Australian English phonology
Encyclopedia
Australian English
is a non-rhotic
variety of English
spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.
(RP) as well as its centralising diphthongs whereas its short vowels correspond to the lax vowels. A number of vowels differ only by the length.
There are two families of phonemic transcriptions of Australian English: revised ones, which attempt to more accurately represent the phonetic sounds of Australian English; and the Mitchell-Delbridge system, which is minimally distinct from Jones’ original transcription of RP. This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary
and much literature, even recent.
. The table below, based on Crystal (1995), shows the percentage of speakers from different capital cities who pronounce words with /aː/ as opposed to /æ/.
phoneme
s is given below.
Non-rhoticity
Linking- and intrusive- or epenthetic
/r/
Intervocalic alveolar flapping
T glottalisation
Yod dropping and coalescence
Australian English pronunciation is most similar to that of New Zealand English
: many people from other parts of the world often cannot distinguish them but there are differences. New Zealand English has centralised /ɪ/ and the other short front vowels are higher. New Zealand English more strongly maintains the diphthongal quality of the NEAR and SQUARE vowels and they can be merged as something around [iə]. New Zealand English does not have the bad-lad split, but like Victoria has merged /e/ with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments.
Both New Zealand English and Australian English are also similar to South African English
, so that they have even been grouped together under the common label "southern hemisphere
Englishes". Like the other two varieties in that group, Australian English pronunciation is similar to dialects from the South-East of Britain; and like New Zealand English, it is particularly similar to Cockney. Thus, it is non-rhotic
and has the trap-bath split although, as indicated above, there is some variation in particular words that are usually pronounced with the bath-vowel in England. Historically Australian English also had the same lengthening of /ɔ/ before unvoiced fricatives, but, like the English accents, this has since been reversed. Australian English lacks some innovations in Cockney since the settling of Australia, such as the use of a glottal stop
in many places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting
, and h-dropping. The intervocalic alveolar flapping, which Australian English has instead, is a feature found in similar environments in American English.
Australian English
Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....
is a non-rhotic
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...
variety of English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the world. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.
Vowels
Australian English vowels are divided into two categories: long, which includes long monophthongs and diphthongs, and short, all of which are monophthongs. Australian English long vowels mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received PronunciationReceived Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
(RP) as well as its centralising diphthongs whereas its short vowels correspond to the lax vowels. A number of vowels differ only by the length.
There are two families of phonemic transcriptions of Australian English: revised ones, which attempt to more accurately represent the phonetic sounds of Australian English; and the Mitchell-Delbridge system, which is minimally distinct from Jones’ original transcription of RP. This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary
Macquarie Dictionary
The Macquarie Dictionary is a dictionary of Australian English. It also pays considerable attention to New Zealand English. Originally it was a publishing project of Jacaranda Press, a Brisbane educational publisher, for which an editorial committee was formed, largely from the Linguistics...
and much literature, even recent.
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Variation between /aː/ and /æ/
Academic studies have shown that there are limited regional variations in Australian EnglishRegional variation in Australian English
Australian English is relatively homogenous when compared to British and American English. The major varieties of Australian English are sociocultural rather than regional, being General Australian, Broad Australian and Cultivated Australian. There is however some regional variation between the...
. The table below, based on Crystal (1995), shows the percentage of speakers from different capital cities who pronounce words with /aː/ as opposed to /æ/.
Use of /aː/ as opposed to /æ/ Word Hobart HobartHobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
Melbourne MelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
Brisbane BrisbaneBrisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
Sydney SydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
Adelaide AdelaideAdelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...Ave. over all five cities graph 0% 30% 56% 70% 86% 48% chance 0% 60% 25% 80% 86% 50% demand 10% 78% 78% 90% 100% 71% dance 10% 35% 11% 30% 86% 34% castle 60% 30% 33% 100% 86% 62% grasp 90% 89% 89% 95% 100% 93% to contrast 100% 100% 100% 100% 71% 94% Ave. over all seven words 39% 60% 56% 81% 88% 65%
Consonants
Australian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. A table containing the consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s is given below.
Consonant phonemes of Australian English Bilabial Bilabial consonantIn phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...Labio-
dentalLabiodental consonantIn phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...Dental Alveolar Alveolar consonantAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...Post-
alveolarPostalveolar consonantPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...Palatal Palatal consonantPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...Velar Velar consonantVelars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....Glottal Glottal consonantGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...Nasal Nasal consonantA nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...m n ŋ Plosive p b t d k ɡ Affricate Affricate consonantAffricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...tʃ dʒ Fricative Fricative consonantFricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ h Approximant Approximant consonantApproximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...r j w Lateral Lateral consonantA lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....l
Non-rhoticity
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...
- Australian English is non-rhotic; in other words, the [r] sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. A final -er is pronounced as lowered [ɐ] in most speakers, or [ə] for some. So the words butter [bɐɾə], here [hɪɐ] and park [paːk] will not contain the /r/ sound.
Linking- and intrusive- or epenthetic
Epenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
/r/
- The /r/ sound can occur when a word that has a final
in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. For example, in car alarm the sound /r/ can occur in car because here it comes before another word beginning with a vowel. The words far, far more and farm do not contain an /r/ but far out will contain the linking /r/ sound because the next word starts with a vowel sound. - An intrusive /r/ may be inserted before a vowelVowelIn phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
in words that do not havein the spelling. For example, drawing will sound like "draw-ring", saw it will sound like "sore it", the tuner is and the tuna is will both be /ðətʃʉːnərɪz/. - For some speakers, a subtle epethentic /r/ may be added after the əʉ (M.-D. /oʊ/) sound in words like "no" [nəʉr], "hello" [həˈləʊr], "don't" [dəʊ-rnt] and "low" [ləʊr].
Intervocalic alveolar flapping
Intervocalic alveolar flapping
Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a phonological process found in many dialects of English, especially North American English and Australian English, by which either or both prevocalic and surface as the alveolar tap after sonorants other than , , and .*after vowel: butter*after r:...
- IntervocalicIntervocalic consonantIn phonetics and phonology, an intervocalic consonant is a consonant that occurs in the middle of a word, between two vowels. Intervocalic consonants are associated with lenition, a phonetic process that causes consonants to weaken and eventually disappear entirely...
/t/ and /d/ undergo voicing and flapping to the alveolar tapAlveolar tapThe alveolar flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar flaps is .-Definition:...
[ɾ] after the stressed syllable and before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/, though not before syllabic /n/ (bottle vs button [batn]), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). There will be a homophonyHomophonyIn music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...
if some words are flapped, for example, metal and petal will sound like medal and pedal. In formal speech /t/ is retained. When coating becomes coatin' , the t remains voiceless, thus [kʌutn]. The cluster [nt] can also be flapped/tapped. As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and winter can become homophonous. This is a quality that Australian English shares most notably with North American EnglishNorth American EnglishNorth American English is the variety of the English language of North America, including that of the United States and Canada. Because of their shared histories and the similarities between the pronunciation, vocabulary and accent of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken languages...
.
T glottalisation
- Some speakers use a glottal stopGlottal stopThe glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
as an allophone of /t/ in final position, for example trait, habit; or in medial position, such as a /t/ followed by a syllabic /n/ is often replaced by a glottal stop, for example button or fatten. Alveolar pronunciations nevertheless predominate.
Yod dropping and coalescence
- Many speakers have coalesced /tj/ and /dj/ into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/ respectively. Pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ and /dʒʉːn/ (exactly like June) for tune and dune respectively being standard. This palatalisationPalatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
can lead to additional homophony where dew, due and Jew come to be pronounced identically. - Word initial /sj/ and /zj/ have merged with /s/ and /z/ respectively. Other cases of /sj/ and /zj/ are often pronounced respectively [ʃ] and [ʒ].
- Similarly /lj/ has merged with /l/ word initially. Remaining cases of /lj/ are often pronounced simply as [j] in colloquial speech, though this is stigmatised particularly in the case of the word Australia, so it is often pronounced as four syllables to avoid the /lj/. has merged with /r/. and other common sequences of consonant plus /j/, are retained.
Relationship to other varieties
| Monophthongs | ||
|---|---|---|
| Help key | Australian | Examples |
| /ɪ/ | /ɪ/ | bid, pit |
| /iː/ | /iː/ | bead, peat |
| /ɛ/ | /e/ | bed, pet |
| /æ/ | /æ, æː/ | pat, bad |
| /aː/ | /aː, ɐː/ | balm, father, pa |
| /ɒ/ | /ɔ/ | bod, pot, cot |
| /ɔː/ | /oː/ | bawd, paw, caught |
| /ʊ/ | /ʊ/ | good, foot, put |
| /uː/ | /ʉː/ | booed, food |
| /ʌ/ | /a/ | bud, putt |
| Diphthongs | ||
| /aɪ/ | /ɑe/ | buy, high, ride, write |
| /eɪ/ | /æɪ/ | bay, hey, fate |
| /aʊ/ | /æɔ/ | bough, how, pout |
| /oʊ/ | /əʉ/ | beau, hoe, poke |
| /ɔɪ/ | /oɪ/ | boy, hoy |
| /juː/ | /jʉː/ | beauty, hue, pew, new |
| R-coloured vowels R-colored vowel In phonetics, an R-colored or rhotic vowel is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant... |
||
| /ɪr/ | /ɪr/ | mirror |
| /ɪər/ | /ɪə/ | beer, mere |
| /ɛr/ | /er/ | berry, merry |
| /ɛər/ | /eː/ | bear, mare |
| /ær/ | /ær/ | barrow, marry |
| /ɑr/ | /aː/ | bar, mar |
| /ɒr/ | /ɔr/ | moral, forage |
| /ɔr/ | /oː/ | born, for |
| /ɔər/ | boar, four, more, moor | |
| /ʊər/ | /ʊə/ | tour |
| /ʌr/ | /ar/ | hurry, Murray |
| /ɜr/ (ɝ) | /ɜː/ | bird, herd, furry |
| Reduced vowels | ||
| /ɨ/ | /ə/ | roses, business |
| /ə/ | Rosa’s, cuppa | |
| /ər/ (ɚ) | runner | |
Australian English pronunciation is most similar to that of New Zealand English
New Zealand English
New Zealand English is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and...
: many people from other parts of the world often cannot distinguish them but there are differences. New Zealand English has centralised /ɪ/ and the other short front vowels are higher. New Zealand English more strongly maintains the diphthongal quality of the NEAR and SQUARE vowels and they can be merged as something around [iə]. New Zealand English does not have the bad-lad split, but like Victoria has merged /e/ with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments.
Both New Zealand English and Australian English are also similar to South African English
South African English
The term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.There is some social and regional variation within South African English...
, so that they have even been grouped together under the common label "southern hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
Englishes". Like the other two varieties in that group, Australian English pronunciation is similar to dialects from the South-East of Britain; and like New Zealand English, it is particularly similar to Cockney. Thus, it is non-rhotic
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...
and has the trap-bath split although, as indicated above, there is some variation in particular words that are usually pronounced with the bath-vowel in England. Historically Australian English also had the same lengthening of /ɔ/ before unvoiced fricatives, but, like the English accents, this has since been reversed. Australian English lacks some innovations in Cockney since the settling of Australia, such as the use of a glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
in many places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting
Th-fronting
Th-fronting refers to the pronunciation of the English "th" as "f" or "v". When th-fronting is applied, becomes and becomes...
, and h-dropping. The intervocalic alveolar flapping, which Australian English has instead, is a feature found in similar environments in American English.