Ask-A-Linguist Message Details
| Subject: | Australian Accent Differences? |
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| Question: |
why don't people in different australian states/regions have different accents like those in USA and UK?? |
| Reply: |
Actually - Australian regional accents are beginning to develop. One feature I know of is that syllable-final /l/ may become /w/ for some speakers in Melbourne/South Australian. There are other regional vowel differences <a href='http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_in_Australian_English' target='_blank'>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation_in_Australian_English</a>; As my colleague indicated, it ws taking time for them to develop because Australia has been so recently settled, but they are coming. Already there is a distinction between standard Australian and standard New Zealand English. The same is true in California which was only recently considered to have no distinctive features beyond standard U.S., but is actually developing its own regional vocabulary (e.g. hella "very", discourse "like" and surfer slang) as well as its own intonational patterns. |
| Reply From: | Elizabeth J Pyatt click here to access email |
| Date: | 19-Mar-2012 |
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