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Can anybody tell me how the Australian accent came about?

It seems strange to me that it is not more like an English accent taking into account that the first and the majority of settlers were English.

Also, I am under the impression that those settlers were not really influenced linguistically by the native Aboriginal people much.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

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I'm curious if someone could add information on any possible effects that penal colonies had on the dialect. It seems like it may have skewed the sample in the development of the dialect. (Briefly looking I have not found anything) – mfg May 3 '11 at 19:45

4 Answers

up vote 7 down vote

Just so you know, modern British English doesn't sound much like English would have sounded like when Australia or the US/Canada was colonized. In fact, many Southeastern US accents are closer to British English from the 16-1700s than British English is today. The accent from Tangier Island, Virginia (video) is about as close to British English from the old times as you can get.

Several things did quite a number on British English, aside from the natural progression of accents over time, such as the advent of Received Pronunciation and its filtering into the general accents.

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Interesting. But the Tangier Islanders appear to have a rhotic accent, which I don't think the Australian settlers had... – Cerberus May 3 '11 at 10:40
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Well, accents do change, even when on a tiny island for hundreds of years, it's just one of the closest. I can barely make heads or tails of what they're saying or even where the vowel sounds are when the accent is going full on, and I'm used to heavy accents. Rhoticity seems to be something that can change quickly in an accent as well. It's only taken a few decades for many US Southern dialects to become rhotic. – Phoenix May 3 '11 at 12:12
At times that Tangier Island accent bears an uncanny resemblance to an East-Anglian accent (Norfolk/Suffolk, UK). But how anyone knows how people sounded pre Thomas Edison I really don't know. – MikeJ-UK May 3 '11 at 12:56
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Well, it's largely done through studies of related dialects and similarities between them. You narrow it down to things that all dialects have in common, and then things that this region has in common but is different than this other region, etc. By doing so you can work out a kind of evolutionary tree for the dialects. In much the same way, from studying the various Romance languages and other languages which have various words descended from Latin (such as German, Arabic, etc.), we know pretty well how the Romans would have spoken a couple thousand years ago. – Phoenix May 3 '11 at 14:41
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Australian English is the standard language spoken in Australia. Its accents differ from various locations in all states and territories and show a regional and social diversity.

This is no different from accents in US, England etc.

Many immigrants established themselves in various locations, influencing the accent of the English spoken.

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As someone who was born in Tasmania, but spent much of his childhood in Norfolk, I've always been amazed by how little is mentioned about the uncanny relationship between the two accents. Take a good old Norfolk boy, put him in harsh sunlight so he has to squint his eyes, and surround him with flies so he has to keep his mouth pretty much closed, and you've got a pure Aussie voice. A looong toooime speeent on the vowels, a rising inflection, it's all there. This Norfolk/Suffolk accent would have been prevalent across the whole south east, before it was shoved out by cockney, so would have been the base of the flash argot of London, exported to Botany Bay and Tasmania.

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This is really more of a comment than an answer. Can you provide references for your assertions? – Robusto Dec 30 '12 at 17:35
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See the Where did the Australian Accent Come from? doco on youtube.

Essentially the Australian accent a blend of the accents of the first white settlers who came from all over the UK (with a bit of attitude thrown in).

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