Dialects and Accents of Australia
The archive provides:
In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).
The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages, Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage), and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings), may be accessed from the menu bar to your right.
To access IDEA's sound files and documents, you will need an mp3 player, and Acrobat Reader, available free from Acrobat Reader.
If you are interested in specific information about Australia, please go to Yahoo's website at dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Australia/
For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here
please go to
Other Dialect Services
Dialect Samples
To properly play a sound sample, you may first need to save it to your own computer. To do so, right-click on the desired sample and save it. A high-speed connection to the internet may allow you to play the file simply by clicking it.| Sound Sample | Basic Information | Text Files |
|---|---|---|
| Australia One | Caucasian, female, late 40's, Melbourne | Australia One |
| Australia Two | Female, actress, dialectician, Queensland | Australia Two |
| Australia Three | Male student, 18, Melbourne | Australia Three Transcription |
| Australia Four | Male, actor, Southeast Queensland | Australia Four Phonetic Transcription |
| Australia Five | Female, day-care provider, Western Australia | Australia Five |
| Australia Six | Male, student, Sidney | Australia Six Transcription |
| Australia Seven | Male, student, aboriginal,Murray NSW | Australia Seven |
| Australia Eight | Female, Turkish-Greek parentage, Melbourne born and raised | Australia Eight |
| Australia Nine | Male, 50's, Polish emigre at age 10 | Australia Nine |
| Australia Ten | Female, twenties, student, Queensland, recorded via videoconference between University of Southern Queensland and the VASTA conference, August 2000, first use of lexical sets passage "Comma Gets a Cure" | Australia Ten |
| Australia Eleven | Female, born 1934, raised in Walleroo, has lived in Adelaide and England, hospitality industry | Australia Eleven |
| Australia Twelve | Male, born 1958, raised in Marseilles before moving to Sydney at age 9. First languages were French and Catalan. An exotic hybrid dialect. Works as a translator in Elx, Spain | Australia Twelve |
| Australia Thirteen | Female, born 1925, born and raised in Sydney | Australia Thirteen |
| Australia Fourteen | Female, born 1955, born and raised in Terang, Victoria | Australia Fourteen |
| Australia Fifteen | Female, born 1938 Warsaw, Poland. Moved to Australia age 11 | Australia Fifteen |
| Australia Sixteen | Male, born 1947 Wellington, NZ. Raised in Melbourne | Australia Sixteen |
| Australia Seventeen | female, born Scotland, moved to Tasmania at age 9 | Australia Seventeen |
| Australia Eighteen | female, born1950, Netherlands, raised in Penrith, NSW | Australia Eighteen |
| Australia Nineteen | female, born Holland, 1942, raised Penrith, NSW | Australia Nineteen |
| Australia Twenty | female, born 1986, Macksville, NSW | Australia Twenty |
| Australia Twenty-one | male, born 1980, Macksville, NSW, physician | Australia Twenty-one |