Voice expert reveals mystery behind Australian accent


The Australian accent can be jarring at the best of times, even for people who have spoken it their whole lives, but most would struggle to identify what actually makes it so distinctive from other English language accents.

Voice coach Amy Hume, who lectures at the University of Melbourne, has revealed the crucial quirks that form the backbone of the Australian accent and explained why American actors struggle so much when attempting it.

It all comes down to how we pronounce the letter R and the way it changes depending on the words we’re using, she told news.com.au.

The Australian accent is non-rhotic, meaning we only pronounce the letter R when it’s followed by a vowel, whereas in rhotic accents like Irish or American, it is pronounced whenever it appears.

She gave the example of the pronunciation of “over the river” – Aussies wouldn’t pronounce the ‘R’ at the end of the words in the same way Americans would.

They would however at the end of “over” if the sentence became “over on the river”.

Another key part of the Aussie accent – and something which most Australians wouldn’t even realise they do – is the use of the “intrusive R”.

“Folks from elsewhere will hear it and go, ‘You just said an R where there’s no R,’ but we here don’t tend to hear it,” Ms Hume said.

“So it can be a bit of a giveaway for an actor who’s got to do an Australian accent. Sometimes you’ll think, ‘They haven’t quite got it,’ and that could be one of the things we’re noticing.”

The intrusive R normally appears in words with a “aw” sound, typically when there is no R in the word at all and when the following sound is a vowel.

For example when “draw” is pronounced on its own, there is no R sound at the end, but in “drawing”, most Aussies would sneak in an R before the “ing”.

“Vowels are shaped by the position of a speaker’s tongue in their mouth, so the tongue muscles tone depending on whatever your accent is. So the muscles of our tongues are pretty low in the mouth so all our vowels are pretty far back in the mouth,” Ms Hume said.

Americans on the other hand have a lifted accent that uses more of the front of the face and more active lips and cheeks, while Aussies remain still in comparison and have less lip movement.

Ms Hume, who has 10 years’ experience in voice coaching, explained the baffling reason the Aussie accent differed to the American and New Zealand accents, linking it to our earliest settlers.

She said the Irish, Scottish and English accents amalgamated to create a new accent – the Aussie accent – at the end of the 1700s.

During that time period, English accents had become non-rhotic which meant they weren’t pronouncing Rs.

English settlers who ended up in America however were from a time period where accents were rhotic, meaning they were pronouncing their Rs.

“That’s why there is rhoticity in American accents,” Ms Hume said.

The New Zealand accent on the other hand was derived largely from the nation’s large influx of settlers from Scotland, which explains the many parallels between Scottish and Kiwi accents.

Ms Hume also pointed out a peculiar trend emerging among Australians aged 25 and younger.

The pronunciation of “yuh” sounds, for example in “news” was shifting to sound more like “noos” due to heavy consumption of American media.



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