Ralph commented on his perceptions of the pronunciation of Australians, and asked for further information regarding the settlement of our country, after Keely implied that all Australians form sentences with a final upward inflection.
It is clear that neither of them has met many, if any, Australians, and their sweeping assumptions and unprovoked statements were both unnecessary and inaccurate.
If Ralph ever decides to test his belief that Australians sound like East Enders, I invite him to travel to our rather large part of the world and try to find anyone other than transplanted Londoners who sound remotely Cockney. As for Keely, may I suggest that he or she stops relying on soap operas for his or her education in things Australian.
Ralph, before you again start spouting such words as "playground for desperados", please be so good as to read a few history books: yes, convicts from England were sent to Australia; yes, a few of them had been convicted of crimes considered relatively major at the time, but most were the sort of "desperados" who had stolen the odd loaf of bread to feed their children. Don't forget, Ralph (or rather go to the trouble of learning some facts), that the death penalty was then exacted for a variety of what are now considered minor offences, as well as for murder and major larceny. Very few real criminals were transported, as they were summarily executed, but an enormous number of English and Irish, of both the starving and the political prisoner categories were sent here.
Only a tiny proportion of Australians has convict ancestry, Ralph. The large injections of immigrants arrived as free settlers following first the gold rushes which began in the 1850s, after convict transportation had ceased, then during the rapid expansion which took place thereafter for seventy-odd years, and again after World War II, when many Europeans, led by the English but including hundreds of thousands of continental Europeans displaced or unsettled by that unnecessary conflict arrived on our shores.
I don't know, Ralph, whether everyone in your country, whichever it is, speaks your language, whatever it is, in exactly the same way, but let me inform you that not everyone in Australia speaks English similarly. You imply that you are aware that East Enders speak differently from others in the UK, so why do you assume that all Aussies speak similarly?
As you do assume that, please allow me to disabuse you of that erroneous conviction. In this country, Ralph, how well one speaks is determined much more by one's upbringing and education than by the fact that several thousand unfortunate Poms from the East End landed here two hundred years ago. In Australia, Ralph, we vary. No doubt this will be a great disappointment to you, but the fact is that most of us speak in a way very similar to what was not long ago called Southern British.
No doubt, Ralph, the speech of some of my countrymen is less than perfect, but to compare the speech of even the least educated of them to that of a Cockney is to make almost as ignorant a statement as is possible. Cockneys employ the glottal stop; Australians do not. Cockneys say "chahnce" for "chance"; Australians do not. By all means criticise our English when you have perfected yours, Ralph, but when you do, please attempt to make your criticisms accurate.
Finally, don't forget that Australia is the largest English-speaking country other than the UK which has not become Americanised, either in its pronunciation or its spelling of English. We also play cricket, rugby league and union, and drive on the correct side of the road.
