Easiest way to distinguish Australian accent from British?

In My Humble Opinion
81

My accent is all fucked up.

I agree, yes, my mum gave me a Southern English accent, that she got from her mum, after she was born in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia).

My dad was born but English speaking) South Africa. As far as I know, he never spoke Afrikaans

And I obtained some Zimbabwean accent; my home town - it was quite differently pronounced in chiShona and English.

If you met me you would have no idea from where I come. It is a mongrel, a chimera of an accent.

I live in South Africa, and I speak Afrikaans a little, my Afrikaans is sufficiently accented that it it is clear I am a non-Afrikaaner. I understand what is known as “egte Afrikaans” the “pure” Afrikaans, which I find easier to understand (ie formal vs slang).

Pure Afrikaans is way easier for me, despite having leaned Afrikaans via Kaapse Taal, which is possibly the most insult filled possible dialect in which to learn the language.

@MrDibble is probably fluent in both dialects. He is also from Cape Town and has been a there a much longer time than I.

But my English is (to coin a phrase) trans-hemispheric (as opposed to trans-Atlantic, just north/south, not east/west)

82

I’m fluent in 2 (Standard and Northern Cape) , but Kaapse Taal is not one of them. I understand it fine, but I don’t speak it very convincingly. It wasn’t the Afrikaans I grew up with, no self-respecting middle class Coloured évolué would be caught dead speaking it (one of my brothers spoke it very well).

And I speak English with a close-to-RP accent normally, which is the accent of neither of my parents, but I can code switch easily enough to a more “Coloured” register, where I am closer to my father (educated Coloured accent) than my mother (“Poor White” South African English heavily tinged with long years of living in Coloured society).

83

I used to travel on “Taxis” quite often, and man, those gaatjies improved my vocabulary.

Not in a good way, because the only use of those words was quite limited.

I did once get kicked out of the car and punched in the face for replacing the word “ouma” for “jou” and adding “se fis” to the traditional insult. (my concern was driving style, although I admit I, myself, was drunk)

It was in Greenpoint, the gay club I had to walk to for the use of their toilet to clean up by severely bleeding nose, did not question me at all.

This is Cape Town. Then the staff bought me a free beer.

84

It’s this.

  1. Peers, including school teacher, if they instruct in diction
  2. Primary caregiver, usually mother, but may be a grandmother, father, aunt or hired person. The person who spends the bulk of the hours with the baby before there is a peer group, and a lot of time after.
  3. Other parent or parents, as the case may be.
  4. In the US, TV.

Also, different things are influenced: primary caregiver gives you your words for body parts, and any words of intimacy, privacy, or “bathroom” words appropriate to a child’s needs.

You mother and maternal grandmother give you holiday & food words.

Your peers give you school words, slang, and “child culture” (yes, it exists) words.

You “father role” parent give you words for tools and nature, and in some cases, food-in-the-raw.

How all this affects your accent comes down to marked and unmarked sounds. Certain marked sounds (B) imply certain unmarked ones (in the case of B, than P). No language has a B without also having a P. They’re a voiced/voiceless pair, and voiced implies voiceless.

So children tend to pick up the consonant + vowel sounds of the unmarked consonant + vowel in their environment, if they are presented more or less equally (it’s been quantified, and I don’t remember it precisely, but I think it was something like 40/60, or a 35% plurality in the case if a 3 or more accent influence). With those percentages or better, unmarked won, but if the number was lower in aggregate, marked could win.

Or, the child might code-switch, and use whatever the conversation partner was using. Thus a child with unaccented English with peers, but an unmistakable Mexican accent when speaking English with his parents, even though Spanish was not a choice, because he had not been raised to know it well enough.

There’s a hell of a lot more minutiae I could go into, but I think that gives you the idea of it.

If you want more, ask and I will answer; otherwise, I’ll stay on topic unless prompted.

85

No such thing as ‘unaccented English’!

86

Margot Robbie fooled me. I saw her in a couple of her early movies and I assumed she was American. Then I saw her in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot and I thought “She does a really good Australian accent.” Then I saw her on a talk show clip and belatedly realized that was her natural accent.

87

It is not even the case that the influence of television is causing accents and dialects, even in a given region, to converge or freeze their evolution.