Drunk Australian Accent

One of the consequences of living abroad is that I lose track of which news stories are creating a buzz back home.  Even though I read the same Internet everyone else does, sometimes it's hard to tell which of the 100s of news stories people actually are paying attention to.  Which stories get talked about at the water cooler, and which stories get overlooked?

(That, plus I think many websites actually do adjust their newsfeeds depending on which area of the world you access them from.  Accessing Yahoo newsfeed here in Southeast Asia probably contains some different stories than accessing it from within the United States.)

The recent news story on the Australian accent being a result of drunk Australian settlers has been a popular topic of conversation over here at my workplace.  (The story is all over the Internet, but I first encountered it at uproxx.com--Drunk Ancestors Might Be Responsible for Aussie Accent). 

 Is this story catching people's attention back home as well, or not?

It's the kind of story that is at the same time very surprising, and also not at all surprising, depending on how you look at it.

It's surprising, because in terms of linguistic trends it's about 70 years out of date.

It used to be common to regard non-standard dialects and accents as the result of laziness, or stupidity.  For example, African American Vernacular English was at one time (70 years ago) thought to be simply the result of the laziness and stupidity of its speakers.  But then linguists began realizing that African American Vernacular English had it's own system of rules that, although different from Standard American English, were consistent in their own right, and every bit as complex as any other language system.

The same is true for numerous dialects of English in Britain that were once considered to be inferior.

So it's a bit surprising in this day and age for a linguist to propose that the Australian accent is a result of poor articulation and drunkenness.  It's a huge step backwards in terms of linguistic trends.

The fact that the theory comes from Australia itself appears to lend it credibility, until you consider that in Australia there is a large degree of class snobbery based around accent.  (Not quite as bad as in England, but a similar idea.)  And so well-educated Australians who speak in a refined accent look down on Australians who speak with a more broad accent.  The people who hate the stereotypical broad Australian accent the most are other Australians.

And yet, on the other hand...

In this day and age of click-bait Internet news, and viral stories, it's probably not at all surprising that something as click-bait worthy as this would immediately sweep the Internet.

However, serious linguists are already ridiculing the idea.  

David Crystal (whose book on language I recently enjoyed) demolishes the whole concept very thoroughly in this article here:

A few choice words in response to reports about drunken Australian accents

Nevertheless, despite the fact that I know the whole thing is nonsense, I've still been having fun teasing my Australian co-workers.  "Are you drunk?  Or are you just speaking with an Australian accent?  I can't tell the difference."  (They're rapidly getting sick of this joke, but I think I'm going to keep it going for at least a couple more weeks.)