor Hammarstrom theorises that standard Australian is much the same as London ****ney at the time of the First Fleet. He reckons that the ****ney glottal stop (which replaces [t] in the middle and at the end of words) is a recent development in the dialect. Nice theory, but unprovable - though ****ney bears greater vowel similarity to Australian English than other British dialects. There could be considerable merit in ptw's and Darky's comments, although I'm not sure about how public education evolved in either SA or Vic. But ****ney being a low-prestige dialect traditionally ***ociated with the poorer cl***, it is likely that many convicts would have spoken it. If Adelaide was more a place for landed gentry, this - combined with its geographical isolation - could explain dialectal differences with the rest of Australia. I'd be interested to hear from anyone in Perth about this issue, as the MOST geographically isolated major city. I've not really noticed regional phonetic variation in the Sandgropers.

BTW Fat Red, you could be perfectly correct, so I'll adjust my earlier comments. If the Adelaide pronunciation of 'grant' is closer to the 'a' in 'Carlton', then the vowel is also 'backed' - ie, if you say 'cat', and then try to say it again by slightly retracting your tongue, you'll produce something like 'cart.' This is having the proverbial 'plumb in your mouth.'

 

[Waltzing Woof Biscuit]

BTW, I'm getting a little tired of this police state censorship!!!! The London dialect I was reffering to is C OCKNEY. Good grief