The Australian language

[Tabouli]

Lynn:
>Which begs the question, was it also translated
> into Australian? ;)

We Australians are clever folk.  Thanks to the joys of imported media, we read and understand American *and* British in all their many varieties (with the possible exception of the more extreme products of Scotland and Yorkshire), and can generally make an acceptable hash of speaking the standard TV dialects thereof (smiles proudly to recall the number of Australian actors blending seamlessly into British and American films). Spoken Australian, however, is a language few can master!

On planes in the US, I found I had to say "water" in American before the flight attendants understood what I was asking, and I once had a friend from Hong Kong who had difficulty in understanding me unless I put on an English accent (ah, that's better!  Why don't you speak properly all the time?  he'd say).  Then there's the efforts of British and American actors to speak Australian (winces quietly).  Erm.  I'm told Meryl Streep did an OK job in 'Evil Angels', and Kate Winslet likewise in 'Holy Smoke', but in general...

(which reminds me, GAAHHH!  Can someone let the US and UK media know that no-one has used the word 'cobber' since 1920?  Please??)

This being the case, the Australian version of HP is in British.  At a formal level, written Australian and written British are more or less identical.  Partly because the separation between the two cultures is less, and partly because there's still this lingering feeling in Australia that more British=higher class, particularly in accent.  This belief seems to be fading among the young, but you still hear the presenters of shows on opera and classical music affecting a faux Oxbridge accent and sniffing disdainfully at people who speak broad Australian.

Tabouli.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]