Southern Hemisphere English

I’ve been delighted by the number of correspondents responding to the Language Series in various guises. One, on this blog, asked about Australian English.

I have visited Australia only once, in 1995/6, but I am more familiar with South African English, a much under-researched variety.

Australian English strikes me as essentially British, including British terms such as “mobile” (versus “cellphone”) and “give way” (versus “yield”, i.e. in driving). I did note while I was there the prevalence of “Can I get” over “Can I have” (although the former is now indisputably gaining ground in the UK also), a seemingly peculiar spelling “aging” (“ageing” would strike me as preferable, but most Style Guides give either as optional), and of course the “Labor Party”, although that is explained by its foundation going back to a time when “labor” was an optional spelling even in the UK. In his encyclopedia on the English Language, David Crystal further notes that the apparently “British” spelling “-ise” (as it “realise” etc) is obligatory in Australia, as opposed to optional in the UK (the London Times still has “-ize”) and unknown in North America. Australia, of course, has its own terms, some of which have made it back to the UK via soap operas and such like (but are perhaps unknown in North America) – for example, I received a text message the other day from an Ulsterman using the word “arvo”, an Aussie-ism for “afternoon”.

Southern African English is, for me, much more interesting, and not just because of my greater affinity to it having visited the country roughly once a year from 2000-8, and frequently before that also. It is of similar origin in some ways to Australian (and New Zealand), and to the untrained ear the accent can sound similar (perhaps in fact more similar to New Zealand than Australia). However, it is markedly different, largely because of its different setting (in Africa), and perhaps mainly due to influence from the (Dutch-derived) Afrikaans language. In the English of South Africa there is no particular “British” bias, with terms such as “cellphone” preferred to “mobile”, and also tag lines such as “you guys”; television is not South Africa’s strongest suit, it has to be said, and visitors could be forgiven for thinking it is almost entirely made up of American sitcoms, hence this tendency. However, intermixed with all of this are some seemingly peculiar/ingenious Afrikaans-isms, including “bakkie” (for pickup truck, these are more common in South Africa), “robot” for traffic light (hence the seemingly hilarious road sign “Robot Ahead”), and numerous delicious food items (as well as some, if fewer, not so delicious ones). Some Afrikaans terms, from “aardvark” to “trek”, have made it into Standard English both in the British Isles and North America.

Both Australian and South African English are notable also because of their lack of distinct regional accents, even over vast areas. You may be able to tell an Australian’s class from their speech, but not their geographic origin (at least, not with any certainty). This may change – New Zealand English was not regarded as clearly distinct from Australian phonologically until after World War Two, but is markedly different now (especially in pronunciations such as “fish and chips”). South Africa displays minor regional variation (though it is not well researched), seemingly somewhat dependent on the level of influence of Afrikaans (by far the dominant language among whites in the Cape in the west of the country, but almost unknown as a first language in KwaZulu-Natal in the east), and yet in such a large country speech remains remarkably uniform.

Coming from Northern Ireland, where accents are distinct every 20 miles or so, this regional commonality is astonishing, yet it reflects the common trend of “language introduction” (in the United States itself, while regional accents exist, displays considerably fewer proportionately than the UK).

Ultimately, varieties such as Australian and South African English are perhaps best approached in their own right, as opposed to via “British” or “American”.

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