Australian English. (Letters).

SIR: You'd have to be a bit of a dill to take seriously Alex Buzo's claim (January-February 2002) that there is a universal denial, not only of regional variation in Australian English, but also of the existence of New Zealand English. Most have long latched onto the fact that sux comes after five in the Shaky Isles and Bondi. To prove his case, Buzo cites the apparently pervasive authority of the "New Zealand language mafia in England" and an unnamed seminar leader in Sydney who joins in his general swipe at academic drongos who are apparently party to the denial.

Well, here's the drum on the subject. There are three main variations in Australian English (Cultivated, General and Broad) and they were first identified by my father Sidney J. Baker way back in 1945, in the first edition of The Australian Language. Since then, there has been academic study on accent, and especially on regional variation. The 1985 study by Barbara Horvarth of the Sydney social dialects added two new categories, "Accented" and "Ethnic Broad". All this is usefully summarised in An Introduction to Linguistics, Victoria Fromkin et al, Harcourt, 1999 and Introducing Sociolinguistics, Ragend Mesthrie et al, Edinburgh University Press, 2000.

As for The Story of English, Robert McCrum et al, BBC Books (I can't speak for the televised version), Buzo obviously hasn't read pages 328 to 330, which clearly focus on Kiwi variations of English. The book also makes useful observations about Australian regional variation (322 to 324). However, cop this: Australians and New Zealanders share the tendency to rising intonation at the end of sentences and the broadening of vowels. That there will be plenty of sux ahead for future Australian English speakers suggests that Mother English Down Under has well and truly gone to the pack.

 
Suzanne Baker, 
Great Mackerel Beach, NSW. 

SIR: Alex Buzo--perhaps in part through taking some remarks out of context--has come to a rather odd view of the position of language scholars on Australasian English. It has long been a commonplace that there is a fair amount of accent variation across the region--although of course ...