Talk:South Australian English/Archive 1

1

hi!!!

Hi. Since "Southern Australia" takes in up to half of the continent, can I suggest that the article be renamed South Australian English, which probably defines it better? Grant65 (Talk) 04:23, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)

There is no merger of "pull" and "pool", "full" and "fool", etc in South Australian English. The vowel in "pool" is longer than that in "pull", so vowel length alone distinguishes these words.

Delete Article

Why does this article exist? Just for a small part of speach that could be mentioned in Australian English. There really isn't a huge difference in the Australian accent over the whole country. There also seems to be South Australians that disagree with this merger (the only thing mentioned in this article). Mark 11:04, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am a South Australian and I certainly don't merge the vowels suggested. I think this article should be merged with the general Australian English article. The only difference between SA and others states is is a truncated "u" or "ou", a longer "a" for words such as plant and demand, unique words (eg Stobie Pole) and a cultivated tinge to the accent (certainly so after spending the weekend in Rockhampton, Queensland!). (see also my webpage at http://www.geocities.com/south_australian_stress)- Frances 6/6/05

I'm not a croweater and I'm not sure about this article, but it should be about how the majority of South Australians speak, not one or two individuals. And there is a perception out there about the "pool/pull" thing, I mean I first heard this theory around 10 years ago. The example cited was Bruce McAvaney. By the way Frances, thank you for putting your comments here rather than in the middle of articles. Grant65 (Talk) 01:45, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Australian English all sounds the same.

Of course not all AusE sounds the same. This is absurd. Why does this article exist? See the AusE talk page. It was just a response to a challange. It's served its frivolous purpose. Delete it. Jimp 6Jun05

Thanks for comments Grant65; when I say the above comments, I refer to South Australian speech in general. Of course, there is even individual variations in South Australians. - Frances 6/6/05

Since the point is a matter of some dispute I've removed the following sentence.

It is supposedly identified by the merger of the pronunciation of words like pull and pool, full and fool foot-goose and full-fool mergers etc.

Now the article is only half as long as it was. All the more reason to delete it. Jimp 7Jun05

I have a feeling that whoever wrote the thing will revert, but so be it. I think there is room for Wiki articles on regional vocabulary, I mean there are already books about this. I also think that if there were such a thing as a "South Australian accent", we would be better aware of it. Perhaps one is emerging, I mean no one identified New Zealanders by the schwas in "fush and chups" until about 20 years ago. Every working day I talk to people all over Australia, and I don't buy the "cultivated tinge" posited by Frances either. The people who want to pronounce my name as "Graant" (rather than "Gr-ant") come from every state in the country. Grant65 (Talk) 00:04, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

What a coincidence: I have much the same feeling. I agree, yes, if there were such a thing as a (markedly distinct) South Australian accent we'd have heard of it. Jimp 8Jun05

People can pick South Australians as distinct from Melbourne/Sydney by their accent (I'm from Adelaide), even if they're not sure exactly what clues they use. Pronunciation of 'a' and 'e' is definitely part of it. Even Americans can tell we're not from Sydney - I have been asked several times in the USA if I'm English, as "I know someone from Sydney, and you don't sound like them". --ScottDavis 07:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think what people often fail to recognise is that there is great variety among Australian English along the lines of class/education — i.e. "broad", "general", "cultivated Australian English" — along with ethnicity, et c., and such things can be mistaken for regional accents. For example, my accent is probably somewhere along the spectrum between "general" and "cultivated", and as a result I've often been asked if I'm a "pom", a "kiwi", and various other things, when I've spent a sum total of only two of my 40 years outside WA!Grant65 (Talk) 10:59, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Call it what you will, but there is something in the air to suggest to me that there soon will be regional accents! I do come from a non-English speaking background but whilst I lived in Adelaide (which was until the start of this year), not once was I told that I sounded strange or different, that you could tell I came from a non-English accent (go listen to the mp3s on my website for my voice). At the start of this year, I moved to Melbourne and I get constantly told by people that I sound different - "Are you a Kiwi?", "Are you English?", "you sound strange". This has also happened to MANY other Croweaters that I know who have crossed the border to Vicland, we've discussed this with each other as well as Victorians' strange vowel-swapping phenomenon. Quite frankly, I can spot a Victorian a mile away and successfully so. But not only this, I have had a friend who currently lives in the Pilbara, WA and a friend who lived in Brisbane who came back to Adelaide and they were asked if they were English themselves. The ex-Brisbane friend said that the Queenslanders told her that she sounded clipped when she talked. Doesn't say that something is happening? I'm not saying that all Croweaters speak like that, some have very broad accents but I would that there would most likely be more Croweaters on the cultivated end than say Queenlanders. OK, I admit the differences aren't as severe say as a person from NY and Kentucky but they are ever so slightly, slightly there, maybe not yet to consider a different accent. - Frances 8/6/05

I should get my father-in-law to do some mp3s, then you'll really hear it! - Frances 8/5/05

I want hard evidence, not anecdotes! I know or have met quite a few Croweaters — in fact I sit next to one at work — and I can't hear it. Or can you name a well known SA'n, such as a footy player, with this accent? Grant65 (Talk) 12:34, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

And I would also like to know how you "spot" a Victorian, other than their eccentric vocabulary ;-)Grant65 (Talk) 12:39, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

A flat "a" tone running through speech, ie "e" becomes "a" and "a" can become "e" with other vowel swaps (mentioned in the Australian English article). For example:

""Hi, I'm from Malbourne and I bought a house at Dendinong with a belcony with the help using a home owner grant (short "a'). It was with an epplication from the benk, a friend had to tall (not as in height 'tall" but short "a", ie word is tell) me. The friend was called Elbert and he said to me that you can hev a grant (short "a") on anuhthing that is your first owned property.""

(beat that :) )

Frances 8/6/05

Sounds more South African to me than Victorian. But you may be onto something with the "a/e" thing: "There is no evidence in this data of raised /æ/ before /l/ as in “Elbert” for “Albert”, a phenomenon that has been popularly suggested for Victorians. Instead our results suggest that Victorian girls are more likely to produce “shall” for both “shell” and “shall”.[1] So their a's and e's are merging. But what about your evidence for a South Australian accent? Grant65 (Talk) 14:04, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Frances did a pretty good job of writing how a South Australian hears a Victorian. We don't have an accent - everyone else does :-) --ScottDavis 15:00, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Grant65, Maybe there isn't any evidence as to Victorians doing that, but how come every South Australian hears Vics like that? Does that mean that we have the accent? Scott has a point, I can't hear my accent, when I hear myself or another from SA, it sounds normal. I can't provide examples with footy stars because again they sound normal to me. The only thing that I can provide in relation to something like this is that there is an SA news reporter on the Melbourne 10 News who I remember used to report in Adelaide on 10 News when I was living there by the name Jeremy Pudney. When I hear him on the news, he sounds normal to me (which is also very refreshing to my ears) but when I hear the Vic-originated reporters they don't sound normal and don't sound anything like him. My husband, SA born and bred, agrees to about Jeremy Pudney. Grant65, I return the challenge back to you (since it seems to me that you are linguist and I am not); I ask why we can as Croweaters distinguish a Victorian and why can they hear something unidentifiably "strange" in our voices? (I do believe that this is not varied enough yet to be a considered an accent). As for WA, I have had less exposure to WA speakers but of the times that I have heard them speak, they sound more like us than the Vics, and therefore we might not stand out as much to a WA speaker. - Frances 9/6/05

Oh, and in the above example of a Victorian talking, it should be "halp" not "help". I remember one person in Melbourne imitating me saying "help" as "hilp". - Frances 9/6/05

Fran, I'm not a linguist, but I've had an interest in accents/dialects for a long time. As I say, I speak to people around Australia on a daily basis and I'm always on the look out for differences. Also, here in WA, as a result fo the mining industry, we get a lot of "immigrants" from all over Aussie (and from far beyond). I also follow the AFL closely, hear SA'ns like Mark "Chocko" Williams, Neil Craig, Mark Ricciuto, Warren Tredrea, (etc) and they don't sound any different to members of my own family. It's possible that I'm not as attuned to different ways of speaking as you. But read the quote about Victorians again — it says that they they do do something different to the rest of us. So maybe its the Victorians who have a regional accent.Grant65 (Talk) 23:32, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that could be so Grant65, or on the way to developing one. They always have to be different to the rest of us :). Yes the players you list all sound pretty average to me with the exception of (coach) Craig and Ricciuto, who I think sound broad. I know Riccuito is from a Riverland town by then name of Waikerie and that's where he gets his broadness. However, it still doesn't explain why we get asked about being English by other states! - Frances 9/6/05

My wife and I can both pick Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland as different from South Aust and each other. When we were in Perth a few years ago, I could pick "something odd" (emphasis and tone moreso than vowel choice I think) in the accent of some locals, but my wife thought they sounded the same as us. Country NSW and Vic seem to vary - I don't know if the linguistic boundary necessarily follows the state boundary, and country accents are often broader than city ones. If we accept that Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide have three distinct accents, which one is the "Australian" accent, and which two are the regional accents? Incidentally, if you hadn't said that "Grant65" has a short 'a' (rhymes with ant, rant, pant, sat), I'd pronounce it with a long 'a' (rhymes with aunt, can't, mast, last) --ScottDavis 02:18, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I ocassionally can pick out the NSW or Qlder - different from Vics. I could hear a little of an accent in Karratha (Pilbara WA) when I was there recently. As an "Australian" accent, I'd probably choose Qld. I went to Rocky on the weekend and although most people spoke broadly, they sounded quintesentially (and stereotypically Aussie). I think young Qlders have a 'middle of the ground accent". But even then, I must add that these slight regional variations do not amount to a clear accent yet but might a few years. As for "Grant", I'd pronounce that with a long a, if I were not corrected. But again, I don't think that's an accent in itself. Frances 10/6/05

It is difficult for people to accept that there are regional variations in Australian English. Many linguists actively work to discredit such claims. Personnally, I do believe that there exists a South Australian variation. Unfortunately, it seems a variation increasingly confined to Adelaide and some areas of the West Coast. Interaction with interstaters and television broadcasts that are ever more dominated by Australians with more "general accents" has, perhaps, contributed to this. "Dance", I have noticed (with horror), is tending towards /æ/. It is also difficult to identify nationally recognised South Australians with this accent. Footballers are the worst possible examples, as they, in my belief, tend towards "broad". I would cite, as the Australian English page once did, Alexander Downer as an example, but his is regional once more, being endemic to the Adelaide Hills and more clipped then normal SA English. Natasha Sttot Despoja is perhaps a good example, but some might dismiss this as an example of "educated English". There is definately a difference, as there are differences from state to state and city to city. But South Australian English (if it is to be called that) is a more pronounced variation. --Cyberjunkie 10:21, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that Downer's speech is a classic example of what is technically known as Cultivated Australian English. I would also point out that if he is an example of the supposed accent and well-known footballers don't have it, then the "South Australian accent" must be restricted to about 10% of the South Australian population. Which doesn't make it much of a regional accent. Stott Despoja doesn't seem any different to other speakers of General Australian English such as Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Judy Davis and Germaine Greer. Grant65 (Talk) 11:03, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Well back to square one. I don't know, I just know that the short "ou" or "u" occurence is an Adelaide phenomenon and it even sounds like "yuy" in "thank you" when I say it. There are a lot of Hills people that sound like Downer when they speak, and yes he is cultivated. But what should be done is a study into persons who are considered to sound cultivated in each state and test them to see if there is any variation, then we'll really know. I went to the Eumundi Markets on the Sunshine Coast on the weekend and bought some jewellery from a lady. She said that I had a very different accent and I told her that I am not from Qld, but from SA. She said that she could tell that I wasn't from around the area because of my not having a "local accent" and a "precise accent". Just thought I'd share that with you. - Frances 13/6/05

See treatment of pool words in Australian English for this pull/pool issue.

I hear Alexander Downer's accent as being affected by his British education. I grew up at Macclesfield in the Adelaide Hills, a town Downer lived in for a while. My brother (whose accent is slightly broader than mine) moved to Victoria and was told by his Victorian girlfriend that she knew he was from SA, as he sounded like Alexander Downer! None of our family think we sound like him! --ScottDavis 12:41, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It can be hard to tell Cultivated Australian English (CAE) apart from Received Pronunciation (RP). In fact a lot of Australians and British people can't tell the difference. For example, the TV presenter Clive Hale, who died last week, was a native South Australian with CAE. I had wrongly assumed him to be English because of his ultra CAE accent. What's interesting is that he also had the "Victorian" a-e merger, but he had worked in a few different "stætes and tærritoriæs".Grant65 (Talk) 22:28, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Bred-bread split

I've added an article about the bred-bread split that occurs for some Australians.

Well, as you can see from the mp3 from my website, I only split bread from bred when I say it in isolation but not in a sentence. - Frances 13/6/05

Redirect

I've redirected this article to Australian English. It already says in that article, "For many speakers in southern Australia, pull and pool are merged in position, that is the quality distinction is lost, pull is pronounced /pʊl/ and pool is pronounced /pʊːl/, but they're not usually pronounced the same. Some people believe that when hearing South Australians pronounce these words, pronounce them the same, when in fact they do not pronounced them the same. Pairs like pull/pool, full/fool, etc. are distinguished only in length by these speakers." Where it is much better written. This content is a poor imitation of the content on that article. It should therefore be redirected, as it is possible someone will do a search for it. I'm also from Victoria, and my English boyfriend can't tell the difference between my saying pull and pool, so it's not just South Australians. Although I will concede that you can tell very slightly when someone is from South Australia, but this is not true for everyone, and it's nothing like the way you can tell if someone is from New Zealand. --Silversmith Hewwo 11:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the point about accent, however there is an SA regional 'vocabulary' which is worthy of an article, as are those in other states and particular regions within them. (See http://abc.net.au/wordmap/default.htm ) Grant65 (Talk) 11:55, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I will give you some time to improve this stub, if it does not evolve to more than a poor imitation of the Australian English article soon, then I will either redirect or put a merge disputed notice on it. --Silversmith Hewwo 21:00, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

That's very big of you :P Grant65 (Talk) 23:52, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't believe this article should be maintained. Rather, as Silversmith has attempted, it should be redirected to the Australian English, with any relevant information discussed there. If you wish to write about vocabularly, do so at Australian words. Whilst I do believe South Australians speak Australian English differently, it does not warrant its own article - expand upon Regional Variation if necessary.-- Cyberjunkie ^TALK 15:35, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What's the problem? To paraphrase what someone said to me in relation to another article, "if we can have an article on every suburb of Canberra, why not?" If you look at the ABC Wordmap link, you will note that there is not one variety of South Australian English, there are three: "Adelaide", "Eyre and Yorke Peninsula" and "Northern South Australia", each with it's own variations in vocabulary. Each one of these could justify an article. Unfortunately I don't have time to write them at present, and (being parochial) I would rather write articles on the two dialects within WA :-) Grant65 (Talk) 13:31, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Get over it Silversmith.Grant65 (Talk) 18:09, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Please remove the "merge" tag; it is no longer justified.Grant65 (Talk) 04:05, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Why, because you don't think it is? Until we come to a consensus that either (a) it should not be merged or (b) it should be merged, it remains true that it has been suggested. The topic of merger is worthy of discussion. So far, the article says very little that would not also be said of other regional varieties, so why not just say it all at once in Regional Variation on Australian English? In fact, there's only one sentence that's vaguely particular to here (being Many regional words in South Australia are German or Cornish in origin, as result of the large number of settlers from these places who arrived in the early years of the Colony of South Australia), and one sentence does not an article make.

The article also can hardly be expanded beyond its current self; the only reasonable expansions would be on the lexical variety front. But then you're combining three distinct dialects (so the article claims) into one article because of political lines—I can't wait to see your article on Northern South Australian English. It would be better to provide the proper context surrounding the eternally small article into Australian English. The article should be merged into Regional Variation in Australian English.

By the way, I'll be away for the next week and might not have great Internet access in the interim. Please don't unilaterally remove the 'merge' tag again during that time, and please don't extrapolate an opinion from what I've just said (or what anyone else has said) because you've expanded the article. (If, however, you decide to hold a vote before I'm back, I vote for merger regardless of *any* changes that may be made.)

Felix the Cassowary 05:59, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

The article can hardly be expanded? Dorothy Jauncey (who is referenced in the article) has managed to write a whole book on South Australian English. Is it Wikipedia policy/style now to merge stubs, into which several people have already time and effort, because said people don't have anough time to finish them? You seem to operate on the principle that simply because you don't know anything about something, it doesn't exist.

Someone may wish to write an article on Northern South Australian English and why not? If it's spoken by only 10,000 people, that is still more than some official languages about which there are articles in Wikipedia (e.g. Nauruan language and Cornish language). Until that time, NSAE can be discussed here, especially since — as you would be the first to point out — there similarities between it and the other two dialects.

I removed the "merge" precisely once, after I expanded the article, which I thought would have satisfied reasonable critics. The topic of merger has been discussed at length and the intensity of discussion shows that an article is needed, if only to debunk the nonsense about a regional accent. Grant65 (Talk) 08:13, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I didn't say the article couldn't be expanded, I said that things couldn't be added that were specific to it. I still see very little that's not more interesting elsewhere.

Regarding the removal of 'merge', it was (a) premature and (b) unilateral. I was telling you not to do that again. I wasn't saying you were doing it repeatedly. You have a vested interested and are a poor judge of whay will satisfy your critics (I don't mean to say that offensively! Everyone's biased!).

Please stop misusing the word 'theory'. There's nothing about urban legends that qualifies them for that title. Please stop removing comments which are true. (These two aren't necessarily directed at you---I'm still away so only have limited time here. They're directed at whoever made the changes. But the last para still reads a million times worse then it did at the start of the week, so I'll be fixing it when I get home tomorrow evening.)

My sincere apologies for the removing comments which are true bit. I was rushing yesterday and missed that it was simply moved. Felix the Cassowary 10:47, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

To those who feel that the Australian English article is too long, it would be a more efficient use of readers' time to have a single article on all the varieties of Australian English, even if it's separate from the Australian English page. South Australian English should then be a redir to that page. I would be fully in favor of this.

Felix the Cassowary 10:04, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it meakes any more sense than having a page on all regional varieties of English English. I mean dialects are in large part defined negatively, defined by their difference to one another. "We're not like them." Grant65 (Talk) 11:27, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to merge any worthwhile content to the Australian English article then I'm going to make this a redirect. If you undo the redirect I will put this up for VfD to see what other wikipedian's think. The problem with this stub is that it basically says, "In south Australia they say things a certain way, but they also say things that way in the rest of Australia." Which means this article is pointing out that there is no real difference between South Austalian English and the rest of the country's English. Perhaps you should just "get over it" and go work on improving Australian English. --Silversmith Hewwo 17:16, 17 July 2005 (UTC) (sorry, forgot to sign)

Anonymous, no, what it says is "they say things some things differently in SA" and if you bothered to read the references you would know that is a true statement. I didnt't create this article and I'm appalled that Wikipedians can so casually destroy other peoples work. Cheers. Grant65 (Talk) 10:32, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

By the way, Australian words has already been hived off from Australian English, what is the problem here? There seems to be lot of prejudice regarding the notion of regional vocabulary, which is not a strange idea which I've come up with, but an established fact. I refer you all once again to the Australian Word Map . Read it and learn. Grant65 (Talk) 10:37, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Please be careful not to break the 3RR rule. I do not want to get into a revert war over this, and so if it continues, I will put it up for VfD to gain a consensus. --Silversmith Hewwo 17:16, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Please put it on VfD. I have no intention of breaking the rule. I will continue to revert within the rules, as long as Chameleon insists on deleting the article. Grant65 (Talk) 00:58, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

So now you are copying and pasting sections directly from the Australian English article to bulk this stub out, plus adding completely irrelevant information such as Alexander Downer, who does not have a SA accent but a Cultivated Accent. Are you having trouble finding encyclopedic information on the subject? --Silversmith Hewwo 09:56, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think gibes are necessary.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 10:14, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Oh, but this is fine? --Silversmith Hewwo 22:13, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, I wrote the bit on Downer in Australian English (or more precisely I corrected the claim that he had a "South Australian accent"). Anyone can cut 'n' paste anywhere if it's relevant, and it is. As I keep saying, one of the reasons why we need articles like this is to debunk the myths which are already out there about about "regional accents" (see above). Grant65 (Talk) 10:41, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

I fully and unreservedly apologise to Silversmith for the comment mentioned above.Grant65 (Talk) 10:16, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you Grant. And don't worry, I'm not going to try and exterminate this article any more, no matter what the VfD result. --Silversmith Hewwo 11:41, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

How does a link to Barossa Deutsch get into an article about a variant of the English language? --ScottDavis 12:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious? Because German has contributed words to the regional varieties of English. Grant65 (Talk) 13:55, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Then provide a list of Barossa Deutsch words that have escaped into South Australian English outside of the Barossa Valley, or even into English-only speakers in the Barossa. --ScottDavis 14:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Give me a break, at the moment I'm trying to stop the page from being deleted. Have you tried the references listed in the article? Grant65 (Talk) 15:02, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Most of the words Dorothy Jauncey has picked as South Australian dialect are actually words for objects that only occur here, so the object doesn't need a name anywhere else. Can anyone check whether the German-language wikipedia has an article on Barossa Deutsch or Australian German? --ScottDavis 15:37, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I still think the article should be merged, I'm just not going to make any more attempts to redirect it. --Silversmith Hewwo 20:54, 27 July 2005 (UTC)