South Australians are sometimes told they sound a bit posh, or a little more British than other Aussies.

Like 30-year-old Adelaidean-turned-Melbournian, Jarrad Barrett.

He's been told he sounds more English and even more South African than Australian.

"When I moved to Melbourne, people were making fun of me because I didn't sound Aussie," he said.

"I'd say I was from Adelaide and people would always say: 'That's why'."

Jarrad asked the ABC's Curious Adelaide team to investigate why South Australians have a different accent to the rest of the country.

Do South Australians really have an accent?

Some language experts believe South Australians sound a bit more British than other Aussies. ( AAP )

It's fairly well-accepted that South Australians speak a little differently to people from other parts of the country.

But the question as to whether they actually have a separate accent isn't settled.

Emeritus Professor and language expert Roly Sussex said he believed South Australians did have an accent — just not an overly obvious one.

"There are two aspects of it which are recognised as being typical of South Australia," he said.

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Professor Sussex said the way South Australians make 'A' and 'L' sounds are distinguishing markers of the local lingo.

"When you hear those sounds in another state you'll think 'this person comes from Adelaide'," he said.

For example, South Australians will say the word 'chance' with an 'ah' sound, whereas interstaters are probably more inclined to make the 'A' sound used in the word 'ant'.

But Dr Melissa Agnew doesn't think that's enough to qualify as a distinct accent.

She's worked as a vocal coach and an accent and dialect teacher for more than 30 years.

"I have heard from a number of people this idea that they speak in a posh way because they are from South Australia, as though the two things are a sort of cause-and-effect relationship," Ms Agnew said.

"Everyone in this country speaks a variety of Australian English, but I don't think that you could really say that South Australians speak a special dialect that's very distinct from the rest of the country."

So, the answer depends on how you define 'accent'. But experts agree, at least, that there are indeed some differences.

Does history have anything to do with it?

Quite possibly, but it's impossible to know for sure.

There's a theory that the state's first European inhabitants — who were free settlers, not convicts — may have caused more "proper" or "British" pronunciations to stick around.

"It's an attractive theory, but unfortunately we have no audio data from early on," Professor Sussex said.

"Trying to work out cause and effect in language change like this is extraordinarily difficult.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield is considered a key figure in the early colonisation of South Australia and New Zealand. ( Wikimedia Commons )

"[Free settlers] may have had some influence on it, after all Wakefield (one of South Australia's founders) went to Christchurch in New Zealand and they share the (longer, rounded) 'ah' vowel as well.

"But Wakefield was actually a convicted felon who wrote a lot of his plans while he was in prison, so I'm afraid that doesn't quite wash."

Flinders University Emeritus Professor Andy Butcher is an expert in phonetics, the study of speech sounds.

He's previously told RN the differences could also have something to do with South Australia historically having fewer Irish settlers than the eastern states.

"We have Scottish, we have German, we have Cornish but we don't have a lot of Irish [heritage], not so much as you would have got in Sydney and later in Melbourne," he said.

Are there different Aussie accents?

Steve Irwin's speech was defined by a stereotypically broad Australian sound. ( Supplied )

According to linguists, there are three main kinds of Aussie accent: 'broad' (think former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who was born in Bordertown in SA), 'general' (closer to Kevin Rudd) and 'cultivated' (like Malcolm Fraser).

"There is some evidence that we are assimilating towards the middle and I think there are probably fewer people of the sort of upper [cultivated] Australian English than we used to have," Professor Sussex said.

Dr Melissa Agnew pointed out there were significant differences between urban and rural accents as well.

"Rural accents, they're much slower and have broader sounds," she said.

"There's a faster rate of speech and often narrower sounds in the city, and more jagged intonation patterns (greater variation in pitch).

"But you'll always get people who'll buck that trend."

Why aren't we more like the UK or US?

Australian accents vary very little, compared with the strong regional accents found across the UK and US.

England, especially, is hugely rich in speech diversity.

Liverpool's Scouse accent, for example, is markedly different to Manchester's, yet the two cities are only 50 kilometres apart.

"Britain has had people living there for thousands of years and when you live in a single place, those are the conditions where you get local speech habits," Professor Sussex said.

"Until a couple of hundred years ago people usually didn't move more than 20 miles from their place of birth.

"In Australia, we were settled late, and then in 1851 we had the Gold Rush and that turned us into a country of travellers.

"That meant that instead of having little clumps of people in one place, you had a lot of itinerant folks."

So even though we're a very large country with geographically separate populations, the Australian states never had enough time to develop distinct accents.

It's more about vocabulary

Bung fritz and Frog Cakes are terms unique to South Australia. ( ABC Radio Adelaide and Balfours Bakery )

Far more significant differences in Australian speech can be found in state and territory vocabularies, Professor Sussex suggested.

"There are, of course, the differences between swimmers and togs and various other words for the things we go swimming in," he said.

"Stobie poles are only found in South Australia. There are also things like Frog Cakes — those things which have green icing on the top and are shaped like a frog.

"You also have that substance called 'fritz', which is luncheon meat ... and which is known by other names in other states."

Victorians will tell you it's called 'devon'. (Bizarre, we know.)

Why do South Australians sound posher?

SA MP Christopher Pyne is sometimes parodied for his unique voice. ( ABC News: Adam Kennedy )

It's safe to say South Australians have pronunciation 'variants' or 'preferences' — features you could liken to an accent, if you wanted to.

The differences could be a product of SA's history.

And, of course, it's normal for children to imitate their parents and teachers, generation-to-generation.

But the differences are only slight and they don't stop at the border.

"It isn't defined by the state's boundaries and there are people all over Australia who talk like South Australians, but aren't," Professor Sussex said.