Australia has regional variation, but English has only been spoken here since British conquest 200 years ago, so there wasn't long for strong variation to devel

Australia has regional variation, but English has only been spoken here since British conquest 200 years ago, so there wasn't long for strong variation to develop before mass media connected people to the sound of voices from other places. There were some regional differences the mix of backgrounds of immigrants, but not to the extent that this occurred in the US or Canada - until after world war two, when large numbers of people began to migrate to Australia from countries other than UK and Ireland. I spent some of my childhood in Gippsland and some in inner city Melbourne in North Melbourne and the way we spoke was influenced by the large numbers of immigrant kids, especially Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, Chinese and Lebanese kids. I think professionally people code-switch to a neutral accent, but when people relax I think you can hear this influence in accents of people who grew up in areas with large immigrant populations, and that this variation is soaking into the mainstream, and shifting our idea of the neutral Australian accent, and the mix of ethnicities coming to Melbourne was a little different to those going to Sydney and I think you can hear it. So does she: https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/7166082455294758145 https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/71660824552947581...