Australian English phonology

The Australian English vowels /ɪ/, /e/ and /eː/ are noticeably closer (pronounced with a higher tongue position) than their contemporary Received Pronunciation equivalents.

This page uses a revised transcription based on Durie and Hajek (1994) and Harrington, Cox and Evans (1997) but also shows the Mitchell-Delbridge equivalents as this system is commonly used for example in the Macquarie Dictionary and much literature, even recent.

New Zealand English more strongly maintains the diphthongal quality of the NEAR and SQUARE vowels and they can be merged as something around [iə].

[35] Like the other two varieties in that group, Australian English pronunciation bears some similarities to dialects from the South-East of Britain;[36][37][38][39] Thus, it is non-rhotic and has the trap-bath split although, as indicated above, this split was not completed in Australia as it was in England, so many words that have the PALM vowel in Southeastern England retain the TRAP vowel in Australia.

Australian English lacks some innovations in Cockney since the settling of Australia, such as the use of a glottal stop in many places where a /t/ would be found, th-fronting, and h-dropping.

As well as providing a resource for cultural studies, the database is expected to help improve speech-based technology, such as speech recognition systems and hearing aids.

Stressed monophthongs of the general variety on a vowel chart, from Cox & Fletcher (2017 :65).
Stressed monophthongs of the broad variety on a vowel chart, reconstructed from Harrington, Cox & Evans (1997)
Fronting diphthongs of the general variety shown on a vowel chart, from Cox & Fletcher (2017 :67)
Fronting diphthongs of the broad variety shown on a vowel chart, reconstructed from Harrington, Cox & Evans (1997)
Other diphthongs of the general variety shown on a vowel chart, from Cox & Fletcher (2017 :67)
Other diphthongs of the broad variety shown on a vowel chart, reconstructed from Harrington, Cox & Evans (1997) . /ɪə/ is shown here as a long monophthong [ɪː] .