Drunken ancestors to blame for Australian accent, says lecturer

Johannesburg – The Australian accent is a result of drunk ancestors who passed their slurred speech to their children.Dean Frenkel, a lecturer in public speaking and communication at Victoria University in Melbourne, wrote in an opinion in The Age newspaper that the Australian voice arose from a colonial mixture of British, Irish and German settlers and indigenous people.“Aussie-speak developed in the early days of colonial settlement from a cocktail of English, Irish, Aboriginal and German — before another mystery influence was slipped into the mix.

“The Australian alphabet cocktail was spiked by alcohol. Our forefathers regularly got drunk together and through their frequent interactions unknowingly added an alcoholic slur to our national speech patterns.

“For the past two centuries, from generation to generation, drunken Aussie-speak continues to be taught by sober parents to their children,” the lecturer wrote.

He added that the average Australian speaks with just two-thirds of their mouth, failing to pronounce certain consonants clearly.

Missing consonants can include missing “t”s (Impordant), “l”s (Austraya) and “s”s (yesh), while many of 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).

Frenkel argued that poor communication is evident in all sectors of Australian society, which costs the country billions of dollars annually.

“Australia, it is no longer acceptable to be smarter than we sound,” he said.

– See the full opinion piece here.