Where do you live? I’ve been amazed as an Australian in London to be taken as a South African. WHAT. My South African friends have been just as amazed my accent could be taken as that.
(insert paragraph about accents, inferential distance, cladistics applied to accent analysis, spotting an accent in a language not your native one, etc)
Cambridge, MA right now, but I’m a native speaker of Hiberno-English. Given more than a few sentences it is usually easy for me to distinguish between South African and Australian/New Zealander. I’m not sure if I regard the three as a cluster but there is definitely some kind of similarity, at least to Irish and UK ears.
I’m not exposed to enough New Zealander to be sure of the distinction between it and Australian, and I think there’s significant overlap especially among careful/educated/urban/middle-class speakers.
For reference I can distinguish and name about 5 North American accents (if they’re strong enough), about 10 UK ones, and about 12 Irish ones, maybe more.
Where do you live? I’ve been amazed as an Australian in London to be taken as a South African. WHAT. My South African friends have been just as amazed my accent could be taken as that.
(insert paragraph about accents, inferential distance, cladistics applied to accent analysis, spotting an accent in a language not your native one, etc)
Cambridge, MA right now, but I’m a native speaker of Hiberno-English. Given more than a few sentences it is usually easy for me to distinguish between South African and Australian/New Zealander. I’m not sure if I regard the three as a cluster but there is definitely some kind of similarity, at least to Irish and UK ears.
I’m not exposed to enough New Zealander to be sure of the distinction between it and Australian, and I think there’s significant overlap especially among careful/educated/urban/middle-class speakers.
For reference I can distinguish and name about 5 North American accents (if they’re strong enough), about 10 UK ones, and about 12 Irish ones, maybe more.