Your problem is not a unique one. We have the same challenges up here betwixt the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. What sounds 'right' in Bahstun sounds comical in the Syowth and downright ignernt in the fawerr Wayest; and, of course, pure-dee Texis tawk is a werrruld unto itsayeff.

Some of us, when singing patrimonial music, cultivate a diction which resembles the best English choral tone. Some do not make this effort and settle for a nicely dictioned 'American' (or 'Amarkin') aesthetic. These might be two approaches for you to consider.

A jab that is often made by Latinists is the familiar 'but Latin has such beautiful vowels', the implication being that English has no vowels, and that if it does, they're ugly. Such thoughtless stupidity isn't worth the energy it would take to frown upon it.

English very well does have vowels, thank you! English English does. American Englishes do. And, I suspect, so does Australian English.

The point is: discover your vowels and consciously sing them with the same care with which you would sing Latin ones. English does, emphatically does, have vowels. They are just different from Latin ones. If you don't wish to (or can't) mimic the sound of King's College English, then concentrate on delivering Aussie English beautifully. If in a given bar of music the vowel you have to work with is the unseemly English 'uh' (or 'ih', or 'eh') then you must form that 'uh' (or 'ih', or 'eh') with raised palette, forward facial mask, and sing it with all the grace with which you would sing a Latin 'ah'. You needn't mimic the language of another geographical space. Discover the particular beauty of distinctly 'Aussie' vowels and consonants, and deliver them with grace and aplomb. There may be (probably are?) distinctly Aussie dipthongs. These are a challenge in any dialect. Always sing the first vowel quality for the duration of a note and sneak the second one in at the very very end of the note's value. Studying the diction of great English choirs (they may be heard aplenty on youtube) will give you guidance, but you needn't be copy cats. You can mimic the English cathedral choirs if you wish. Or, you can cultivate the most educated Australian English and sing it with authority.

(I was just reminded that you were asking about how to sing Latin with Australian tongues. Perhaps some of what I said will be helpful, perhaps even a propos. Stimson's advice is not only clever. It is good. The essential thing is to agree on vowel sound and to get everyone to blend with an identical sound. Everyone needs to think, shape, deliver, and hear the same sound. This is basic to good choral tone in Latin or any other language.)

The essential thing is to agree on vowel sound and to get everyone to blend with an identical sound.

My choir is comprised of many immigrants. I have people from India, the Philippines, the Caribbean Islands, Europe and of course Canada. This is the most difficult thing for some members because it requires such attention and yet it makes the biggest difference to a beautiful, blended sound.

Also, I have come to realize that I do not like the pronunciation of "e" at the end of Kyrie for example as "ay", but instead prefer the short vowel sound, "e" as in bed. Or "ray" in Israel, to "ra" as in rad. I find that the short sounds are easier to copy and they sound better to my ear.

I live in an area where 18th-century Scots/Irish/English accents and pronunciations are still common. Something blatant I will correct, but below that level, I tend to accept and live with those regional accents.

The idea of modeling after Italian works well.
With Latin, I ask my schola to use only 5 vowels, ah, eh, ee, oh, and oo, and to keep them as pure as possible.

As MJO illustrated, we have vowels in English, but in America we add a lot of diphthongs, and a lot of the spoken/sung single vowels aren't the written vowel. Case in point, many Americans pronounce 'God' with an 'ah' vowel sound, not 'oh' as the English do. I suspect similar things happen in Australian too.

I also keep an ear open for the American vowels creeping into Latin singing, especially when the Latin words look like English words, case in point 'consubstantialem.'

This is why chant needs to be taught to the youngest students. By the time we have reached 10, our vocal pallet is basically fixed. It takes a lot of effort after this time to learn new sounds. For example, my sister cannot trill her tongue. She wasn't exposed to that vocal sound until she was out of college. Of course, I pride myself in being bilingual. I speak East Texan as well as American English!

how do you train people to sing al le lu ia,
and not al le lu yuh?
... so far, wincing, and nagging, are not found to be effective techniques. :-)

In addition to phonic examples it is sometimes necessary to explain explicitly to your learners how to place the tongue, form the facial mask, to breathe diaphragmatically... Hearing the desired sound is often not enough. Their very tongues, lips, throats, and all, need sensitive education.

But after a few months' 'sensitive education', if it fails, beatings may commence.

dad -

Glaring was the absence of purple in your comment just above here!

Hmm, you may be onto something, Mme -
Perhaps for Advent a more gentle 'beating'
but for Lent an unmitigated flagellation!
What do you think?

>> Many people who (sadly, to my mind) wish to shed any trace of accent successfully

why sadly? we've had more than one new recruit who had listened to a lot of German recordings, and it took a very long time to shed the "z"

I say 'sadly', Mme., because I think people's accents are beautiful, they often deliver a better English than that of many of the 'natives'. They are nothing to be ashamed of.

Too, it's no more difficult to achieve a choral blend working with a French accent than it is working with a Texas one. Sometimes, depending on the accent, it is even easier.

Calling the Imperial Japanese Consulate several years ago to find where I might get a CD of kabuki music, I expected that familiar colourful and intelligent Japanese accent in my excited encounter with another fabled culture. Much to my surprise, the official to whom I spoke spoke with a flawless American business accent without a trace of Japanese character. I found this both extremely disappointing and sad - even loathsome and insinuating. To make matters worse, this official didn't even know what kabuki was! No! I don't at all like people who erase their heritage.

An Italian, or African, or Arabic, or Japanese or whatever accent is no more undesirable than a Southern or an New England one. Far from being something to be ashamed of, it is a badge of honour.

...Haymen for Ahmen, etc....

This is yet another occasion for that old saw: 'if I had a nickle for every time I...'.
In this event it is in response to those who (with oh such an air of authority!) insist that 'you' say 'ah-men' in a Latin text, and 'ay-men' (or worse, 'ay-mee-yin') within English texts. Both are deliriously incorrect and in need of being cast into the dust bin.

Amen, for the record, is neither Latin nor English, but Hebrew, and is always pronounced 'Ah-mehn'. I think that we all know that it means something on the order of 'so be it', or 'let it be so', etc. It should be uttered with a firm and unhesitant voice, confident spirit, even enthusiastically determined agreement - not, as in most Catholic churches, with a hardly audible, even timid, mumble.

In my life as an Episcopalian, then an Anglo-Catholic, then an Ordinariate Roman Catholic, I thought that no one except people like Baptists and Pentecostals ever said 'Aye-min', and that they did so because, well, they didn't know any better. Then. after crossing the Tiber I found, to my surprise and amusement, that even lots of highly educated Catholics were not so educated about the matter of the Amen. Remember: Amen is not Latin, nor is it ever English, but it is always Hebrew, and always 'Ah-mehn'.

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I'm fascinated by ajplafond's Meennasootah-isms. They sound almost as challenging to a choirmaster as some Southern-isms and Texas-isms. I'm sure that some New England-isms can be equally challenging (not to mention Allegheny-isms!). In this vast land of ours, many dialects which are very challenging to those of us who are choral directors. It is a small consolation that there are, yet, parts of England whose accents are literally unintelligeable to Londoners or others.

Basically, I think, unless we actually do wish for our choirs to sound like King's (and have the willing and able choristers to do it), we accept the fundamentals of regional accents as they are, only wishing to 'tame' certain really awful habits such as uglily sounded Rs and that bane of good euphony, the flat and ungracious American A, as in 'hat', which needs always to be rounded into something near-to-but-not-quite an 'ah'. Focusing on mitigating, or de-fanging, certain really awful-sounding vowels and sloppy consonants, nasal horrors, and a plenitude of 'illegal' diphthongs, one can work with the language of the 'natives' and make of it a beautiful choral whole.

Interesting that this started with "how do I work with a priest who sings the epistle in his natural accent" - and jumped immediately into working with choir members.

With a choir, yes, you do have to get people to sound the same. But a priest, who is singing solo - and so for whom the approach of listening to what everyone else does isn't going to work - what's wrong with just having him sound like himself?

I’m loving the suggestions for Italian... he speaks Italian... with an Aussie accent haha. (So do I... come to think about it, despite lygon street being so full of Italian culture.)

Okay so yes, that is exactly right, he's not in a Choir so why bother with the sound? Well, here's what I think. If I were to sing Latin in my natural accent people would think a galah had fallen out of a tree. Just like in public speaking I believe in refining the way I sing chant to something that both carries, is pleasant to listen to and understandable. I have to constantly revise all three.

We worked together using a bone prop and that went really well for clearing the twangy sounds. One of his other issues, like many from his particular ordination vintage(?) is that the vocal instructor of his era taught just about all the seminarians in that day to sing like yogi bear, with their tongue in the back of their throat, this both hinders the carrying of the sound, the accent makes it unpleasant or unnerving to listen to and the combination of the former make for lack of clarity.

He asked me for help and that’s the first thing I can think of to work on.

As for my Choir I’ve worked on singing the alphabet as letters and then sounds to achieve a more uniform sound together. On a slimier scale I sometimes get the choristers to all hold their tongues and sing which makes them sound like Daffy Duck but when they return to normal the sound is exponentially thicker. I’m still curious how to get the more twangy sounds out of some of my youngsters but we're working on that.

Do I want a "king's" sound? Hmmm, no. I love kings but I don’t want to make my Choir that, even though there are aspects I’d like my Choir to model. I have found that in order to create an ooh sound that is acceptable that kings is referred to and understood. In Victoria it is easy to refer to a well known suburb, Brighton, which is known of as the "posh suburb" due to the house prices. It is assumed that most people from there have studied grammar school style elocution. (Which incidentally I was made to study as a kid because of my tendency to sound very Aussie and my grandma is English.) so a tip I use for the ooh sound is to tell the Choir to pretend they are owls on the streets of Brighton singing very posh oooh's in the trees at midnight. Sounds mad but it really works! Now when ooh comes up I flap my owl wings and the Choir responds. 1 vowel down, 176 to go it seems!

Is the word inherently Hebrew or Aramaic?

Amein, unless...

Yes, and I've heard 'ah-meen' at some orthodox liturgies at Annunciation Cathedral in Houston. Could this be a typical 'Greek' pronunciation? Charles???

...Old Church Slavonic...

I just thought of (aided by Chuck!) the perfect nomenclature for traditional Anglican liturgical English - Old Church English. (Hmmm.)