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Category Archives: Australian English
Australian Broad-A
Speaking of Shane Jenek/Courtney Act (the Australian drag queen that served as the topic of my last post), I noticed that he uses a “short-a” in words like dance, France, and demand. That is, Jenek pronounces “dance” with the same vowel as … Continue reading
“Courtney Act” and Non-Rhotic Puns
This season of RuPaul’s Drag Race featured Courtney Act (aka Shane Jenek), a renowned drag performer from Brisbane, Australia. In an early episode, Act/Jenek laments that Americans don’t get the pun in his stage name, which sounds similar to “caught in … Continue reading
The 3 Types of Australian Accents
The Australian Accent is renowned for its lack of regional differences. This is perhaps not surprising given that Britain settled the country fairly late in the history of the Empire (New South Wales was discovered over a decade after America’s … Continue reading
South African or Kiwi or Aussie?
Many accents get confused with one another: Canadian and American, Scottish and Northern Irish, Jamaican and Barbadian. But the granddaddy of all of them? The three-way mixup between Australian, New Zealand and South African English. If you speak with one of … Continue reading
Australians do the Best Accents
I often use Google News to write this blog. Crude source of inspiration it may be, but searching for permutations of “dialect,” “accent,” or “language” gives me a wealth of material to ponder. There is one exception to this, however, … Continue reading
AusTalk
As per Melbourne’s Herald Sun, a pair of Australian universities are working on a project called “AusTalk,” which will compile a database of 1000 speakers of Australian English. When finished, it will be one of the most comprehensive English accent … Continue reading