mohogony

l think that is wrong l remember reading in a histroy book someone in the early 1800's noted that people born in Australia or first generation Australians had a different accent or a new accent that was different from any type of British accent.

Grayling

The south african one is pretty awful as well

catshep

Seen Anna Friel being interviewed by Jonathon Ross years ago about a film in which she had an Australian accent. She explained how she "mastered" the accent something along the lines of talking like a cockney but then having to squint your eyes because of all the sunshine and then out comes australian

Deancm

The American accent comes from Olde English and so does their spelling of the English language. Ironically their English is more English than current modern day English English.

Since the first settlers arrived in the US, Europe has had a massive effect on the English language, accent and spelling and the Americans haven't had the same influence.

Deancm

Too much American TV.

BadgeIsBack

I am no expert but find it as interesting as you clearly do and have made these comments in the past.The interesting aspect of it for me is the diction, not the accent. I like the diction - the British common accent is stilted with the awful glottal stop which seems to be getting worse - makes UK documentaries cringeworthy. Not everyone speaks RP in the UK any more. The most dreadful English regional accents are far worse than the Australian.

The worst Australian voices have a nasal, even rasping quality but the worst tends to be owned by the lower orders, with a better variant with superior diction in use in the country. I confess that I have been here long enough that I hear it from my own lips at times...I don't mind the country variant - much like I don't mind the true Cockney accent - not the faux Estuary that has been adopted by the SouthEast.

Another annoying Australian accent is the female surburban variant - with the infamous rising intonation mixed in with Callifornian Valley girl babble. Another male annoyance is when the owner sounds distinctly gay. These accents seeem to be adopted only on public transport or in suburbia - I have never heard them in common usage by friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

It's interesting that you have found no relief from awful Australian accents -professional and educated Australians - in Melbourne at least - moderate the drawl and although they don't adopt RP, have pleasant diction which is missing from many of the lower English orders - and end up with a very pleasant English international accent. When I first came across it I found myself asking if they were English. One such accent comes from the Western Districts of Victoria. One of my wife's friends speaks with RP but it was beaten into her at school. A mate of mine has a public schoolboy accent but less high pitched. He did go to a very smart school though by his own admission.

jad n rich

Sorry but its an awful sounding accent. One of the teens hit 15 and developed what was either a teengage mumble or an aussie drawl, I just told him, "cant understand a word your saying" till he spoke properly again. The crazy thing was the kids teachers had all commented on how well they spoke, manners and accent up till then. I would really hate daughters to develop the aussie accent, and the women talk so LOUD, why its awful.

I have to deal with a lot of aussie tradesmen on the phone, it really is hard sometimes to understand the Yeahhhhh, Naaaahhhh, gerrrrrrr, the only words that are clear are the swear words

And I hate the T being pronounced as a D. Dwenny bucks, the news punctuated with the 'dwennys' drives me mad.

BadgeIsBack

Some of that would be definitely QLD. In Victoria there is definite departures from the worst.

Average English accents would sound better if people lost the glotttal stop or the lazy regionalism. Not the accent - the lazy part of it.

Many average Australian accents would sound better if they lost the rasp. It's a shame because many Victorians have nice vowels and sound consonants - losing the rasp would be almost easy. And that's precisly what some Melbournians do.

Years ago, when I was in my late teens, I had people asking me if I was from South Africa. Most bizarre. But there are South African accents which are influenced by RP.

DeadVim

Could be worse, could all come from wherever Loyd Grossman was spawned.

Or Chelmsford.

BadgeIsBack

How's it go? I remember a boy at school from Middlesborough who had everyone in stitches when he said 'school'. It was 'sckuuooouuul' and he still managed to strangle a vowel or two in a way I can't show or fathom, even now!

My mother spent time in South Essex and clearly loathed the accent which she said was vastly inferior to a Cockney accent. She said it was a 'garbled' version of it - which it is - a version I mean.

From there comes Estuary and it has been making inroads into London and the rest of the South East ever since.

Jad's kids are adopting the aussy 'teen' accent, English teens in the SouthEast adopt their teen version of Estuary. You can but hope that all teens moderate it as they move into the worforce...

Amazulu

It can be - especially thick Afrikaans accented english. I on the other hand have a sexy, mild English-South African accent.

Sally Redux

The local pronunciation is "Chompsford".

Amazulu

Agree. I detest that middle England, middle class, 'non' accent - although there are variations in all the countries of the UK - that a lot (maybe even a majority) of people have over there now.

Amazulu

Many white kids in the UK now talk like black kids. I have no problem with this - I guess it comes from the influence of black (hip hop) culture, music, TV etc. Sign of the times really.

DadAgain

Having read your last post and sat here odding quietly in agreement with I have to pick you up on this.

Have you spend any time in professional Brisbane circles? Your constant references to Qld accents are not fully correct.

I'd still maintain that a "Modern Professional Australian" accent is a nationwide phenomenon and can be clearly distinguished from the "Rural Australian" ('haaaaaws it gawwwwwn?') and ts close relative "Urban Bogan Australian".

All of these accents occur all over the country as far as I've seen and there are very few people in the business world who havent at least moved away from their 'native' accent towards the more accepted "Modern Australian".

Teenagers always seem to gravitate towards what you refer to as 'lower order' accents - I know as a young teen I would have sounded distinctly esturine - but its a phase most grow out of.