Where the aussie accent orginates from

[Andy Hamilton]

I just read in a paper I found on the train that the Aussie accent might have developed as most of the sounds are made with little movement of the lips. This means flies can't get in your mouth.

[Wombat]

Mumble mumble mumble.........eh?

Nev

[Millymollymandy]

Hee hee that works! Try saying 'Australian' in an English accent and note how your lips move. Then say it again in Strine and note the difference!!

[Shirley]

LOL am sure there must be similar stories attached to other languages too...

[Boots]

Just let go with a big belly laugh and got a mouthful!

[red swirl]

Cool theory!!!!

My German lecturer was writing a paper on where the Aussie accent came from, and he reckoned it was a mixture of UK regional accents, mixed according to the proportions of early UK convicts/settlers that came from those regions.

But goodness knows, the flies in the mouth theory could well be right!

[Boots]

I think that ever since White Aussies got here, we have been working real bloody hard, in rough conditions. Doing lots of digging.... Fencing massive expanses... Building with hard woods... Travelling heaps long distances... and many are still doing those things...Most of the time we are just buggered! So we answer weary-like and kind of slowly.

Combine that with the general comradery, multi-cultural and Aboriginal adaptations (which are quite gutteral and summarise paragraphs into sentences), and our language has gotta be the easiest in the world to understand.

I think we should introduce Australian language to schools.... It would be a lot more fun than french, german or japanese, I reckon!

[Stonehead]

Only just spotted this!

There are two main Aussie accents - there's the laconic bushman's drawl (Crocodile Dundee) and the nasal, fast suburban twang (think Sylvania Waters, shudder).

I can do bush Aussie well, which also requires a good grasp of colourful vernacular:

Things like:

He's been around since Moses played fullback for Jerusaleum.

She was flat out like a lizard drinkin'.

Don't come the raw prawn with me.

He's tellin' furphies again.

He's as flash as a pox doctor's clerk.

She's a low as a snake's armpit.

That's about as useful as tits on a bull.

I sank so many tinnies at the B&S I got carted off in the ambo while Dave got in a bit of a stoush and was hauled off in the divvy van. (The divvy van is also known as a paddywagon, bull wagon, bun wagon or black maria, depending on which state you're in.)

Jeez, he's a right bogan!

Blue's built like a brick s**thouse but he's a few sheets short of a bog roll.

We got a fair few bumnuts from the chooks this arvo. (Or cackleberries instead of bumnuts.)

Dougie's a bum-sniffer. (Used by fans of aerial ping pong to describe rugby players - think of scrums! And aerial ping pong is Aussie Rules football.)

Me reggies are rooted. (Underpants have had it!)

Did youse see those bushpigs 'avin' a scrag fight? (Two ugly women fighting.)

He's so useless he gets bogged on the bitumen.

You can keep doing that for as long as your arse points to the ground!

Who cut the dog in half? (Farted.)

It's as dry as dead dingo's donger.

Gie us a couple a long-necks, luv. (Two big bottles of beer.)

He was off like a bride's nightie.

Andy - well, let's just say he has to run around in the shower to get wet. (He's very thin.)

You'll be waitin' until the cows come home.

And many more.


My grandfather was a genuine bushman, so I picked the bush drawl up from him. It's been very useful (and entertaining) to trot it out in the UK - it enables me to get away with stuff I'd never get away with in Oz.

Senior managers don't know how to handle it when you tell them their latest plan is "about as effective as wipin' your freckle with a gum leaf"!

Anyway, enough fun and back to work.