Despite our short history in this country, we’ve managed to craft one of the most unique and desired accents in the world.

The Aussie accent is as distinct as it is hard to impersonate, and although many have tried, there are very few outsiders who can recreate the local twang.

So why is our accent the cause of so much debate?

Well, some say that Australians speak lazily, some say our accent developed from being constantly drunk or leaving our mouth open for flies, but today we’re speaking to someone who can debunk all these myths, and tell us the real story behind the way we sound.

Dr Howard Manns is a linguistics lecturer at Monash University and Drive spoke with him on Thursday