With a bit of the twang that seems to be so prominent in an Australian accent, is it possible that the prominent vocalist, Adele, is from Australia?
No, Adele is not from Australia. The famous singer is from England, in the United Kingdom. Although she is not Australian, you may have found that her accent is similar to an Australian accent. That is because a lot of people from certain parts of England immigrated to the island country in the nineteenth century.
You can read more below about Australia and why Adele’s accent sounds like it could be from there.
A Brief History of Australia & England
Australia is a country located in the South Pacific. It is not only a country, but also a continent. In 1770, British explorer James Cook charted the east coast of Australia for the English. After he returned, the decision was made to establish a colony in Botany Bay and the first fleet of ships arrived in 1788. The new colony was called New South Wales. They moved to an area that was called Sydney Cove and the colony was developed here. The area created an overall safer harbor and had a freshwater source. This became modern day Sydney, Australia.
The colonists were left with extreme hardship during the establishment of the country. This is because, from 1788 to 1868, the British were not only bringing people interested in colonizing this new land, they were also bringing along criminals. Among the first group of settlers were 778 criminals who had no skills that would be useful for colonization.
Over the eighty-year time period that England was sending criminals to Australia, there were approximately 161,700 convicts that went to Australia. Most of these convicts were from the working class and had committed multiple crimes. The reason England sent them to Australia was because of overcrowding in urban areas like London.
On January 1, 1901, Australia became its own country and the first federal elections were held in March of 1901.
The Australian Accent
It’s no surprise that the Australian accent is very close to some of the English dialects found in the United Kingdom, after all the country was colonized by the Brits. More specifically though, this similarity has to do with the working class criminals who were sent to Australia.
When the first generation of children were born in Australia, they developed an accent that was a mixture of all of the English dialects that were present in Australia. They were most heavily influenced by Irish and South East English accents. One of the influential dialects came from London’s working class; the dialect is known as Cockney.
Adele’s Accent
If you have heard Adele speak before, you may have noticed that she speaks with a combination of dialects. The most prevalent two are cockney and received pronunciation. Since she speaks a bit of the cockney dialect, it is easy to see why a lot of people would mistake her for Australian.
Although Adele isn’t’ Australian, the people in Australia really love her music. In 2017, when Adele toured the country down under, she sang to sold out stadium shows. This article in The Sydney Morning Herald, states that “Tickets, ranging from $100 to $800 – and much more if bought on the resale market – have sold out from the first show in Perth (65,000 people) to Sydney last weekend (a little under 200,000 across two nights) and Adelaide this week (another 70,000).”
You can watch a compilation video of all of Adele’s funny moments while on tour in Australia and New Zealand by clicking on the below YouTube link.
While Adele is not from Australia one thing is for certain: aussies are in just as much love with her as the rest of the world.