LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.06.08 (04) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 08.JUN.2003 (04) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.06.08 (01) [E]

Peter wrote:
"Are there geographically distinct Australian and New Zealand accents?
I.e., can someone from Sydney pick out someone from Perth, or can
someone from Auckland tell when someone else is from Wellington?"

Yes, but on the whole the phonological variance is not as great as
between, say, northern and southern variants of English in England or
Ireland, and - unfortunately - the old state accents (or, more
accurately, metropolitan state and rural state accents) are being lost
as the latest
generation homogenises into a standard Australian accent.

As a Nottingham English speaker in Australia I found it very easy to
pick out Queenslanders because their accents were drawn-out; West
Australian accents have a lovely and easily identifiable consonant
range; but the rest are not so easy, and there is also a fairly uniform
Aboriginal English accent.

Elsewhere, however, the divergence between NZ and Australian accents is
as great as between, say, the Australian and South African accents,
although for many reasons (including a similar heritage), observers tend
to overstate the shared features of Australian and NZ accents at the
expense of the similarities between NZ and South African, which are
many.

Go raibh maith agat

Criostóir.

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.06.08 (01) [E]

Ian wrote:
"Well, NZ and Southern African English also have other
similarities not shared with Australian - e.g. the
pronuncation of 'fish and chips'."

Indeed. This is something of a grating inquisition all New Zealanders in
Australia have to go through - I've seen it many times and cringed.
Australians marvel at what they see as the Kiwi 'inability' to pronounce
'fish and chips' (it comes out to them as 'fush und chups').

If NZ English 'fish and chips' sounds like 'fush und chups' to
Australians, what does Australian English 'fish and chips' sound like to
Kiwis?
'Faysh eend chayps', perhaps?

There must be some good Aussie-ribbing in that for New Zealanders.

Go raibh maith agat

Criostóir.

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Criostóir:

<quote>
As a Nottingham English speaker in Australia I found it very easy to
pick out Queenslanders because their accents were drawn-out; West
Australian accents have a lovely and easily identifiable consonant
range; but the rest are not so easy, and there is also a fairly uniform
Aboriginal English accent.
</quote>

This is also pretty much what my impressions are (although I'm obviously
no Nottingham English speakers).  I am most at home with West Australian
English, since Western Australia is were I lived.  Queensland English
tends to be rather noticeable, and the rest (southeast dialects) is
pretty much "Eastern" for us in the West, though Sydney dialects can
sometimes be told by the various put-on fads it keeps going through
(such as intermittent American approximation, first in the 1970s and now
again).

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

__________

From: Ruud Harmsen <rh at rudhar.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.06.08 (01) [E]

Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>:
>For me, there are similarities in the clipped vowel range in both South
>African and NZ English, [..]

By the way, aren't there at least two South-African English accents,
one from those whose native language is English, and another one
from speakers whose native language (or one of them?) is Afrikaans?
I sometimes here speakers who speak an impeccable English (as far as
I can judge, that is, being Dutch), as if it is their native tongue,
but with hard to describe subtle phonetic features that remind me of
the sound of Afrikaans.
That other, assumedly native English, South African accent does not
have the Afrikaans features, but does have recognisable peculiarties
of its own.

>There are two possibilities as far as I can see: either the original
>settlers blended their accents over time to a British standard that
>sounded much"[...]

Perhaps due to climate and economic factors (very big country, not
many people), people had to travel far to get (seasonal) work, so
they blended more easily?
--
Ruud Harmsen http://rudhar.com/index/whatsnew.htm  Update 8 June 2003

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From: "thomas byro" <thbyro at earthlink.net>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2003.06.08 (01) [E]

Ron

I met an Afrikaans speaker today, in Pennsylvania, of all places.  She
is what used to be called a Cape Colored, and told me that Afrikaans is
dying out because of a government policy  of promoting English over all
other languages.  Is she merely being alarmist?

Tom Byro

<quote>
From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Folks,

We ought to bear in mind that relationsships between European immigrants
and the native populations of North America were not always hostile,
that particularly in the early days, and even later, Europeans lived
near or within indigenous communities, intermarried with them, and
learned from them, as did many descendants of African Slaves.

Another thing we need to bear in mind is that among the participants in
the early development of Afrikaans there were speakers of Malay,
Javanese, Sundanese and other Malayo-Polynesian languages of what is now
Indonesia, oftentimes house servants and nannies, not to mention
numerous persons of various Khoisan ancestry ("Coloureds"), who still
make up a large percentage of the Afrikaans-speaking population,
especially in the West Cape area.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron
</quote>

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