THE ‘alcoholic slur’ of early British and Irish settlers in Australia has left the country with its distinctive accent, a communication expert has said.
While most linguists believe the Australian accent came from a mixture of the dialects of the British and Irish settlers, Victoria University lecturer Dean Fenkel believes alcohol had its part to play.
“Our forefathers regularly got drunk together and through their frequent interactions unknowingly added an alcoholic slur to our national speech patterns,” he wrote on The Age.
“Aussie-speak”, Mr Fenkel believes, came from 200 years of drunken dialects being handed down.
“For the past two centuries, from generation to generation, drunken Aussie-speak continues to be taught by sober parents to their children.”
The British and Irish were among the first settlers from Europe to set up home in Australia.
In his article, Mr Fenkel went on to say that Aussies speak at “two-thirds capacity”.
“Missing consonants can include missing “t”s (impordant), “l”s (Austraya) and “s”s (yesh), while many of our vowels are lazily transformed into other vowels, especially “a”s to “e”s (stending) and “i”s (New South Wyles), and “i”s to “oi”s (noight),” he said.
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