The Southern Hemisphere

As opposed to the New World, which was settled from the beginning of the 17th century onwards, the Southern Hemisphere was not populated with English settlers until the very end of the 18th century. There were many reasons for this, not least of which was the shorter range of ocean-going ships. With the opening up of South Africa, Australia and then New Zealand native-speaker English established itself at these locations. The conditions locally were different in each case, for instance in South Africa the region was already occupied by Dutch settlers from almost two centuries previously.

Varieties of English in the Southern Hemisphere sound fairly similar and can be distinguished from Northern Hemisphere varieties by (1) being non-rhotic, (2) having raised realisations of short front vowels in the TRAP, DRESS and KIT lexical sets and (3) by often having a lowered and retracted realisation of the diphthong in the FACE, PRICE and CHOICE lexical sets.

There are three major anglophone locations in the Southern Hemisphere, i.e. South Africa, Australia and then New Zealand, and two minor ones, i.e. the island of Tristan da Cunha in the central South Atlantic and the Falkland Islands.