The Southeastern Australian Dialect of Victoria

Features of Southeastern Australian

Vowels

Vowel Realisations before /l/

One of the defining features of the southeastern dialect is its unusually strong treatment of vowels before dark /ɫ/. In much of Victoria, and especially in Melbourne, the phoneme /l/ is realised as a very dark velarised consonant [ɫ], strongly affecting preceding vowels. This influence produces some of the best-known features of Victorian speech.

The most famous example, and regarded nowadays almost as a shibboleth of Victorian speech, is the frequent merger or near-merger of /e/ and /æ/ before /ɫ/. As a result, the city name Melbourne is often heard as <Malbourne>, phonetically approximated as [mæɫbn̩]. Likewise, words such as helmet, celery, and pelican may contain noticeably lowered vowels and be heard as <halmet>, <sallery> and <pallican>. Older speakers sometimes exhibit the reverse phenomenon in their speech as well (with [ɛ] being used instead of [æ]), They may pronounce words like alps, album, and talcum as <elps>, <elbum> [ɛ], and <telcum>. Younger speakers increasingly level these pronunciations towards [æ], though the feature remains one of the clearest regional markers of Victorian English.

Another striking particularly Melburnian feature concerns the backing of /ɪ/ before /ɫ/. In broad working-class speech, words such as million, children, and until may be realised with centralised or backed vowels approaching [ʊ̈] or [ɵ]. Older caricatures of Melbourne speech would sometimes exploit this feature with exaggerated pronunciations like <chooldren> and <moolion>, reflecting a genuine though socially stigmatised regional tendency.

Other Vowels

Victorian English is also notable for its relatively high realisation of the KIT vowel /ɪ/. In many speakers this vowel approaches [i̞] and in certain environments even around cardinal [i], providing us with pronunciations such as <deeshes> [diʃəz] for dishes. In some phonetic environments the vowel may fluctuate between [ɪ̝], [i̞], and even centralised variants. On a cold winter evening many Melburnians enjoy <feesh an cheeps> as their evening meal, a phrase that New Zealanders will playfully quip, in response to the common Australian assertion that Kiwis say <fush an chups> for ‘fish and chips’.

The DRESS vowel /e/ is similarly raised, and in certain environments sometimes approaching [e̝] or [ɪ], although certainly not as consistently as occurs in New Zealand English. This contributes to the sharp, fronted quality often associated with Melbourne speech. Words like “yes’ and ‘eggs’ may sound like <yis> and <iggs>.

One especially notable word is ‘get’, which is often phonemicised as /ɡɪt/ rather than /ɡet/. In connected speech this may produce pronunciations approximating <git>.

The TRAP vowel /æ/ has historically been quite high and narrow in Victoria, ranging from [æ̝] to [ɛ]. Thus, words like ‘trap’, ‘happy’ and ‘appetite’ will sound something like <trep>, <heppy> and <eppetoite> to non-Australian ears.

Among younger speakers, in recent years there has been a noticeable reversal of the above trend, with subsequent lowering to around [æ̞] or even as low as [a]. This is possibly influenced by multicultural urban speech patterns and changing social attitudes towards broader Australian accents. Similar realisations are increasingly noted for younger speakers in the USA and Britain, perhaps as part of a wider general trend in modern English. This has been investigated in considerable detail by Australian linguist Felicity Cox.

The LOT vowel /ɔ/ is particularly raised in Melbourne and Tasmania, often realised between [ɔ̞] and [ɔ]. Similar raising has been noted in other modern East-Coast Australian speech. A young person’s pronunciation of ‘stop’ for example, sounds strikingly like <stawp>.

In STRUT words, the vowel will typically range from [ɐ] to [ä] in a Southeastern accent, the degree of frontness of the vowel being variably dependent upon the level of broadness in the speaker.

Impressionistically, words such as ‘other’ and ‘another’ occasionally appear to be pronounced with even fronter vowels, approaching [æ] or even [ɛ]. The word ‘another’ may sound like <anather> or occasionally even <anether>. These realisations may be conditioned by the following dental fricative [ð], though further research is required to determine the frequency of occurrence and precise nature of this variation.

The Southeastern region also displays interesting variation in words belonging to the so-called DANCE set. Melbourne speakers are much more likely to use /æ/ rather than /aː/ in words such as dance, chance, plant, and example. Thus ‘dance’ may be heard as [dæ̝:ns], [dɛ̞ːns] or [dɛːns] in broader speech. There may be a degree of nasalisation in broader Southeastern speakers, thus [dɛ͂ːns] or [dɛ͂ːs]. This contrasts quite strongly with South Australian usage, where /aː/ predominates.

There are several other lexical sets in which Victorians prefer /æ/ over /a:/. These include words such as ‘Castlemaine’, ‘Newcastle’ and ‘graph’ (often rendered phonetically as [græf] or [grɛ̞f]). Note that the word ‘castle is /ka:sl/, and never realised as [kæsɫ̩] or [kɛ̞sɫ̩], a pronunciation which would be completely avoided as being “American English’

Tasmania shares most Southeastern vowel characteristics, especially regarding diphthongs and rounded vowels.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs in Southeastern Australian accents are generally similar to those elsewhere in Australia, though the GOAT vowel /ɐʉ/ is often particularly fronted in both Melbourne and Tasmania. Words such as ‘home’ and ‘smoke’ may contain markedly fronted onsets approaching [hæʉm] and [smæʉk], or even [hæɨ̫m] and [smæɨ̫k]. This differs noticeably from the more backed broader realisations [hɔ̞ÿm], [smɔ̞ÿk], or even [hɔɨ̫m] and [smɔɨ̫k], which may be heard in Adelaide speech.

Some Southeastern speakers may also preserve subtle distinctions between pairs such as ‘horse’ and ‘hoarse’, or ‘sauce’ and ‘source’. For example, the word ‘sauce’ may contain a shorter and lower vowel than ‘source’. They may appear as [sos] ‘sauce’ versus [so:s] ‘source’. The same applies to ‘course’ in the expression ‘of course!’ which is frequently rendered [əf kos]. The author’s own speech variably exhibits these vowel qualities. While such distinctions are far from universal in Australian speech, they appear to occur more frequently in Victoria than in many other Australian regions.

A Transcription of Broad Melburnian Speech

“And we were on the way to Essendon, when about 20 head-bangers come on the train”

“And they looked atus, and one of my mates walked up there, and just went wack hit one of them”

“Next thing they know, there was twenty you know … all jumped in on this bloke”

“So then most of us went down … get these uhm, head-bangers, and one of ’em pulled out a machete”

“When he pulled out the machete everyone just pulled out knives, chains, everything… just give it to ’em”

Interviewer: Were there any other passengers on the train?”

“There was prob’ly ’bout two because heaps of people walked up to the carriage”

“and they seen us all have back-patches and that on, an’ they…”

“All just louding around on the train, smoking and that,”

“Heaps of people walked up to the train and then they changed their minds”

“And went to the next carriage or something like that… like we’d just…”

Consonants

Consonantal features further contribute to the regional character of Southeastern Australian. Working-class Melbourne English frequently exhibits TH-fronting, with /θ/ realised as [f] and /ð/ as [v] or [d]. Consequently, ‘think’ may sound like <feenk> in a broader accent, while ‘brother’ often becomes <bravver> in working class Melburnian speech. These features are especially associated with broader urban speech. They occasionally surface in empirical studies, although no major study has yet determined their level of occurrence in Southeastern accents let alone any Australian speech.

In broad Melburnian speech, intervocalic /ð/ may occasionally even surface as a flapped [ɾ] (which is variably dentalised as something like [ɾ̪]). This is somewhat reminiscent of certain Scots varieties, although clearly not derived from such. Pronunciations such as [dae] for they or similar flapped variants in connected speech have been reported particularly in eastern suburban Melbourne speech.

Southeastern Australian Lexis

Lexically, southeastern Australia possesses several distinctive regionalisms. In Victoria, a police transport vehicle is traditionally called a divvy van, a term rarely used elsewhere in Australia. Other Victorian expressions include potato cake for what many other Australians call a scallop or fritter, and parma for chicken parmigiana. Tasmanians contribute terms such as mainlander for Australians from the continent, while the Riverina preserves a mixture of Victorian and inland rural vocabulary shaped by agricultural life along the Murray basin.

The Riverina’s speech patterns generally align more closely with Victoria than with Sydney. Rural intonation patterns, flattened vowels, and lexical conservatism are common throughout the district. Because of its geographic position, the Riverina effectively acts as a transitional linguistic zone linking inland Victoria with southern New South Wales.

Lexical items For General Victorian:

 <autotray> – ‘small table on castors for carrying dishes, serving food, etc’; <bokka> – ‘haircut’; <bot> – ‘cadger, person who scrounges off others’; <brinnie> – ‘small rock or stone (for throwing)’; <cattle grid> – ‘steel grid over a pit allowing vehicles through while stopping cattle and other stock’; <chasey> – ‘children’s chasing game where one person is “it” and must catch others’; <cream between> – ‘icecream slab between two wafers sold at picture theatres’; <divvy van> – ‘police panel van used for transporting arrested people’; <down-ball> – ‘primary school chasing/ball game played against a wall’; <dustbin> – ‘container used for household rubbish disposal’; <Farmer Brown shirt> – ‘checked flannelette shirt’; <four-square> – ‘schoolyard ball game played on a chalked four-square court’; <lacka band> – ‘elastic band’; <lob a gorbie> – ‘spit loudly after clearing one’s throat’; <long neck> – ‘large bottle of beer’; <paterson’s curse> – ‘purple-flowered weed (Echium plantagineum)’; <pinky> – ‘parking ticket’; <play time> – ‘mid-morning break in primary school’; <poop stick> – ‘billiards rest’; <potato cake> – ‘thin battered and deep-fried slice of potato’; <prima> – ‘juice drink in a small cardboard carton’; <pusher> – ‘light collapsible wheeled chair used for carrying small children’; <robber> – ‘fluffy airborne seed of certain plants’; <runners> – ‘running or sports shoes’; <scrag> – ‘rough-looking or unattractive female’; <scunge> – ‘to cadge or ask for something without intending to repay’; <shanghai> – ‘forked stick slingshot used to hurl small stones’; <shelter shed> – ‘covered outdoor area used by students during wet weather’; <slab> – ’24-pack of beer cans or bottles’; <slide> – ‘playground structure with a smooth sloping surface for sliding’; <snot block> – ‘vanilla slice’; <spider> – ‘soft drink with ice-cream in a tall glass’; <spinner> – ‘idiot or fool’; <spouting> – ‘guttering on a building’; <stops> – ‘studs on football boots for traction’; <strasbourg> – ‘large mild-flavoured precooked sausage’; <swotvac> – ‘university exam study period’; <tiggy> – ‘chasing/tag game’; <tippety (run)> – ‘cricket game where batter must run after hitting ball’; <town water> – ‘mains water supply’; <traveller> – ‘final drink taken when leaving a drinking group’; <wacker> – ‘silly but funny person; affectionate insult for a goofy person’; <wash trough> – ‘large laundry sink’; <yard duty> – ‘teacher supervision duty in schoolyard’; <yonnie> – ‘small rock or stone (for throwing)’.