South Australian English
South Australian English is the collective name given to the varieties of English spoken in the Australian State of South Australia. As with the other regional varieties within Australian English, these have distinctive vocabularies.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Macquarie Dictionary state that there are three localised, regional varieties of English in South Australia: Adelaide English, Eyre and Yorke Peninsula English and Northern South Australia English. While there are many commonalities, each has its own variations in vocabulary.[1]
While some of the words attributed to South Australians are used elsewhere in Australia, many genuine regional words are used throughout the state. Some of these are German in origin, reflecting the origins of many early settlers. Such was the concentration of German speakers in and around the Barossa Valley, it has been suggested they spoke their own dialect of German, known as "Barossa Deutsch". The influence of South Australia's German heritage is evidenced by the adoption into the dialect of certain German or German-influenced vocabulary. One such local word with German origins is "butcher", the name given to a 200 ml (7 fl.oz.) beer glass, which is believed to be derived from the German becher, meaning a cup or mug.[2]
Cornish miners represented another significant wave of early immigrants, and they contributed Cornish language words, such as wheal (mine), which is preserved in many place names.
South Australian dialects also preserve other British English usages which do not occur elsewhere in Australia: for example, farmers use reap and reaping, as well as "harvest" and "harvesting".
It is sometimes claimed that South Australians have a distinct regional accent. One way in which this is manifested is the phenomenon known as the "dark-l", such that the "l" is vocalised; for example, "milk" sounds like "miwk" and "hill" sounds like "hiw".[3] A back allophone of /ʉː/, [ʊː] — pronouncing "pool" as a longer form of "pull" — is occasionally attributed purely to South Australians, but is widespread in other regions of Australia. In a similar vein, Cultivated Australian English accents, such as that of Alexander Downer, are mistakenly attributed to South Australians in general. However such speech patterns are a sociolect, and are used by some people in all parts of Australia.
The following statistical observations may also be made about South Australian speech:
- The phoneme /ʊ/ is often substantially fronted in certain phonological environments (e.g. before "d", as in should, good, etc), whereas this fronting is generally less substantial in other parts of the country.
- South Australians are more likely than people from Sydney or Melbourne to pronounce "air" (and other occurrences of the same phoneme) as a centering diphthong rather than a monophthong.
- There is a tendency among many Australians to convert a schwa that occurs at the end of a phrase to a more open vowel, but this tendency is less common in South Australia than in the east.
- For some Australians, holy is homomorphic with wholly and does not rhyme with lowly, whereas for others, holy rhymes with lowly and is not homomorphic with wholly. Among other words affected by the same underlying distinction are solo, Polish and Cola. The rhyming of "holy" with "lowly" may be more common in South Australia than in the eastern states.
- The vowel sound in words such as 'chance', 'plant', 'grant' etc. tend to be pronounced with a long /ɑ/ rather than /æ/.
References
- ^ ABC Wordmap
- ^ ABC Radio National, Lingua Franca, 28/02/2004, "South Australian Words"
- ^ Dorothy Jauncey, Bardi Grubs and Frog Cakes — South Australian Words, Oxford University Press (2004) ISBN 0-19-551770-9
See also
- Australian English
- Regional variation in Australian English
- Australian words
- Australian English phonology
- Other regional varieties: