On Sunday, December 21, 2003, at 12:24 PM, Peter Lockwood wrote:
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in Europe for the last 23 years and I find this discussion extraordinarily interesting! I studied in London and whilst there heard the Cockney and Yorkshire accents; these seem to me to have been the greatest influence on the current NZ accent - and the Londoners and the Northeners formed over 80 percent of the immigrants from 1840 (first immigrant ship) to 1900 at least.
On Sunday, December 21, 2003, at 06:00 PM, Rudolf van Berkum wrote:
Early trade with Great Britain went via Cape Town and Durban, until the building of the Suez Canal, and the first Australian port of call was Perth. It seems reasonable to surmise that any shared pronunciations resulted from these sea links...
Peter and Rudi,
Thanks a lot for pursuing this topic. Peter's remark for immigrants seems to be applicable to South Africa as well. From here: <http://www.cyberserv.co.za/users/~jako/lang/esa.htm> I see:
1. Following Britain's initial occupation of the Cape Colony in 1795, the first major establishment in 1820 of approximately 4000 British immigrants on farms along the Eastern Cape frontier. These settlers were mostly from southern England, and primarily of working class or lower middle class backgrounds. During the formation of a classless frontier society with few attachments to the home country, a 'settler English' developed which merged features of the various English dialects originally spoken by the settlers (a strongly influential dialect being Cockney), and which also revealed features indicative of extensive interaction with the Dutch farming community already established in the area.
2. The second major settlement of approximately 4000 British immigrants in the colony of Natal between 1849 and 1851. Unlike the 1820 settlers, these immigrants, the 'Byrne settlers', were typically of middle and upper middle class origin, and predominantly from the north of England. This group also appears to have maintained stronger ties with Britain than did the 1820 settlers (Branford 1991).
Combining that with Rudi's observation about sea links (note Aussie use of "mate"), I can feel somewhat justified about a Dutch influence. However, I did not know about the Cockney/Yorkshire connection for all three. Undoubtedly that blend, in which Cockney appears dominant, is the principal commonality I hear.
I obtained an unexpected bonus from the link Rudi posted: <http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml>. It is the document called: "ascii-ipa.pdf" which coordinates ascii-ipa, ipa, and Unicode in its listings. Very handy!
Best wishes,
Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca
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