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.
There were, of course, many other native tongues – at least 250, by recent estimates – spoken by First Nations people long before white settlers arrived, and some of their words – kangaroo, galah and goanna, to name a few – found their way into Australian English, although Aboriginal languages appear to have had little ...
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 is most similar to British English in spelling and sentence construction, although its accent and vocabulary are very distinct from the UK.
According to a recent survey conducted by the popular dating website MissTravel.com, over 2000 American men and women regard Australian accents as one of the sexiest in the world.
Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
Australian English often contains higher levels of nasal resonance to oral resonance. Resonance refers to voice acoustics and is determined by where the bulk of sound vibration from the voice is reinforced in the your face.
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”.
They found that while Australian English is a more relaxed style of the English language, it can also make it hard for babies to learn new words. The Australian English sound system has 20 vowel sounds, many of which are very similar. The research showed that these vowel differences are not easy to learn.
(Noun) An uncouth or uncultured person, usually. See also: feral, ratbag, reptile, bevan etc. “I can't understand that bogan's broad Australian accent.”
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).
G'day (guh-day) / Hello.
The speech of Aussie kids is becoming more and more American to fit in with friends who watch US television and films, a speech pathologist has revealed. Children are developing American accents, such as peppering 'like' and 'basically' in everyday speech, communication expert Lana McCarthy said.
Australia was colonised two centuries later, which explains why the accent of Australian English is more similar to British English compared to American English. However, American English became very popular in Australia later in history, which affected their pronunciation.
According to Richards, the beginning of our Australian accent emerged following the arrival of European settlers in 1788. "It emerged from a process called levelling down because you had all these people who came here on 11 ships from different dialect areas, regional dialect areas across England," he said.
There are different variations of the Australian accent. Dr Gawne describes one variation as the "broad accent... [which is] your good, Aussie, ocker accents." Another variation is the "general accent, which is actually the majority of Australian English speakers."
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 younger generation are getting rid of the 'yuh' and making it more 'noo',” Ms Hume revealed. “That's a shift that's happening in real time in our accent, which is an influence of US media and their pronunciation of that word.”
Break 'beautiful' down into sounds: [BYOO] + [TUH] + [FUHL] - say it out loud and exaggerate the sounds until you can consistently produce them.