Helluh, Huhlow?, Halloey

Now that we've been here for six months, I feel I have enough experience to discuss something I find quite fascinating.

Accents.

I have no professional qualifications beyond one first year university linguistics course, but the topic is just too intriguing to ignore. Because I have now had the pleasure of living in both England and Australia, I've gathered enough aural data to compare their accents to my native Canadian one. The differences can really be heard in the way each accent treats its vowels.

For purposes of illustration, I'll use the common greeting,"Hello"

Canadians keep their vowels in the middle of the mouth, lying flat on the tongue. When saying "hello", the first syllable comes out sounding like "hell". As in, "Oh hell, I was hoping they wouldn't notice me." The second syllable sounds like "uh",  tending to get left on the middle of the tongue, neither too forward nor too reticent, for fear of offending.

The English keep their vowels tucked up in the roof of their mouth. They start their greeting with a "huh", a sigh of breath with a slightly disapproving inflection. The "low?" moves to the back of the tongue, unwilling to be too brash, and tips up into a question at the very end.

Australians like to savour their vowels by rolling them around their mouths for a while before letting them loose. "Hello" begins with a jovial "ha!", laughing and ready for a good time, followed by "lloey", moving the vowels gently forward on the tongue before ending in a slight lip pucker. As if to say "Welcome to the party, now give us a kiss."

Interesting how accents reflect the national stereotypes, don't you think?