Why do AUSTRALIANS have STRANGE ACCENTS?

Britain has the most accents per square mile than any other country in the world. The Australian accent is like nothing you’d hear in Britain, but why is this when the early settlers were almost all from the British Isles…why don't Australian or New Zealanders sound British? I’ll explain why in this video!
This , along with dozens of other stories, unusual facts and unheard tales comes from my history book ‘A Bash With The British Empire’

My other history book is called ‘A Romp With The Georgians’

You’ll find both books online - Thank you

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[brianlee]

We Aussies don't have an accent. It's only people in other countries who have accents while our speech is as pure as our sunshine.

[Aussie-HJW]

I didn't think I had an accent until I traveled overseas. It was then I discovered that I could distinctly hear another Aussie from a long way off.

[ruthfoster]

Travelling overseas and this Yank came up to me and asked (very slowly, one syllable at a time) “Do you speak English, ” to which I replied in as Aussie as i could muster, “Yeah, nah, sorta”. That lovely look of total confusion priceless lol

[davidwhite]

I worked with an Australian lady, who had moved to England for work, and honestly, I thought she was English when I first met her. She did not have a trace of an Australian accent, and sounded like she was from southern England. She was from South Australia, down the coast from Adelaide. She tells me that that is their accent in that part of the world. So not all Aussie accents are the same.

[craigcarthew]

Took the Poms a couple of thousand years to stuff the English language. Only took us Aussies 200 years to fix it 😜

[stephennorris]

What linguists call Educated Australian sounds very English to many UK/US people. I’m Australian, and when I visit the UK people are confused by my accent - they can’t work out what part of the UK I come from. They almost never realise I’m Australian. It’s mostly NZ/AU folks who recognise it.

[johngatley]

as an Aussie we can tell if you are from Adelaide or Melbourne or Sydney there are subtle differences in the way we speak

[JasonFollett]

People stationed in Antarctica develop a group accent after a few months.

[tsutsuji]

I read that cockney had the biggest influence on Aussie English. My theory is the descendants of the convicts and early settlers were impacted by both cockney and the queen’s English.

[NC]

There are accents in the UK that are very close to a 'neutral' Australian accent as spoken in areas like Melbourne and Adelaide. I suspect the basis was that and then Irish and Scottish was added in to the mix like you say. One thing not mentioned is that Australians living overseas can easily drop their accent but it's hard for anyone to pick up an Australian accent. I'm told by a speech pathologist that Australians use an 'epiglottal slap' to start many words. This is a difficult thing to do and is uncomfortable for most non-Australians because it's something that is learnt very early in childhood. So, it's easy for Australians to reduce the slap but hard for others to adopt it.

[seanlander]

The Australian accent is from a process known as levelling, which is a combination of accents you’ve described deriving from people being understood by each other. The British who arrived after 1810 described the accent as ‘pure’ meaning there weren’t regional differences.

[joejugashvili]

I love to confuse people with language. In Brussels once, standing in front of Le Dome (hotel) and an American approaches me and asks slowly and slightly loudly, "Ou est le Dome?" "Voila, Monsieur", says I, pointing at the front door. He never had the slightest clue that I was anything other than Belgian.
In England, they often say to me "Sth African?". "No". "Kiwi?". "No". "Aussie?". Third time lucky. Dunno why.

[mayormccheese]

Clive James said it's what inevitably happens to an Englishman's accent when his face is contorted into a permanent squint from the Australian sun.

[kymcopyriot]

Just spent a month in Germany where without fail my accent was recognised as Australian. So how is it that every American I’ve ever met says “Oh, so by your accent I guess you’re from England, right?”

[LuxDeLune]

Interesting, as an Australian, I find people in London have the most similar accents to Australians, I'd say for the very same reason that it is a metropolis where people from all around the UK and the world mingle. Also being the largest city, I'd say there were a fair share of cockneys on among the prisoners on "the first fleet"

[daveb]

Interestingly, it’s been noted in international schools in Asia with a broad mix of backgrounds from India, UK, Singapore, etc etc sort of sound Australian, but with a slight American inflection on certain words. The American part being a media influence, the Australian part being a sort of flattening to fit all together.

[charlesfenton]

I have read that it is called 'flattening.' They all had to pull their accents down, or flatten them, to be understood by each other.

[TinBane]

Australians: we don’t have an accent. Also Australians: fight to the death over potato cake or potato scallop.

[garthpetch]

You obviously forget the impact of the pervasive common fly in Australia; you dare not open your mouth to fully proclaim you voice and have to speak nasally through closed lips lest you swallow one

[eec]

You may not be aware that Australia has subtle regional accents. I am from Adelaide and South Australia was the only colony which didn't have convicts only free settlers who would generally have been higher in the British class system although 3 of my 4 grandparents had convict ancestry from the eastern states. I now live in Queesnland and am often asked where in the UK I am from although a Brit would hear my accent as Australian. Melbourne also has a very distinct accent and I can always pick a person of British ancestry who are from Melbourne.

I once had abusive troll in my Youtube comments saying that Australians should learn to speak English properly. I replied that I do not speak English. I speak "Strine".