Australian Accents
Okay now we've all heard people from overseas try to do an Aussie accent. It can be pretty embarrassing to listen to. But is there just one accent or do Australians from different areas or walks of life speak in different ways? Here's Emma with more about one research project helping to answer that very question.
EMMA DAVIS, REPORTER: Australia is known for its unique accent. It's something a lot of people overseas struggle to copy. But have you ever wondered where it came from?
Well 200 years ago people came to live in Australia from all over the place. While most of them spoke English, they didn't all speak it in the same way. By taking different sounds from all the different people around them, the next generation developed a totally new accent and the next generation built on it, and the next after that and pretty soon the Aussie accent was born!
Since then it's changed a lot, and experts now say there are actually a few different variations on the Australian accent. There's the broad Aussie accent you sometimes hear in the country. Then there are voices like this, where people sound a little more English. But the most common style of Aussie speech is General Australian.
Other countries have different kinds of accents too but they're a lot more obvious than ours! Look at England. While two people might only live a few towns away, their accents can be completely different. And the same goes for the United States!
Back in Australia, it's these variations in accent that researchers now want to study so they've decided to create a massive database of voices from all over Australia. The aim is to track how our accents develop and why. Another thing researchers will be on the lookout for is whether other countries' accents are having an effect on ours. These days we watch heaps of TV shows and movies from places like America and England and researchers think eventually all these different accents might start to change ours. So while this is how we sound at the moment, in 100 years time, our Aussie accents might end up sounding completely different.
- Emma Davis | Reporter
- Austalk Australian accent research: National study aims to capture accented English spoken by Aboriginal Territorians: ABC News | weblink
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