Information about Australian English Phonology

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.

Vowels

Australian English vowels are divided into two categories: long, which includes long monophthongs and diphthongs, and short, all of which are monophthongs. 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.

Long vowels

Australian English long vowels mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as its centralising diphthongs.

Monophthongs

The long monophthongs of Australian English

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ɪə	ʉː
Mid	eː	ɜː	oː
Open	æː	aː

Diphthongs

Australian English diphthongs, described in the text below.

Notes and examples

/iː/

for example fleece, beed, heat. (M.-D. /i/.) Includes an onset to the high front vowel, except before laterals (Palethorpe & Cox, 2003).

/ɪə/

for example near, beard, hear. (M.-D. /ɪə/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed with a diphthongal glyph; however, it is usually pronounced as a diphthong (or disyllabically) only in open syllables; in closed syllables, it is distinguished from /ɪ/ primarily by length (Cox, 2006; Durie & Hajek, 1994). It is primarily distinguished from /iː/ by the significant onset in the latter.

/eː/

for example square, bared, haired. (M.-D. /ɛə/.)

/æː/

for example bad, tan. (M.-D. /æ/.) This sound is traditionally transcribed and analysed the same as the short /æ/, but minimal pairs exist in at least some Australians’ speech (Blake, 1985; Durie & Hajek, 1994). See the bad-lad split.

/æɪ/

for example face, bait, hade. (M.-D. /eɪ/.) Includes a significantly lower first element than in many other dialects of English.

/æɔ/

for example mouth, bowed, how’d. (M.-D. /aʊ/.) The first element may be raised in broad accents.

/aː/

for example bath, palm, start, bard, hard. (M.-D. /a/.) This sound is also transcribed as /aː/.

/əʉ/

for example goat, bode, hoed. (M.-D. /oʊ/.) The onset factually begins somewhere between /ə/ and /a/. There is significant allophonic variation in this vowel, particularly a backed one [ɔʊ] before /l/, where the distinction between /əʉ/ and /ɔ/ is usually neutralised.

/ɑe/

for example price, bite, hide. (M.-D. /aɪ/.) The first element may be raised and rounded in broad accents.

/oɪ/

for example choice, boy. (M-D. /ɔɪ/.)

/oː/

for example thought, north, force, board, hoard, poor. (M.-D. /ɔ/.) Many cases of RP /ʊə/ correspond to this phoneme in Australian English, but unlike in some British accents there is no general merger between /oː/ and /ʊə/.

/ʉː/

for example goose, boo, who’d. (M.-D. /u/.) In Victoria and South Australia, a fully backed allophone, transcribed [ʊː] is common before /l/ (Durie & Hajek, 1994). It is further forward in New South Wales than Victoria. It is moving further forwards, however, in both regions at a similar rate (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003). Many cases of RP /ʊə/ correspond to the sequence /ʉː.ə/ in Australian English.

/ɜː/

for example nurse, bird, heard. (M.-D. /ɜ/.) This sound is pronounced at least as high as /eː/, and is often pronounced rounded (Cox, 2006; Durie & Hajek, 1994). This glyph is used - rather than /ɘː/ or /ɵː/ - as most revisions of the phonemic orthography for Australian English predate the 1996 modifications to the International Phonetic Alphabet. At the time, [ɜ] was suitable for any mid-central vowel, rounded or unrounded.

/ʊə/

for example tour. (M.-D. /ʊə/). A rare, almost extinct phoneme. Most speakers consistently use /ʉː.ə/ or /ʉː/ (before /r/) instead.

Short vowels

The short vowels of Australian English

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ɪ		ʊ
Mid	e	ə	ɔ
Open	æ	a

Notes and examples

/ɪ/

for example kit, bid, hid. (M.-D. /ɪ/.) The target for this vowel tends to be tenser than in other varieties of English.

/e/

for example dress, bed, head. (M.-D. /ɛ/.) For some Victorian speakers this phoneme has merged with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments, and thus the words celery and salary are pronounced alike (Cox & Palethorpe, 2003). See salary-celery merger

/æ/

for example trap, lad, had. (M.-D. /æ/.)

/a/

for example strut, bud, hud. (M.-D. /ʌ/.) . This sound is also transcribed as a

/ɔ/

for example lot, cloth, body, hot. (M-D. /ɒ/.) The distinction between /ɔ/ and /əʉ/ is usually neutralised before /l/ as [ɔʊ].

/ʊ/

for example foot, hood. (M.-D. /ʊ/.)

/ə/

for example about, winter. (M.-D. /ə/.) As in most varieties of English, this phoneme is used only in unstressed syllables.

Variation between /aː/ and /æ/

Academic studies have shown that there are limited regional variations in Australian English. 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	Melbourne	Brisbane	Sydney	Adelaide	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. In comparison to other varieties, it has a flapped variant of /t/ and /d/ in similar environments as in American English. Many speakers have also coalesced /tj/ and /dj/ into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, with pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ being standard. /sj/, /zj/ and /lj/ merged with /s/, /z/ and /l/ word initially; other cases of /sj/ and /zj/ are often pronounced as [ʃ] and [ʒ]. 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/. /nj/, and other common sequences of consonant+/j/, are retained. Some speakers use a glottal stop 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. Linking- and intrusive-R are also features of Australian English.

A table containing the consonant phonemes is given below.

Consonant phonemes of Australian English

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Labio- velar		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Stop	p	b							t	d					k	g
Affricate											tʃ	dʒ
Nasal		m								n						ŋ
Fricative			f	v			θ	ğ	s	z	ʃ	ʒ					h
Approximant						w				ɹ				j
Lateral approximant										l

Relationship to other varieties

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, although they are usually merged as [iə]. New Zealand English does not have the bad-lad split, but like Victoria has merged /e/ with /æ/ in pre-lateral environments. It is also similar to the South African english dialect.

Australian English pronunciation is also similar to dialects from the South-East of Britain, particularly Cockney and Received Pronunciation. Like these, 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 some places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting, h-dropping, and l-vocalisation.

References

• Blake, B. J. (1985). "‘Short a’ in Melbourne English". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 15: 6–20. 
• Crystal, D. (1995). Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. 
• Cox, F. M. (2006). "The acoustic characteristics of /hVd/ vowels in the speech of some Australian teenagers". Australian Journal of Linguistics 26: 147–179

. 

• Cox, F. M. and Palethorpe, S. (2003). "The border effect: Vowel differences across the NSW–Victorian Border". Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society: 1–14. 
• Durie, M. and Hajek, J. (1994). "A revised standard phonemic orthography for Australian English vowels". Australian Journal of Linguistics 14: 93–107. 
• Harrington, J., Cox, F. M. and Evans, Z. (1997). "An acoustic phonetic study of broad, general, and cultivated Australian English vowels". Australian Journal of Linguistics 17: 155–84. 
• Palethorpe, S. and Cox, F. M. (2003) Vowel Modification in Pre-lateral Environments. Poster presented at the International Seminar on Speech Production, December 2003, Sydney.

External link

• Macquarie University - Australian English phonetics

•  • [ e] Phonologies of the world's languages

Abkhaz Arabic Bengali Catalan Czech Danish Dutch English: Old/Modern/Australian Esperanto Finnish French: Standard/Quebec German: Bernese/Standard Greek: Ancient/Koine/Modern Gujarati Hawaiian Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Inuit Irish Italian Japanese Latin Mahal Mapudungun Norwegian Ojibwe Persian Polish Portuguese Proto-Indo-European Romanian Russian Sesotho Somali Spanish Swedish Tamil Turkish Ubykh Ukrainian Vietnamese Yiddish