[ukmicky (OP)]

Why do Australians have such different accents to us brits.

It wasn't that long ago that we sent them down under and as most them had British accents shouldn’t there accent still be similar to the British accent.


Michael                                      

[Simmer]

I dare say the way English people spoke 200 years ago would sound very odd to us today.  Accents seem to drift in isolation, hence regional accents in Britain.  

Interestingly regional accents are thought to be on the decline now that we have national TV and radio to standardise pronounciation (although we still have the ocassional disagreement in my office over "Newcastle" and "Bath"!)

I suppose with the international mass media we will all end up sounding the same in the end, which is fair dinkum as far as I'm concerned []

[neilep]

It was part of their punishment, they were forced to articulate and converse using infections that endorsed their low brow nature !

Men are the same as women.... just inside out !!

[Ultima]

Australia became far more multi-cultural than UK once it became it's own country. People from around Europe went there, so the accent like american is a result of the different accents blending.

[Exodus]

They were also cursed with making every sentence sound like a question?

[Ultima]

Thats a modern thing not specific to Oz though? USA, Canada eh? and the UK are like that now?

[MissMontana]

They must be still fairly similar though as when I was living in Canada the majority of people thought I was Australian

[daveshorts]

I don't know how much the australian accent is affected by who was deported there in the first place - amaericans think that cockneys and austrailians sound identical - is this because most of the criminals sent there were form the east end of london?

[DrN]

I was always under the impression a huge number of the deportees to oz were from east anglia - makes sense as a lot of phrases and colloquisms are very similar - I scored higher than an ozzie on an australian quiz, and I'm from Norfolk (and proud!) although what does that say about the east anglian peoples regard for Law and Order??

americans can't tell the difference between any accent, they thought I was either australian, danish or swedish. basically, I'm blonde, so they guessed.