Categories: uncategorized
Date: 25 January 2005 09:27:34
Some recent research on the evolution of the Australian accent suggests the original accent may not have been as broad as is believed, and that the way we pronounce vowels has changed. Interesting stuff. And we are retaining our own accent:
People often say that they believe we're becoming more American, but we haven't found any evidence of that. We'll occasionally find words that are pronounced in the American way rather than the British way, but that's more to do with the lexicon, not the pronunciation of vowels. There was also a time in the 1980s when people thought we were becoming more like New Zealanders, but in fact there are certain changes occurring in the Australian accent which is making it less like the New Zealand accent - the two are actually diverging.Dr Felicity Cox