Audible minorities

Saying goodbye to the Australian High Commissioner's wife Kerry last Tuesday morning (at the Guyanese High Commissioner's house), some of us broached the subject of the Australian accent, and to my surprise, for I hadn't realised this, Kerry told us that you can't tell from people's voices in Australia which part of the country they come from. Yet Australia is a huge land mass! The uniformity must be partly because (for English-speakers at least) the country is so young, but even so, I find it puzzling and wonder whether regional accents and dialects other than "Strine" will emerge as time goes by.

I followed this up with George afterwards, ensconced in his observation tower at Parkes at the end of a monotonous night-shift therefore glad of a distraction on our Skype link, and he said there was a difference between the voices of city dwellers and country people, but he agreed with Kerry that there don't seem to be any regional differences.

I was also interested in what Emma told me the other day about walking through Daejeon in Korea the day before her conference began. She said,

It’s the first time I’ve been to a country where I look different from the local population. I was expecting to feel awkward about this, but actually it makes some things easier. For while in France, Italy or Russia people expect you to speak and understand their language, here there is no pressure – they take one look at you and know that you are going to struggle. I bet it’s frustrating if you did speak Korean, but for me it makes life simpler.

Chris and I were indulging in some pleasant escapism by watching our dvd of The Ashes this week. Great cricket, and great entertainment, the sports commentators and players speaking in their distinctive lingo. It does strike me though how alike the two teams are, ditto their voices. (Sorry, fellas, but from this distance that's how you seem to me!) If someone unfamiliar with cricket watched the video it would take them a while to tell which side was which. In fact we did this experiment with three of our Canadian friends last night and they hadn't a clue. Nor did they find the game as gripping as we do, more's the pity.