# Are there big regional accent differences in Australia?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 17, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085 "2012-03-17T23:05:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085/61 "2012-03-19T14:58:03Z")

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> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> The T-Mobile girl, [Carly Foulkes (You Tube clip with audio)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7iYBPmfm78) is another one that has what I would term a fairly discernable Canadian accent, although I’ve discovered it seems that not everyone hears it. You only have to listen up to 0:25.

Yeah, her giveaways include “comments,” “coming out,” “over there”

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**Author:** ![eclectic\_wench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eclectic\_wench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eclectic_wench)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085/62 "2012-03-19T15:12:36Z")

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> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#):
>
> There are also regional peculiarities, but these are oddities rather than real accents. A well known one is that pronouncing the letter H as ‘haich’ sounding the ‘h’, is often the mark of someone who attended a Sydney Catholic school. But it turns up elsewhere, isn’t fully reliable, and is more a scholastic quirk.

Here in Ireland, ‘h’ is generally pronounced as ‘haich’, specially by older people. I haven’t heard it anywhere else. I wonder if the Sydney Catholic school thing is less a regionalism than a consequence of having been taught by Irish nuns/priests?

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085/63 "2012-03-19T15:16:17Z")

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That’s a perfectly cromulent way for a regionalism to be born.

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**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-big-regional-accent-differences-in-australia/616085/64 "2012-03-19T15:16:42Z")

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> [@Acsenray](#):
>
> Yeah, her giveaways include “comments,” “coming out,” “over there”

Also, the way she pronounced “I” has a bit of Canadian raising in it, so it sounds closer to “uhy” rather than “ahy,” or /ʌɪ/ or /əɪ/ instead of /aɪ/. I didn’t really catch anything in “comments,” (is it the short “o” there, which I guess is a bit “softer” than in my US accent, but not something that jumped out at me) but “out” was pretty tell-tale, too. Didn’t hear the part where she says “over there.”

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