Australian English phonology

Vowels

Monophthongs

• The target for is tenser than in other varieties of English——and may sometimes sound like it has shifted to to speakers of other dialects or languages. Thus, words like bin and sin may sound like bean and seen, but shorter, although there is never a full merger, as is most commonly a diphthong of the type.
• tends to be higher than the corresponding vowel in General American or RP. The typical realization is close-mid, although for some speakers it may be even closer . A recent change is the lowering of to the region.
• For some Victorian speakers has merged with in pre-lateral environments, and thus the words celery and salary are homophonous as. See salary-celery merger.
• The sound is traditionally transcribed and analysed the same as the short, but minimal pairs exist in at least some Australians’ speech. It is found in the adjectives bad, mad, glad and sad, before the sound and also in content words before and in the same syllable. In South Australia plant is usually pronounced with the vowel sound, as in rather and father. In some speakers, especially those with the broad accent, and will be shifted toward and, respectively.
• There is æ-tensing before a nasal consonant. The nasal sounds create changes in preceding vowels because air can flow into the nose during the vowel. Nasal consonants can also affect the articulation of a vowel. So for several speakers, the vowel in words like jam, man, dam and hand will be shifted towards. This is also present in General American and Cockney English.
• The trap-bath split is partially in effect in Australian English. It is more advanced in South Australia, but failed to progress as far in the other Australian states, which were largely settled earlier.
• is pronounced as fully open by many younger speakers.
• As with New Zealand English the / vowel in words like park, calm and farm is central in terms of tongue position and non-rhotic. This is the same vowel sound used by speakers of the Boston accent of North Eastern New England in the United States. Thus the phrase park the car is said identically by a New Zealander, Australian or Bostonian.
• The phoneme is pronounced at least as high as , and has a lowered F3 that might indicate that it is rounded. The glyph is used — rather than or — as most revisions of the phonemic orthography for Australian English predate the 1993 modifications to the International Phonetic Alphabet. At the time, was suitable for any mid central vowel, rounded or unrounded.
• As in most varieties of English, the phoneme is used only in unstressed syllables.
• The vowel has an onset, except before laterals. The onset is often lowered, so that beat is for some speakers.
• As in American English and modern RP, the final vowel in words like happy and city is pronounced as , not as .
• In some parts of Australia, a fully backed allophone of, transcribed, is common before. As a result, the pairs full/fool and pull/pool differ phonetically only in vowel length for those speakers. The usual allophone is further forward in New South Wales than Victoria. It is moving further forwards, however, in both regions at a similar rate. Many cases of RP correspond to the sequence in Australian English.

  Diphthongs

• The second elements of and on one hand and on the other are somewhat different. The first two approach the vowel, whereas the ending point of is more similar to the vowel, which is why it tends to be written with in modern sources. John Wells writes this phoneme, with the same ending point as and . However, the second element of is not nearly as different from that of the other fronting-closing diphthongs as the ending point of is from that of, which is the reason why is used in this article.
• The first element of may be raised and rounded in broad accents.
• The first element of is significantly lower than in many other dialects of English.
• There is significant allophonic variation in, including a backed allophone before a word-final or preconsonantal. The first part of this allophone is in the same position as, but differs from it in that it possesses an additional closing glide, which also makes it longer than.
• is shifted to among some speakers. This realisation has its roots in South Australia, but is becoming more common among younger speakers across the country.
• The sound is usually pronounced as a diphthong only in open syllables. In closed syllables, it is distinguished from primarily by length and from by the significant onset in the latter.
• The phoneme is rare and almost extinct. Most speakers consistently use or instead. Many cases of RP are pronounced instead with the phoneme in Australian English, but unlike in some British accents there is no general merger between and. "pour" and "poor", "more" and "moor" and "shore" and "sure" are homophones, but "tore" and "tour" remain distinct.

  Examples of vowels

• One needs to be very careful of the symbol, which represents different vowels: the vowel in the Harrington, Cox and Evans system, but the vowel in the Mitchell-Delbridge system.

  Consonants

• Australian English is non-rhotic; in other words, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. A final is pronounced as lowered in most speakers, or for some. So the words butter, here and park will not contain the sound.

• The 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 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 but far out will contain the linking sound because the next word starts with a vowel sound.
• An intrusive may be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have in 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.

• Intervocalic undergo voicing and flapping to the alveolar tap after the stressed syllable and before unstressed vowels and syllabic, though not before syllabic , as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel. For those speakers where also undergoes the change, there will be homophony, for example, metal and medal or petal and pedal will sound the same. In formal speech is retained. When coating becomes coatin' , the t remains voiceless, thus. in the cluster can elide. 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 English.

• Some speakers use a glottal stop as an allophone of in final position, for example trait, habit; or in medial position, such as a followed by a syllabic is often realized as a glottal stop, for example button or fatten. Alveolar pronunciations nevertheless predominate.

• The alveolar lateral approximant is velarised in pre-pausal and preconsonantal positions and often also in morpheme-final positions before a vowel. There have been some suggestions that onset is also velarised, although that needs to be further researched. Some speakers vocalise preconsonantal, syllable-final and syllabic instances of to a close back vowel similar to, so that milk can be pronounced and noodle. This is more common in South Australia than elsewhere.

• Standard Australian English coalesces and into and respectively. Because of this palatalisation, dune is pronounced as, exactly like June, and the first syllable of Tuesday is pronounced like choose. and in the clusters and are similarly palatalised.
• Word initial and have merged with and respectively. Other cases of and are often pronounced respectively and, as in assume and resume .
• For some speakers, may be uttered instead of /s/ before the stressed /tj/ sound in words like student, history, eschew, street and Australia – As a result, in quick speech, eschew will sound like esh-chew. According to author Wayne P. Lawrence, "this phonemic change seems to be neither dialectal nor regional", as it can also be found among some American, Canadian, British and New Zealand English speakers as well.
• Similarly has merged with word initially. Remaining cases of are often pronounced simply as in colloquial speech.
• and other common sequences of consonant plus, are retained.

  Other features

• Between voiced sounds, the glottal fricative may be realised as voiced, so that e.g. behind may be pronounced as either or.
• The sequence is realised as a voiceless palatal fricative, so that e.g. huge is pronounced.
• /ɡ/ may be a pre-uvular before /ʊ oː ɔ oɪ ʊə/, so gaudy might be pronounced .
• The word foyer is usually pronounced, as in NZ and American English, rather than as in British English.
• The word data is commonly pronounced, with being the second most common, and being very rare.
• The trans- prefix is pronounced, even in South Australia, where the trap-bath split is significantly more advanced than in other states.
• In English, upward inflexion typically signals a question. Some Australian English speakers commonly use a form of upward inflexion in their speech that is not associated with asking questions. Some speakers use upward inflexion as a way of including their conversational partner in the dialogue. This is also common in Californian English.

  Relationship to other varieties

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