Broad Australian English
There are three main varieties of Australian English: broad, general, and cultivated. Broad Australian English is an excellent model for Melomys, since it is instantly recognizable, and it is spoken in rural areas of Australia such as Queensland, which is in close proximity to Bramble Cay, home of our extinct Melomys. Bramble Cay is a small cay located at the northeastern edge of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands of Queensland and at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Lying around 50 km (31 mi) north of Erub Island in the Gulf of Papua, it is the northernmost point of land of Australia and marks the end of the Great Barrier Reef.
For your listening pleasure
oral posture
Oral posture refers to a dialect or accent's "home base" in terms of articulatory settings - specifically the jaw, the lips, the tongue, the cheeks, and the velum (soft palate).
LIPS
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Lip corners pull in towards cheeks
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Lips are often retracted - think sound going out laterally, especially on the DRESS lexical set
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A fair amount of lip rounding/trumpeting in the NURSE, PRICE, FACE, LOT/CLOTH, GOOSE
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Bottom lip may appear more active than the top lip
TONGUE
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Strong tendency for tongue root advancement
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Home base for the tongue feels fairly high
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The back body of the tongue is active in speech
JAW
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Raised but quite active
SOFT PALATE
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Lowered, which gives this accent some nasal resonance. See if you can feel vibrations bouncing off the soft palate before they leave your mouth.
PRONUNCIATION
VOWELS
Words like GOOSE --> [ ʉ̜ː ]
This vowel is performed with less lip rounding, and you will feel the middle body of the float up towards the hard palate.
I don't give a rip whose money it is, mate, I'll use it and I'll spend it on buying land.
And so we started talking about the movie
Words like GOAT → [ ʌ̟ɨ ]
As the back body of the tongue is active in this accent, the onset of this diphthong starts with a back vowel and for the coda, the middle body of the tongue lifts up towards the hard palate. The tongue will be slightly advanced.
I want to stop the ozone layer
I want to have the purest oceans
Words like LOT/CLOTH → [ ɒ ]
Similar to its realization in British RP, the back body of the tongue will cup and the lips will be rounded.
so strong
all she ever did was just love me and prop me up
Words like MOUTH → [ æ̃ə ]
The front body of the tongue will cup for the onset of this diphthong, and then relax for the schwa sound. This sound has a fair amount of nasalization.
I've been down. Mate, I've been down. I've been way down. I've been down. I've been down as far as anyone can go down.
Words like FACE → [ æɪ ]
Front body of the tongue takes a journey here, cupping for the onset, and then relaxing up to an arch for the coda.
And the day that my mum went was the day I lost something.
And nowadays I just try to make him proud, mate.
Words like FLEECE → [ əi ]
Similar to Cockney, the onset of this diphthong is neutral, and then tenses to [ i ].
I want to be able to drink water straight out of that creek.
Come with me!
Words like BATH → [ ä ]
This is a centralized front vowel, with some similarity to the British BATH vowel.
That’s one of the most commonly asked questions
Words like THOUGHT → [ o̹̞ː ]
Similar to the RP pronunciation. This vowel will be produced with more lip rounding than the British pronunciation, and more length.
And all I've done in my life
my daughter is
Words like PRICE → [ ɒɪ ]
The onset of this diphthong is a back, open vowel. You will utilize a fair amount of lip rounding.
I've got the most drop dead gorgeous wife on Earth
She is, like, incredibly insightful.
POST-VOCALIC /R/
Australian accents are Non-Rhotic, meaning that the phoneme /r/ is not pronounced when it follows a vowel in the same syllable.
NURSE → [ ɘ̹ ]
I was born on her birthday
START → [ a̠ ]
he was, like, larger than life
NORTH/FORCE → [ oː ]
I was born on her birthday
And of course, my daughter is, she is like, she's gonna be a Tibetan monk.
lettER → [ ə ]
I watched my dad suffer. I watched my whole family suffer.
NEAR → [ ɪ̽ː ]
And then in the year 2000
SQUARE → [ ɛ̝ː ]
I'm scared. I'm really, really scared
CONSONANTS
Medial and final /t/ are pronounced as [ d ] or [ r ]
the only way to educate a big heap of people is to get ‘em excited.
When I was the tiniest little kid
/L/ → [ ɫ̠ ]
The /l/ is velarized, meaning you will feel the tongue pull back in the articulation of this sound.
Yeah, I love my parents like like nothing else.
I want to stop the ozone layer.
PROSODY
FEATURE 1
Long, drawn out dipthongs.
You know, slowly but surely, we've worked our way up the ladder, so to speak, to the pinnacle of success for conservation.
FEATURE 2
Words frequently can stick or meld into each other.
FEATURE 3
While individual vowels may be long, the overall speaking tempo is quite quick.
FEATURE 4
Wide pitch and volume variation - pitch, volume and elongation (particularly of vowels) are all used for stress. As you can see in the pitch analysis graph below, the speaker uses both pitch and volume to emphasize operative words.
I've been put on this planet to protect wildlife and wilderness areas, which, in essence, is going to help humanity.
FEATURE 5
Pitch Patterns - Statements, High Rising Terminal
Statements often may follow a similar pitch pattern to a question, with the pitch rising up on the final word.
Fantastic was a natural progression for us.
