The Strine language: "cozzies"

It was early in the morning, and I was listening to the radio in Australia when the news came on. "Hids of stite are mating in Seedney," the announcer said.

I got as far as deciphering "heads of state", but "mating"? Being a bit tired, I had to think for a minute. Maybe they weren't mating, but meeting? Of course. I was the latest tourist to be confused by the shifting of vowels down under. All of the vowels are pronounced differently than in Britain or America: even the o sounds French, and the u could use an umlaut. Not even my own name was spared: I had to get used to being called "Moikl".

Australian pronunciation and idioms are called "Strine". The name itself illustrates the accent: it's what the word "Australian" sounds like when a person from that country pronounces it really fast. Strine was sometimes a little confusing to the Europeans in my travel group, for whom English was a second or third language. Fortunately, most people in Australia are quite relaxed and speak relatively slowly, so that you get used to the pronunciation after a few days.

To the Australians, of course, I was the one with an accent, coming from America. But neither their accents nor mine stopped us from having hours of cheerful conversation. I probably had the easier time, because accents do not vary in Australia the way they do in Britain and the US. I took part in a conversation with people from Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Western Australia and Darwin at the same time, and they all sounded alike.

These Australians also confirmed that only a few little differences in speech might tell them where another Australian is from. Western Australians perhaps have longer vowels, they said; and words for a very few things vary from one part of the country to another. Whether you refer to swimming costumes as "swimmers", "cozzies" or "togs", for example, can reveal where you're from, or at least where you grew up. Australians tend to move around a lot.

You may need a little time to get used to a few Australian expressions. The first time someone asked "How're you going?", I didn't understand the question. I was indeed going somewhere, and I was tempted to answer: "By bus." Maybe the person really wanted to know what kind of vehicle I was waiting for. Cars and trains will take you across Northern Australia as well. But that was an odd way to start a conversation. Instead, she was simply asking "How is it going?" or "How are you doing?"

Then someone else asked me if I was all right. I admit I may have looked a bit confused. But the question had nothing to do with my state of health, or my state of mind. It was simply a way of finding out whether my needs were being taken care of. "No worries" is, of course, the answer to almost everything in Australia.