"Oy, mate! Let's have a barbie!"
Big things have been done with a buzz on. Superconductors have been improved upon; airlines have been created; wars have been won. And, in a recent article in The Age, it’s pointed out that the world’s fourth most attractive language may have also been a result of drinking.
Dean Frenkel, a tutor and lecturer at Victoria University in Melbourne, points out that although the country’s accent has Aboriginal, English, Irish, and German origins, some of the early speakers may have been pretty turnt up during the early years. He even goes as far as linking certain pronunciations to general krunkedness.
In The Independent Mr. Frenkel said: “Missing consonants can include missing ‘t’s (Impordant), ‘l’s (Austraya) and ‘s’s (yesh), while many of our vowels are lazily transformed into other vowels, especially ‘a’s to ‘e’s (stending) and ‘i’s (New South Wyles) and “i”s to “oi”s (noight).”
Frenkel is a bold man and holds nothing back in his assessment of his native tongue: “Given that articulation is a functional product of our neuro-muscular network, it is possible that our national speech impediment is a symptom of inferior brain functioning.”
"This is how a unique accent develops!"
He does specify that the current population is not to blame — rather, it’s their sauced up ancestors. “For the past two centuries, from generation to generation, drunken Aussie-speak continues to be taught by sober parents to children.”
Frenkel’s purpose in all of this is to encourage his countryman to better themselves and pave the way for neurological growth. “We must reclaim rhetoric as an important fixture of Australian culture, teach it to all students in our schools and raise our standards of communication. Australia, it is no longer acceptable to be smarter than we sound.”
Although Frenkel might have a point, it’s going to be hard to stop drunk Americans from imitating drunk Australians (whose ancestors were also drunk). Thus, we find ourselves in a descending drunk accent spiral.
