Also, I find some parallels between South African speech (whites) and the down unders. Most likely the Dutch influence.
I can't let this pass. Despite their abilities as navigators in improbably small ships, the Dutch have had no influence on English accents in this part of the world.
Greetings Rudi,
I think I'll have to stand corrected about Dutch influence on Australian and NZ dialects however that still doesn't explain to me the amount of similarity between AU, NZ, and SA I hear. I mean that which is common to those three and not common to other "remote" areas the English have colonized (e.g. Newfoundland, Bermuda, Barbados). Like all those immigrants didn't come from within a 10 block radius of 222b Baker Street London. Another possibly though is a _class_ of English society prone to emigration.
They may have sailed around the coastlines (some of in the case of Australia and most of in the case of New Zealand),
Let's remember Tasmania too. Not to mention the regional exploits of the Dutch East India Company -- a venture which might be considered as the first multinational corporation.
but their legacy was not linguistic. The main wave of Dutch migration was after WW2 (as I can attest) unlike South Africa where the Dutch presence goes back to the 17th century.
As a rule of thumb, to distinguish between the local variations on English pronunciation, listen for the vowels. Aussies and Kiwis pronounce "i" and "e" differently from each other,
Yes, that part is noticeable for me: "...but NZ seems a little brighter and sharper in general".
and South Africans pronounce "a" differently from both.
Perhaps this will be the key for me to distinguish SAs from Aussies.
Broad variations of the above turn vowels into diphthongs (shudder!).
Sidebar: teenage girls over here have trace elements of that effect.
For those of us interested in the game of cricket and in linguistics, the current test series against India is a treat. Listen to the TV commentary and you can hear Australian and South African accents. Listen to the radio commentary and you can hear less broad Australian accents (this is the ABC after all) as well as English and Indian voices.
Not much cricket going on over here but I must say I enjoy the comparatively more reserved style of sports broadcasting that I heard on the last World Cup, much more than the typical North American sports commentary.
Best wishes,
Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca
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