Many accents often get confused with one another, just like Canadian and American, Scottish and Northern Irish, or Jamaican and Barbadian. The Australian and New Zealand accents of English bear a striking resemblance to one another. South African, although differing in a number of important respects, also has a general similarity to Australian. If you speak with one of these accents, and you live in the US, your accent has probably been identified incorrectly. People often ask, “Are you like, British or something?” And if you’re from New Zealand or South Africa, many have certainly mistaken you for Australian.
With that in mind, let’s shed a little light on why these accents get mistaken for one another.
Historical Context
These facts are not surprising when we consider that all three territories were settled from Britain at about the same time, the English language becoming established in each around the beginning of the nineteenth century. All reflect, therefore, the developments which had taken place in the south of England up to that time: they are non-rhotic and have bath Broadening. The intervening 150-200 years have been quite long enough for them to have developed their own characteristic local accents. From the fact that these accents have little or no T Glottalling, we can infer that at the time their accents were essentially formed this development had not yet taken place in Britain. It is appropriate to group these three regional forms under the common heading of southern-hemisphere English.
Another, very small, native-English-speaking community in the southern hemisphere is the 2000-strong population of the Falkland Isles. Interestingly enough, the brief samples of Falklands pronunciation I have heard were rather reminiscent of an Australian accent.
Phonetic Similarities
There are several phonetic tendencies shared by these accents.
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- Each tends to raise the “e” vowel in DRESS, so it may sound like “driss” to an American.
- Each tends to raise the “a” vowel in TRAP, so it may sound like “trep” to an American.
- They also tend to all front the “o” diphthong in words like GOAT, so that “boat” might sound a bit like “bout” to an American.
So all of these accents have some related vowel shifting.
South African vs. Australian accents
Key Distinctions
At first listen, these two accents sound similar. There is one notable difference, however: the “i” in KIT: This vowel almost becomes an “ee” sound in AusE, so that bit can sound like American “beat”. There are some other differences in the quality of the vowels and diphthongs, but they are too slight to be noticed by many.
Let’s look at some clips, starting with Aussie English. So there’s enough overlap here that it’s easy to see how these two accents can get confused. But what about South African English? To my ears, this is a completely different can of worms. And those are only a few of the things that mark this accent as a very different animal.
Kiwi vs. Aussie
Kiwi and Aussie accents? Different, but similar enough that the confusion is understandable.
South African Nuances
In defense of those who mistake South African accents for Australian, though, there are probably more similarities when you account for different variants of SA speech. Are there Australian regional accents that sound particularly Kiwi? A city or town in New Zealand that sounds unusually Australian?
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Notable are the loss of the weak-syllable contrast /I/ vs. /∂/, and the raising of the short front vowels of trap and dress.
Ben T. Smith launched his dialect fascination while working in theatre. He has worked as an actor, playwright, director, critic and dialect coach.
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