LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAY.2000 (05) [E]

Tue May 2 15:48:21 UTC 2000

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 02.MAY.2000 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Edwin Michael Alexander [edsells at idirect.com]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 02.MAY.2000 (01) [E]

At 07:30 AM 05/02/00 -0700, Tom McRae wrote:
>Having studied and lived in London then frequently visited it thereafter I
>find little in common between any London accent and the fairly universal one
>used throughout Australia. I concede elements of Cockney have developed
>within the dialect from convict days( e.g.  the apalling pronunciation of
>the letter H as 'Haitch' and some resudual rhyming slang such as 'Joe Blake'
>for "snake" and 'Steak & Kidney' for Sidney) but the Oz accent has evolved
>in quite different directions from anything in U.K. Were your friends
>resident in Australia when they made the visit?

My friends have never been to Australia.  As I understand it, these
dialects, which are often referred to under a general heading of Cockney,
have certain common characteristics, such as being extremely
non-rhotic.  E.g. the aforementioned farmer up in the Green Mountains of
Vermont (V at mont), might have told me, "Yah caan't get theah from
heah."  (You can't get there from here)  Also the sound of the vowels is
rather different from Southern or Mid Atlantic American accents, in that
what we would call a "cot" in Boston would have wheels (a "cart").  And
what we call a "lark" would sound more to us like what we put a key into,
whereas a "lock" is pronounced sounding to us more like "lawk" (as in
"hawk").  There are many other characteristics, of course, but at least
these are common to the Australian that I'm used to, as well as New
England, New York, East London, and East Anglia.

Of course, many of these characteristics are quite similar to those of Low
Saxon, as opposed to more western dialects of England, especially Kent,
which for quite some time was a province of the Franks.

Ed Alexander
JAG REALTY INC.
80 Jones Street Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8R 1Y1
Pager: 905-545-0177  Fax: 905-525-6671 Email: edsells at idirect.com
Jag Realty Inc.: http://www.deerhurst.com/jag/
Ontario Ultra Series:  http://ous.kw.net/
Burlington Runners Club: http://www.deerhurst.com/brc/

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From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Personally, I feel that the idea or assumption that Australian English is a
direct derivative from Cockney (i.e., one of the "low"-class dialects of
London, England) is one of those gross simplifications that float around.  I
can see how one can be led to this assumption on the basis of certain
phonological similarities in conjunction with the awareness that European
settlement in Australia began with prison colonies in which "low"-class
elements predominated among the inmates.  (I consider the latter another gross
simplification given that there was much diversity among the deported and
eventually either killed or abandoned convicts from all over the British
Isles. It would be interesting to see statistics to show what percentage of
convicts and of voluntary early settlers came from London's Cockney-speaking
area.)

I am fairly familiar with both Australian English and Cockney.  Yes, there are
certain similarities, especially in vowel and diphthong allophones (e.g., the
oft-cited example of [aI] for [EI] making e.g. _late_ sound like _light_ to
others), including triphthongal realizations of what elsewhere tend to be
diphthongs (e.g., [eoU] in _go_ and [eaU] in _house_, which is also shared
with many of the Low Saxon/Low German dialects of Northern Germany).  However,
you do not need to be a linguist to notice that there are great differences
between the two, phonologically as well as lexically.  Most importantly,
Australian English does not realize various coda stops as a glottal stop the
way Cockney does (e.g., _out_ [?eaU?], _back_ [ba?]).  I don't think that the
fact that both Australian English and Conckney are non-rhotic can be used as
any type of evidence, given that the same feature is shared by a great many
dialects of Southern England and by various sociolects elsewhere (as well as
in Low Saxon/Low German).

Personally, I prefer to think of Australian English as having been initially
based on a great number of English dialects, among which Cockney may have been
one of the most influential.  I think people have the tendency toward making a
mountain of a molehill and then to simplify on that basis, in this case basing
all kinds of assumption on the cooccurrence of a small number of apparently
striking sounds in conjunction with digest-format history.

Regards,

Reinhard/Ron

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