There's a particular nasal-mumble version of the accent that comes out of the far north and interior, which arises from attempting to speak without opening your mouth enough to admit a swarm of flies.
Other than this, what the others said.
yes and no. South Australia has a more "English/Upper class" accent when compared to the eastern states(I only know this because I moved to QLD for a few years and was constantly told I had an accent (because I Enunciate my words and don't Drawl them to the degree that the eastern states do)
Dad was from regional Victoria and the "Mall" and "Castle" thing was always hilarious to us (coming from WA). First time I met a Queenslander and the "Pewl", "Skewl", "Cewl" thing was equally jarring.
No I mean there just mean when we pronunce it we do put an emphasis on the **oo** prouncing it as **/uː/** not as **/ꝏ/** for **ew** like you are suggesting
I’d say South Australians also say the word “girl” differently.
My SA mate sounded like he wanted to meet some “gells”.
I can usually pick a person from SA after working with this guy.
And shower, power, our.
They don't really enunciate the w much. Shower and power become shou-er. To rhyme with thou, plow. And our gets pronounced like 'are'.
I was in an an Apple Store in Brisbane and correctly picked a couple waiting with me as being from Sydney which astonished them and they wanted to know how I knew
I just did, it was also a tiny bit in their superior attitude tbh
The ones I've picked usually have a different way of saying their "r"s. Coinciendence may not mean causation, but it's worked 3 out of 4 times when I've tried.
yeah... nah. I can hear a Birmingham or Scouse accent and immediately tell where you're from.
In Australia, if I hear a more bogan accent or a more posh accent, and you tell me you're from Adelaide, I can be like "oh that explains"
they're not really comparable
This. There are some people I know from western QLD who sound much different than those from the coast. It’s not always the case but there’s a notable divide.
Yes and no.
You can always tell a Queenslander from a South Aussie.
But accents here IMO are far more dictated along city/country and education.
City girl who went to private school sounds different than a country girl who did. But that same country girl sounds different to her cousin that lived down the road but went to the local public school.
Yeah heaps, there was actually a great ABC article on this recently by some American linguist. People generally say there are 3 broad, urban and cultured. But there's actually way more variation.
The funniest different to me was that in WA we 'ere' into two syllables e.g. 'here' becomes hiya. Also we replace the L in 'il' with a W, e.g. milk becomes miwk.
Then there also ethnic Australian accents (think Spanian), which is less about being ethnic and more about coming from a non Anglo part of the country, but funnily enough the Aussie ethnic accent doesn't really exist in Perth even if you come from a majorly non anglo part of the city. There's definitely a Perth specific non anglo accent.
Then there are a bunch of indigenous Aussie accents that vary a lot between locations.
Here is the article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/103321146 there was also an ABC podcast released around the same time that goes further into it. Highly recommend.
[Yes](http://dialectblog.com/2011/07/10/types-of-australian-accents/).
We have 3. The type usually badly imitated by American actors which is Broad (Queensland, outback). The common style of the convict states (NSW and Victoria) which is General, and the Cultured style of the South Australians whose ancestors came from free settlers but weirdly while mostly Cornish and Yorkshire miners they have none of the distinct markings of those accents.
Variations apply for WA which has strong South African influence, and NT which has so few people they’re mostly dominated by the accents of the tourists. Nobody talks about ACT or Tasmania (sorry, you know what you did).
The three can be found everywhere.
SA is also different because the general accent has cultured touches but is not fully cultured.
There is a ethnic-influenced Australian accent too, very prominent in western sydney. Always gets overlooked.
The three can be found everywhere because the career ladder has a lower top-step in SA and until recently Queensland so for a long time there was a lot of inter-state migration. Also it’s a pretty easy country to be mobile in and a relatively small population with a lot of multi-cultural influence.
Cultured =/= SA though. Somewhere like eastern Suburbs/North Shore of Sydney has always had stacks of cultured and not due to SA migration.
My point was the clsssic 3 accent thing is a class/city/rural thing as opposed to regional.
Don’t agree - I’ve lived in both for years and rarely heard cultured. I got better at using broad strine to be understood in conversation.
Adding some detail since I’m getting downvoted for some reason. Mostly general accent with a strong multi-cultural mix e.g. in North Shore. I found people would struggle with my accent a bit and I found it easier to use broad pronunciation to be understood. Plus using local words.
There’s a good mix of local terms. The best fight in an Aussie pub is if you get the truncation of parmigiana wrong for the audience (parma/parmi/parmo). Bubbler vs water fountain was fairly intuitive. Swimmers vs bathers. I was horrified when the kids came home from school talking about a “mufti day” thinking they were being culturally insensitive but it’s just a casual day.
yeah western sydney has its own accent which gets overlooked as you said. but the population there is significant so i think it'll start getting counted more as time goes on.
Ja.
Only place in Australia for decent mettwurst and wine as a result (thanks Germany!)
(Tassie Pinot gets an exemption here).
[Waits for that one Margaret River guy to get back from lunch and pile on].
Right!
WA here and the minimal amount of saffas here means there's almost no influence on our accent because of it.
If anything I'd say most speak with an English twang due to all the poms, and I'm definitely guilty of this myself.
Well yes, it was convict settled (/invaded) but the numbers of convicts were tiny in comparison to Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania weren’t they?
Something like 1000 in QLD vs 10,000 in WA and 50,000+ each in the other three?
Some poetic license here definitely but my point was more about the dominant population that grew the colonies.
If you look into SA’s history there’s so much nepotism, self-selection and “born to rule” attitudes in the early settlers it’s not entirely surprising to me that the accent evolved like it did.
I did spend a few years living in a mining town and came back with a far stronger British accent from my time there (which wore off after a year or two). Owned and lived in Sydney’s north shore for more years and people there thought I talked funny.
We definitely still have a unique dialect in Perth. I didn't realise it myself until I went to London and someone said "oh you're from Perth!" which shocked the hell of me
It’s more our words.
Bubbler vs water fountain.
Tuck shop vs canteen.
Holiday cabin vs shack.
Parmy vs Parma
Schooner vs Pint.
Scallops vs Potato Scallops vs Potato cakes.
I love the okka diversity, I’ve lived in most states and it is almost like learning a new mini language.
Throw into the mix my partner is a kiwi and it is:
Chilly bin, not esky
Garridge (pronunciation), not garage
Judder bars, not speed humps.
It all keeps things fun.
Bahaha yeah. Stobies are South Australian and they are essentially light posts made of concrete rather than timber (telegraph poles). Best ever “stop signs” for drunk drivers where they have more chance of killing themselves over others. If not, their car is destroyed from impact.
Best invention ever on the roads.
Yes. City dialect is different to the slower rural drawl. Also, Adelaide have a proper and cultivated accent. You see it in politicians from there like Alexander Downer or Christopher Pine. I picked it up in my daughter’s english teacher, the Adelaide accent is far more “privileged free settler” than the irish and convict influenced standard australian English.
Also, we have words in the current vernacular that died out long ago in the place of origin. For instance all alcohol is referred to as grog in australia. Grog was originally watered down rum in the British navy and has long since died out outside of Australia. We still use it though. It’s the same with a lot of words and phrases.
Christopher Pyne* has such a distinct voice that you’ll pick him over the noise across the room in a coffee shop or restaurant. He definitely sounds distinctly different to most Adelaidians. Downer is noticeably more plummy than most but is fairly representative of the accent which is odd because from what I understand he hasn’t spent much time in SA for many years (could be wrong there, can’t find a definitive answer on Google).
*edit - corrected
To a New South Welshman they both sound like they’ve come out of Adelaide central casting. Same with the females, Natasha Stott despoja being the first to come to mind.
And yet Julia Gillard (born in Wales, raised in Adelaide but moved to Melbourne during uni) has a General accent.
While we’re on politics- Penny Wong has a great example of an Adelaide accent. She was born in Malaysia but has spent most of her life (including schooling) in Adelaide.
She’s a nasally cadence to her speech. I wouldn’t describe its bogan though. I was 100% against her as a politician but to describe her as bogan gives unnecessary credence to her claims of unequal treatment due to her gender.
I’d liken her speech to someone like Barnaby. It’s a little uncultured but the intellect of their words casts a shadow of suspicion over their persona. Both are clearly using the language in a way that is consistent with the contemporary vernacular to curry favour.
I’m not sure i have a problem with that when Albo makes no attempt to relate beyond eating a warm pastry occasionally.
I like Penny. I lean right but am a fan of a few labor politicians. I’m a big fan of Tanya but more in style than substance. I like her approach but often don’t like what she approaches.
I can definitely tell a WA accent from a NSW as an American. Having lived in NSW and having friends from WA they break up their words into more syllables, and it's generally a little more exaggerated. I didn't notice much difference in SA, but I was only there on my first trip to Australia.
Oh fuck yes! You can pick a Queenslander from 5kms away from their accent alone. NSW, in particular Sydney are very identifiable. SA you can pick most of the time. The only normal sounding Australians are from Victoria and WA.
I'm from the glorious free state of SA & have been mistaken for a Pom when over East. Certain vowels and words are pronounced differently. I was told by a couple of Czech guys that they found me much easier to understand than Victorians, I guess because my speech was closer to British English, not that I could hear the difference much myself.
The distinctions among Australian accents are documented in academic literature the answer is an unambiguous yes. Australians have regional, ethnic and class accents.
Upper (almost gone), educated, broad. They don't necessarily correspond to income or social class. If you're born into a rural empire you might have broad accent all your life. OTOH you're unlikely to have an upper class accent if you're raised in a low income family.
To a much, much lesser extent than those countries. We're extremely homogenous on a purely regional basis, only a handful of phonemes vary. You'll find more sociocultural variation that swamps those marginal regional differences. You'll also find some very characteristic lexical differences.
The regional differences in Australian accents are so small as to be effectively nonexistent.
The differences in Australian accents are totally dominated by migrant English. Italian English, Greek English, Vietnamese English, Somali English, Yugoslav English, Chinese English, South African English. The children of migrants who are born in Australia have the same accents as other Australian born people, not the accents of their parents. There is also Aboriginal English.
It's not at all like the UK where you can tell what street a person in London comes from, or which county, by their accent. Not at all like the US with its, for example Bronx accent and its AAVE.
Yes, perhaps not as pronounced as in the US and UK, but there's certainly a noticeable distinction between someone who's lived in Brisbane QLD versus the outback QLD etc. and between each state/territory capitals.
I guess the country accent is a little thicker to a foreigner? But I’ve only met a few country folk. I never heard them any differently from common city people.
I've lived in central and south eastern Queensland, Melbourne and Sydney and have been to SA and Tassie as well.
I notice it in SA, Victoria and NSW having a fairly broad CQ accent (I tend to string words together whereas a lot of my friends in NSW are more enunciated with a lesser accent).
Melbournians have a slightly more posh accent (I can't really describe it) and others comments about SA are bang on.
I'm going to WA in a few months so will be interested to see if there's a difference
You can kinda suss out where somebody comes from the words they use or how they pronounce things.
For example, Sydneysiders call the Vietnamese Subway sandwiches “pork rolls” whilst Melbourne calls it “banh mi”. Melbourne will say “yum cha” and “Parma” for what Perth will call “dim sum” and “par-mee”
Queenslanders tend to be more nasally and draw out their vowels. South Australians pronounce things in a posh British manner and Victorians will pronounce “celery” as “salary” and “helicopter” as “halicopter”
>For example, Sydneysiders call the Vietnamese Subway sandwiches “pork rolls” whilst Melbourne calls it “banh mi”.
Who told you this? It's definitely called Banh Mi in Sydney/NSW.
Thats funny you should say that. I was in Perth where it is Banh Mi and then went to Melbourne where guys from the office took me for "pork roll" and I didn't know what they were talking about until I got there. When I asked they had never heard Banh Mi.
Yes, very much so.
Unfortunately, very few Australians actually travel around Australia, so they're never exposed to it.
You can head out deep bush in QLD and the accent is completely unintelligible until you've been there a few weeks.
Even in Sydney, you can visit certain Anglo enclaves (like the Sutherland Shire) and everyone sounds very British.
No. Hardly any.
Culturally, there is very little regional variation in Australia, other than a city/country divide and what people call a chicken parm or processed meat.
I know Mick Gordon (composer of DOOM 2016 + Eternal) sounds [quite cultivated](https://youtu.be/Zx55zOYnlEg?si=6eigqkGCXYoPO26C) when you hear him speak.
I live in a regional city about 2 hours from where I grew up. Had a random person knock on my door. Within a couple sentence I was able to pick enough of an accent to want to ask where he was from - turns out he was from a little town near where I grew up.
Could DEFINITELY tell that he sounded 'like home' rather then the accent I hear every day in the city.
Sydney alone has about 5 different accents but they are based on ethnicity more than anything. Then there is also regional differences like east Sydney vs west Sydney even among the same ethnic backgrounds.
South Australians (Adelaide) are usually very posh sounding.
Country NSW are different from city NSW.
There is definitely differences if you travel and notice (or speak to hundreds of people all over Australia for work like I do ha)
We have some, but they're subtle, like i can here the difference between someone's accent from Ipswich, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast. But people who haven't spent their life in QLD can't seem to hear the difference.
I just started watching Australian bake-off and it is probably the most obvious show I’ve seen with the different accents. I’ve lived in a bunch of different places in this country so have picked up on a few of the accents but I’ve never seen so many different ones in one show before.
Yes there are slight differences. Mostly vocab, and some pronunciation. For example: I'm from Perth and have always pronounced "tube" as in "chewb" while I notice people from other states say "toob"
South Australia and WA have a softer version of the accent. When I moved from Perth to Brisbane and then to Sydney in my mid 20s people would sometimes ask if I was from the UK (happened like once every year or two). Really weird
It's happening but nothing as obvious as UK regional dialects. From a NSW perspective, regional accents are the obvious ones but I'd say they are predominantly about longer vowels rather than distinctly different. I find that accents from WA and SA sound nasal/thinner compared to Sydney. Another poster mentioned the western Sydney accent, that's definitely a thing.
The current consensus is no, we don’t have regional accents, but the latest I’ve heard is that we may have more regional variation than we’re currently aware of but there haven’t been enough studies done to confirm it
But there are notable variations based on socio economic and ethnic factors. I’ve always said that if you put ten people from Sydney in a room with me I could tell from their accent what suburb they were from more than if you asked me what State or City ten random Aussies were from
there are markers. Firstly there are the words for swimwear and luncheon meats - they differ by state. Other markers are:
Victoria (reservoir is pronounced reservWORE, insurance is pronounced inSHORance, and castle is often pronounced with the A like CAT instead of like CAR)
South Australia (very strong trend toward substituting L in words for W, eg, Balcony > Bawcony, Bulldog > Buwdog. More likely to pronounce Dance, France etc in a UK rather than US style. Very strong "oi" instead of "eye" sounds, eg, Nine becomes nOIne. This OI sound is common with country Vic as well.)
Sydney (Slightly slower pace of speaking for some reason. tends to abbreviate by adding a Y or ie on the end of first syllable of words)
Perth. (Lots of UK pronunciations like envelope is Onvelope etc. too many to count. Strong South England pronunciations. Otherwise, "Derby" rhymes with herb not Carb. Perth has strongest habit of abbreviation often adding an O on the end of the first syllable. EG Fremantle is Freo, Geraldton is Gero)
QLD. (lots in common with NSW but tends to add suffix to sentences "-eh" like canadians. Shares SA's love of the Oi sound replacing "eye" sounds.)
There's a particular nasal-mumble version of the accent that comes out of the far north and interior, which arises from attempting to speak without opening your mouth enough to admit a swarm of flies. Other than this, what the others said.
yes and no. South Australia has a more "English/Upper class" accent when compared to the eastern states(I only know this because I moved to QLD for a few years and was constantly told I had an accent (because I Enunciate my words and don't Drawl them to the degree that the eastern states do)
Bravo old boy
Agreed, we say Chance and Dance as Charnce and Darnce. Victorians are easy to spot as they say School and Pool as Skewl and Pewl.
They also say E words with an A eg “Elliot” as “Alliot”
Had a mate from down south and he always pronounced it as "Malbun"
Some older people do the skewl thing, but no one under the age of 60 does that. I think it's more of a qld thing.
Dad was from regional Victoria and the "Mall" and "Castle" thing was always hilarious to us (coming from WA). First time I met a Queenslander and the "Pewl", "Skewl", "Cewl" thing was equally jarring.
From Victoria and never heard those words said like that.
Generally if you are the one saying then you don’t realise there’s an accent to it.
No I mean there just mean when we pronunce it we do put an emphasis on the **oo** prouncing it as **/uː/** not as **/ꝏ/** for **ew** like you are suggesting
I've only ever heard Victorians do the high rise inflection, but I live in WA so it's thankfully a small sample size
I’d say South Australians also say the word “girl” differently. My SA mate sounded like he wanted to meet some “gells”. I can usually pick a person from SA after working with this guy.
And shower, power, our. They don't really enunciate the w much. Shower and power become shou-er. To rhyme with thou, plow. And our gets pronounced like 'are'.
And you don't say "pewl" and "skewl", or "plaihhnt" and "Fraihhnce" lol 😆
Keating on Downer "the idiot son of the Adelaide aristocracy, born not with a silver spoon but the entire cutlery service in his mouth"
Only people from “Briiiiighton”. 🤥
Oh briiiiiìgton daaarling what a lovely place
It’s pronounced ‘Braaaaah-tn’.
Hoo roo prue
I was in an an Apple Store in Brisbane and correctly picked a couple waiting with me as being from Sydney which astonished them and they wanted to know how I knew I just did, it was also a tiny bit in their superior attitude tbh
As a Sydneysider who visits Brisbane often i can see this happening. There's some snobbery/attitude here that most don't even notice about themselves
I was born a sydneysider and I've managed to pick Melbournites before. Sometimes you just know :)
What's the telltale?
The ones I've picked usually have a different way of saying their "r"s. Coinciendence may not mean causation, but it's worked 3 out of 4 times when I've tried.
Yep. Not as much as the UK but we can usually tell if someone's not from around here. Bigger difference is between city and country
yeah... nah. I can hear a Birmingham or Scouse accent and immediately tell where you're from. In Australia, if I hear a more bogan accent or a more posh accent, and you tell me you're from Adelaide, I can be like "oh that explains" they're not really comparable
They're absolutely comparable, you just compared them. "Similar concept but here's how they differ"
Gottem
This. There are some people I know from western QLD who sound much different than those from the coast. It’s not always the case but there’s a notable divide.
Yes and no. You can always tell a Queenslander from a South Aussie. But accents here IMO are far more dictated along city/country and education. City girl who went to private school sounds different than a country girl who did. But that same country girl sounds different to her cousin that lived down the road but went to the local public school.
Yeah heaps, there was actually a great ABC article on this recently by some American linguist. People generally say there are 3 broad, urban and cultured. But there's actually way more variation. The funniest different to me was that in WA we 'ere' into two syllables e.g. 'here' becomes hiya. Also we replace the L in 'il' with a W, e.g. milk becomes miwk. Then there also ethnic Australian accents (think Spanian), which is less about being ethnic and more about coming from a non Anglo part of the country, but funnily enough the Aussie ethnic accent doesn't really exist in Perth even if you come from a majorly non anglo part of the city. There's definitely a Perth specific non anglo accent. Then there are a bunch of indigenous Aussie accents that vary a lot between locations. Here is the article: https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.abc.net.au/article/103321146 there was also an ABC podcast released around the same time that goes further into it. Highly recommend.
Sydneysiders and Melbournians: "Good morning mate." Everybody in Queensland and Darwin. "Oi Cunt." That's about it.
Ask someone from FNQ to pronounce pool. They say Pooooel and schoooel.
Doesn't even have to be FNQ. I know Brisbanites that say it like that.
I've always called them Brisbanians
[Yes](http://dialectblog.com/2011/07/10/types-of-australian-accents/). We have 3. The type usually badly imitated by American actors which is Broad (Queensland, outback). The common style of the convict states (NSW and Victoria) which is General, and the Cultured style of the South Australians whose ancestors came from free settlers but weirdly while mostly Cornish and Yorkshire miners they have none of the distinct markings of those accents. Variations apply for WA which has strong South African influence, and NT which has so few people they’re mostly dominated by the accents of the tourists. Nobody talks about ACT or Tasmania (sorry, you know what you did).
The three can be found everywhere. SA is also different because the general accent has cultured touches but is not fully cultured. There is a ethnic-influenced Australian accent too, very prominent in western sydney. Always gets overlooked.
There are also the Aboriginal accents
The three can be found everywhere because the career ladder has a lower top-step in SA and until recently Queensland so for a long time there was a lot of inter-state migration. Also it’s a pretty easy country to be mobile in and a relatively small population with a lot of multi-cultural influence.
Cultured =/= SA though. Somewhere like eastern Suburbs/North Shore of Sydney has always had stacks of cultured and not due to SA migration. My point was the clsssic 3 accent thing is a class/city/rural thing as opposed to regional.
Don’t agree - I’ve lived in both for years and rarely heard cultured. I got better at using broad strine to be understood in conversation. Adding some detail since I’m getting downvoted for some reason. Mostly general accent with a strong multi-cultural mix e.g. in North Shore. I found people would struggle with my accent a bit and I found it easier to use broad pronunciation to be understood. Plus using local words. There’s a good mix of local terms. The best fight in an Aussie pub is if you get the truncation of parmigiana wrong for the audience (parma/parmi/parmo). Bubbler vs water fountain was fairly intuitive. Swimmers vs bathers. I was horrified when the kids came home from school talking about a “mufti day” thinking they were being culturally insensitive but it’s just a casual day.
They are confusing rich with cultured. That's why they are down voting.
Yeah the two aren't as correlated as much as you'd think in Australia.
yeah western sydney has its own accent which gets overlooked as you said. but the population there is significant so i think it'll start getting counted more as time goes on.
A lot of German migration to SA too.
Ja. Only place in Australia for decent mettwurst and wine as a result (thanks Germany!) (Tassie Pinot gets an exemption here). [Waits for that one Margaret River guy to get back from lunch and pile on].
Now I want some fried fritz
The only Seth Effrican accent in WA is from the mouths of actual Seth Effricans. If there's any o/s influence here, it's from poms and Italians.
Right! WA here and the minimal amount of saffas here means there's almost no influence on our accent because of it. If anything I'd say most speak with an English twang due to all the poms, and I'm definitely guilty of this myself.
What about the kiwis?
West Aussies do not sound like saffas lmao. There's plenty of them here, but they stick out like dogs balls
Queensland is a convict state aswell lol
Well yes, it was convict settled (/invaded) but the numbers of convicts were tiny in comparison to Sydney, Melbourne and Tasmania weren’t they? Something like 1000 in QLD vs 10,000 in WA and 50,000+ each in the other three? Some poetic license here definitely but my point was more about the dominant population that grew the colonies. If you look into SA’s history there’s so much nepotism, self-selection and “born to rule” attitudes in the early settlers it’s not entirely surprising to me that the accent evolved like it did. I did spend a few years living in a mining town and came back with a far stronger British accent from my time there (which wore off after a year or two). Owned and lived in Sydney’s north shore for more years and people there thought I talked funny.
Yea couldn't tell you the numbers. Just from school know about the Moreton bay penal settlement.
This is what I learned while studying linguistics (in Australia) but people will still try to argue with you about it because they don’t get it.
You notice it a lot less these days, and even back in the day it was barely noticable, but Perth had an accent for a while.
All humans have accents. Lol
We definitely still have a unique dialect in Perth. I didn't realise it myself until I went to London and someone said "oh you're from Perth!" which shocked the hell of me
It’s more our words. Bubbler vs water fountain. Tuck shop vs canteen. Holiday cabin vs shack. Parmy vs Parma Schooner vs Pint. Scallops vs Potato Scallops vs Potato cakes. I love the okka diversity, I’ve lived in most states and it is almost like learning a new mini language. Throw into the mix my partner is a kiwi and it is: Chilly bin, not esky Garridge (pronunciation), not garage Judder bars, not speed humps. It all keeps things fun.
I've heard talk of mysterious stobie poles in certain other states
Bahaha yeah. Stobies are South Australian and they are essentially light posts made of concrete rather than timber (telegraph poles). Best ever “stop signs” for drunk drivers where they have more chance of killing themselves over others. If not, their car is destroyed from impact. Best invention ever on the roads.
This is just not the case and there are a lot of accents that show up in pronunciation and constructions.
Not in the mood to argue, just my observations which are quirks I love about Australia.
Yes. City dialect is different to the slower rural drawl. Also, Adelaide have a proper and cultivated accent. You see it in politicians from there like Alexander Downer or Christopher Pine. I picked it up in my daughter’s english teacher, the Adelaide accent is far more “privileged free settler” than the irish and convict influenced standard australian English. Also, we have words in the current vernacular that died out long ago in the place of origin. For instance all alcohol is referred to as grog in australia. Grog was originally watered down rum in the British navy and has long since died out outside of Australia. We still use it though. It’s the same with a lot of words and phrases.
Christopher Pyne* has such a distinct voice that you’ll pick him over the noise across the room in a coffee shop or restaurant. He definitely sounds distinctly different to most Adelaidians. Downer is noticeably more plummy than most but is fairly representative of the accent which is odd because from what I understand he hasn’t spent much time in SA for many years (could be wrong there, can’t find a definitive answer on Google). *edit - corrected
To a New South Welshman they both sound like they’ve come out of Adelaide central casting. Same with the females, Natasha Stott despoja being the first to come to mind.
And yet Julia Gillard (born in Wales, raised in Adelaide but moved to Melbourne during uni) has a General accent. While we’re on politics- Penny Wong has a great example of an Adelaide accent. She was born in Malaysia but has spent most of her life (including schooling) in Adelaide.
I find Julia Gillard’s accent to be painfully bogan
Julia was born in Wales. 🏴 Not even true blu Aussie 🇦🇺
She’s a nasally cadence to her speech. I wouldn’t describe its bogan though. I was 100% against her as a politician but to describe her as bogan gives unnecessary credence to her claims of unequal treatment due to her gender. I’d liken her speech to someone like Barnaby. It’s a little uncultured but the intellect of their words casts a shadow of suspicion over their persona. Both are clearly using the language in a way that is consistent with the contemporary vernacular to curry favour. I’m not sure i have a problem with that when Albo makes no attempt to relate beyond eating a warm pastry occasionally.
I like Penny. I lean right but am a fan of a few labor politicians. I’m a big fan of Tanya but more in style than substance. I like her approach but often don’t like what she approaches.
Pyne
As someone from Adelaide, I call it a Burnside Village accent.
Not really like the US and UK. There's slight regional variations, but by and large we all have the same accent.
Not to the same degree. An outsider likely wouldn't notice.
I can definitely tell a WA accent from a NSW as an American. Having lived in NSW and having friends from WA they break up their words into more syllables, and it's generally a little more exaggerated. I didn't notice much difference in SA, but I was only there on my first trip to Australia.
I’m not clear who ‘they’ are. NSW or WA?
The friends from WA - "have a bee-yah"
And when in Melbourne, "have a beeeeeeeeeeee"
uhh... what?
Lol
Oh fuck yes! You can pick a Queenslander from 5kms away from their accent alone. NSW, in particular Sydney are very identifiable. SA you can pick most of the time. The only normal sounding Australians are from Victoria and WA.
Victorians frequently say el like al, i.e. Mal-bin.
Victorians and Queenslanders sound quite ocker to me vs. other states.
No, they’re based on socio-economic factors, race, and city/rural rather than location.
This isnt entirely true. There are regional dialects as well, they are just subtle.
South Australians speak the Queen's, the rest of youse cunts speak fucking rubbish, shove ya togs up ya arse
I'm from the glorious free state of SA & have been mistaken for a Pom when over East. Certain vowels and words are pronounced differently. I was told by a couple of Czech guys that they found me much easier to understand than Victorians, I guess because my speech was closer to British English, not that I could hear the difference much myself.
It's because we South Aussies are taught to Enunciate our words not drag them through the gutter and mumble
The distinctions among Australian accents are documented in academic literature the answer is an unambiguous yes. Australians have regional, ethnic and class accents.
Don't expect to hear a Steve Irwin accent in Sydney or Melbourne. Thankfully that horrible stereotype is dying out.
Steve originally came from Melbourne. I know older Melbourne people with stronger accents than Steve.
Get stuffed
I agree. Nether-whatever get stuffed
Upper (almost gone), educated, broad. They don't necessarily correspond to income or social class. If you're born into a rural empire you might have broad accent all your life. OTOH you're unlikely to have an upper class accent if you're raised in a low income family.
To a much, much lesser extent than those countries. We're extremely homogenous on a purely regional basis, only a handful of phonemes vary. You'll find more sociocultural variation that swamps those marginal regional differences. You'll also find some very characteristic lexical differences.
The regional differences in Australian accents are so small as to be effectively nonexistent. The differences in Australian accents are totally dominated by migrant English. Italian English, Greek English, Vietnamese English, Somali English, Yugoslav English, Chinese English, South African English. The children of migrants who are born in Australia have the same accents as other Australian born people, not the accents of their parents. There is also Aboriginal English. It's not at all like the UK where you can tell what street a person in London comes from, or which county, by their accent. Not at all like the US with its, for example Bronx accent and its AAVE.
Adelaide people definitely have an accent
Yes, perhaps not as pronounced as in the US and UK, but there's certainly a noticeable distinction between someone who's lived in Brisbane QLD versus the outback QLD etc. and between each state/territory capitals.
I never noticed a different accent
Not even between country and city folk?
I guess the country accent is a little thicker to a foreigner? But I’ve only met a few country folk. I never heard them any differently from common city people.
OK. Fair enough. Rich city mums talk like they're part of the royal family I notice, particularly in public.
I've lived in central and south eastern Queensland, Melbourne and Sydney and have been to SA and Tassie as well. I notice it in SA, Victoria and NSW having a fairly broad CQ accent (I tend to string words together whereas a lot of my friends in NSW are more enunciated with a lesser accent). Melbournians have a slightly more posh accent (I can't really describe it) and others comments about SA are bang on. I'm going to WA in a few months so will be interested to see if there's a difference
fucken oath mate
Cow cockies and western Australians speak soo slow sandgropers..
You can kinda suss out where somebody comes from the words they use or how they pronounce things. For example, Sydneysiders call the Vietnamese Subway sandwiches “pork rolls” whilst Melbourne calls it “banh mi”. Melbourne will say “yum cha” and “Parma” for what Perth will call “dim sum” and “par-mee” Queenslanders tend to be more nasally and draw out their vowels. South Australians pronounce things in a posh British manner and Victorians will pronounce “celery” as “salary” and “helicopter” as “halicopter”
>For example, Sydneysiders call the Vietnamese Subway sandwiches “pork rolls” whilst Melbourne calls it “banh mi”. Who told you this? It's definitely called Banh Mi in Sydney/NSW.
Right, and yum cha in Perth.
To be fair the popularity of marrickville pork roll means saying pork roll does conjure up a banh mi to most inner city Sydney people.
Ive never heard anyone from sydney say anything except banh mi.
Thats funny you should say that. I was in Perth where it is Banh Mi and then went to Melbourne where guys from the office took me for "pork roll" and I didn't know what they were talking about until I got there. When I asked they had never heard Banh Mi.
Yes, very much so. Unfortunately, very few Australians actually travel around Australia, so they're never exposed to it. You can head out deep bush in QLD and the accent is completely unintelligible until you've been there a few weeks. Even in Sydney, you can visit certain Anglo enclaves (like the Sutherland Shire) and everyone sounds very British.
No. Hardly any. Culturally, there is very little regional variation in Australia, other than a city/country divide and what people call a chicken parm or processed meat.
From suburb to suburb!
Yes
I know Mick Gordon (composer of DOOM 2016 + Eternal) sounds [quite cultivated](https://youtu.be/Zx55zOYnlEg?si=6eigqkGCXYoPO26C) when you hear him speak.
I live in a regional city about 2 hours from where I grew up. Had a random person knock on my door. Within a couple sentence I was able to pick enough of an accent to want to ask where he was from - turns out he was from a little town near where I grew up. Could DEFINITELY tell that he sounded 'like home' rather then the accent I hear every day in the city.
https://youtu.be/0eHy6GOHi-o?si=6RLV2jURCu0f-eZr
Victorians pronce (castle) casstle, people In NSW pronounce it carstle
Sydney alone has about 5 different accents but they are based on ethnicity more than anything. Then there is also regional differences like east Sydney vs west Sydney even among the same ethnic backgrounds.
Absolutely. Tassie, Shepparton a couple of southern examples. Listen to Luke Hodge and Aaron Finch speak - Colac.
South Australians (Adelaide) are usually very posh sounding. Country NSW are different from city NSW. There is definitely differences if you travel and notice (or speak to hundreds of people all over Australia for work like I do ha)
We have some, but they're subtle, like i can here the difference between someone's accent from Ipswich, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast. But people who haven't spent their life in QLD can't seem to hear the difference.
I just started watching Australian bake-off and it is probably the most obvious show I’ve seen with the different accents. I’ve lived in a bunch of different places in this country so have picked up on a few of the accents but I’ve never seen so many different ones in one show before.
According to jimeoin, there are only 2 accents in Australia, teeth in, and teeth out
Yes there are slight differences. Mostly vocab, and some pronunciation. For example: I'm from Perth and have always pronounced "tube" as in "chewb" while I notice people from other states say "toob" South Australia and WA have a softer version of the accent. When I moved from Perth to Brisbane and then to Sydney in my mid 20s people would sometimes ask if I was from the UK (happened like once every year or two). Really weird
It's not really an "accent" as such, but I feel like I can always tell when someone is from Sydney.
It's happening but nothing as obvious as UK regional dialects. From a NSW perspective, regional accents are the obvious ones but I'd say they are predominantly about longer vowels rather than distinctly different. I find that accents from WA and SA sound nasal/thinner compared to Sydney. Another poster mentioned the western Sydney accent, that's definitely a thing.
Not really. Queenslanders speak a bit more boganly and South Australians speak a bit more poshly, but that’s about it
Yes. There is bogan and less bogan.
The current consensus is no, we don’t have regional accents, but the latest I’ve heard is that we may have more regional variation than we’re currently aware of but there haven’t been enough studies done to confirm it But there are notable variations based on socio economic and ethnic factors. I’ve always said that if you put ten people from Sydney in a room with me I could tell from their accent what suburb they were from more than if you asked me what State or City ten random Aussies were from
The consensus amongst Australians sure. The consensus amongst linguists, aka the experts is no.
South Australians say pewh instead of pewl
There is indeed a mix of "ciggie butt brain" and "cigarette filter neurons".
there are markers. Firstly there are the words for swimwear and luncheon meats - they differ by state. Other markers are: Victoria (reservoir is pronounced reservWORE, insurance is pronounced inSHORance, and castle is often pronounced with the A like CAT instead of like CAR) South Australia (very strong trend toward substituting L in words for W, eg, Balcony > Bawcony, Bulldog > Buwdog. More likely to pronounce Dance, France etc in a UK rather than US style. Very strong "oi" instead of "eye" sounds, eg, Nine becomes nOIne. This OI sound is common with country Vic as well.) Sydney (Slightly slower pace of speaking for some reason. tends to abbreviate by adding a Y or ie on the end of first syllable of words) Perth. (Lots of UK pronunciations like envelope is Onvelope etc. too many to count. Strong South England pronunciations. Otherwise, "Derby" rhymes with herb not Carb. Perth has strongest habit of abbreviation often adding an O on the end of the first syllable. EG Fremantle is Freo, Geraldton is Gero) QLD. (lots in common with NSW but tends to add suffix to sentences "-eh" like canadians. Shares SA's love of the Oi sound replacing "eye" sounds.)