Australian English
Australian English is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. Although English has no official status in the Constitution, Australian English is the country's national and de facto official language as it is the first language of the majority of the population.
Australian English began to diverge from British English after the First Settlers, who set up the Colony of New South Wales, arrived in 1788. By 1820, their speech was recognised as being different from British English. Australian English arose from the intermingling of early settlers, who were from a great variety of mutually intelligible dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland, and quickly developed into a distinct variety of English which differs considerably from most other varieties of English in vocabulary, accent, pronunciation, register, grammar and spelling.
History
The earliest form of Australian English was spoken by the children of the colonists in early New South Wales. This first generation of native-born children created a new dialect that was to become the language of the nation. The Australian-born children in the new colony were exposed to a wide range of dialects from all over the British Isles, in particular from Ireland and South East England.The native-born children in the colony created the new dialect from the speech they heard around them, and with it expressed peer solidarity. Even when new settlers arrived, this new dialect was strong enough to blunt other patterns of speech.
A quarter of the convicts were Irish. Many had been arrested in Ireland, and some in Great Britain. Many of the Irish spoke Irish and either no English at all, or spoke it poorly and rarely. There were other significant populations of convicts from non-English speaking parts of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands and Wales.
Records from the early 19th century show this distinct dialect in the colonies after the first settlement in 1788. Peter Miller Cunningham's 1827 book Two Years in New South Wales, described the distinctive accent and vocabulary of the native-born colonists, that differed from that of their parents and with a strong London influence. Linguist Anthony Burgess considered that "Australian English may be thought of as a kind of fossilised Cockney of the Dickensian era."
saw many external influences on the language.
The first of the Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, began a large wave of immigration, during which about two per cent of the population of the United Kingdom emigrated to the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. According to linguist Bruce Moore, "the major input of the various sounds that went into constructing the Australian accent was from south-east England".
Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been adopted by Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna and local culture. Many such are localised, and do not form part of general Australian use, while others, such as kangaroo, boomerang, budgerigar, wallaby and so on have become international. Other examples are cooee and hard yakka. The former is used as a high-pitched call, for attracting attention, which travels long distances. Cooee is also a notional distance: if he's within cooee, we'll spot him. Hard yakka means hard work and is derived from yakka, from the Jagera/Yagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region.
Also of Aboriginal origin is the word bung, from the Sydney pidgin English, meaning "dead", with some extension to "broken" or "useless". Many towns or suburbs of Australia have also been influenced or named after Aboriginal words. The best-known example is the capital, Canberra, named after a local Ngunnawal language word meaning "meeting place".
Among the changes starting in the 19th century were the introduction of words, spellings, terms and usages from North American English. The words imported included some later considered to be typically Australian, such as bushwhacker and squatter.
This American influence continued with the popularity of American films and the influx of American military personnel in World War II; seen in the enduring persistence of such terms as okay, you guys and gee.
Phonology and pronunciation
The most obvious way in which Australian English is distinctive from other varieties of English is through its unique pronunciation. It shares most similarity with New Zealand English. Like most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.Vowels
The vowels of Australian English can be divided according to length. The long vowels, which include monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to the tense vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation as well as its centring diphthongs. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, correspond to the RP lax vowels. There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English, though not unknown elsewhere, such as in regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in the US. As with New Zealand English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in Australian English: unstressed is merged into , unless it is followed by a velar consonant.Consonants
There is little variation in the sets of consonants used in different English dialects but there are variations in how these consonants are used. Australian English is no exception.Australian English is non-rhotic; that is, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. However, a linking can occur when a word that has a final
There is some degree of allophonic variation in the alveolar stops. As with North American English, Intervocalic alveolar flapping is a feature of Australian English: prevocalic and surface as the alveolar tap after sonorants other than as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel in the same breath group. The wine–whine merger is complete in Australian English.
Yod-dropping occurs after, and,. Other cases of and, along with and, have coalesced to,, and respectively for many speakers. is generally retained in other consonant clusters.
In common with most varieties of Scottish English and American English, the phoneme is pronounced as a "dark" L in all positions, unlike other dialects such as Received Pronunciation and Hiberno English, where a light L is used in many positions.
Pronunciation
Differences in stress, weak forms and standard pronunciation of isolated words occur between Australian English and other forms of English, which while noticeable do not impair intelligibility.The affixes -ary, -ery, -ory, -bury, -berry and -mony can be pronounced either with a full vowel or a schwa. Although some words like necessary are almost universally pronounced with the full vowel, older generations of Australians are relatively likely to pronounce these affixes with a schwa while younger generations are relatively likely to use a full vowel.
Words ending in unstressed -ile derived from Latin adjectives ending in -ilis are pronounced with a full vowel, so that fertile rhymes with fur tile rather than turtle.
In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to seemingly random words. For example, as with American English, the vowel in yoghurt and the prefix homo- is pronounced as rather than ; vitamin, migraine and privacy are pronounced with rather than, and respectively; the prefix paedo- is pronounced with /ɛ/ rather than ; urinal is stressed on the first syllable and pronounced with schwa rather than the second syllable and ; and harass and harassment are pronounced with the stress on the second, rather than the first syllable. As with British English, advertisement is stressed on the second syllable and pronounced with ; tomato and vase are pronounced with instead of ; zebra is pronounced with /ɛ/ rather than ; basil is pronounced with rather than ; and buoy is pronounced as rather than. Examples of miscellaneous pronunciations which contrast with both standard American and British usages are data, which is pronounced with instead of ; maroon, pronounced with as opposed to ; and cache, pronounced with as opposed to.
Variation
Academic research has shown that the most notable variation within Australian English is largely sociocultural. This is mostly evident in phonology, which is divided into three sociocultural varieties: broad, general and cultivated.A limited range of word choices is strongly regional in nature. Consequently, the geographical background of individuals can be inferred, if they use words that are peculiar to particular Australian states or territories and, in some cases, even smaller regions.
In addition, some Australians speak creole languages derived from Australian English, such as Australian Kriol, Torres Strait Creole and Norfuk.
Sociocultural
The broad, general and cultivated accents form a continuum that reflects minute variations in the Australian accent. They can reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of speakers, though such indicators are not always reliable. According to linguists, the general Australian variant emerged some time before 1900. Recent generations have seen a comparatively smaller proportion of the population speaking with the broad variant, along with the near extinction of the cultivated Australian accent. The growth and dominance of general Australian accents perhaps reflects its prominence on radio and television during the late 20th century.Australian Aboriginal English is made up of a range of forms which developed differently in different parts of Australia, and are said to vary along a continuum, from forms close to Standard Australian English to more non-standard forms. There are distinctive features of accent, grammar, words and meanings, as well as language use.
The ethnocultural dialects are diverse accents in Australian English that are spoken by the minority groups, which are of non-English speaking background. A massive immigration from Asia has made a large increase in diversity and the will for people to show their cultural identity within the Australian context. These ethnocultural varieties contain features of General Australian English as adopted by the children of immigrants blended with some non-English language features, such as Afro-Asiatic languages and languages of Asia.
Regional variation
Although Australian English is relatively homogeneous, there are some regional variations. The dialects of English spoken in South Australia, Western Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland and the Torres Strait Islands differ slightly in vocabulary and phonology.Most regional differences are in word usage. Swimming clothes are known as cossies or swimmers in New South Wales, togs in Queensland, and bathers in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. What Queensland and New South Wales call a stroller is usually called a pram in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. Preference for some synonymous words also differ between states. Garbage dominates over rubbish in New South Wales and Queensland, while rubbish is more popular in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. The word footy generally refers to the most popular football code in an area; that is, rugby league or rugby union depending on the local area, in most of New South Wales and Queensland, and Australian rules football elsewhere. Beer glasses are also named differently in different states. Distinctive grammatical patterns exist such as the use of the interrogative eh, which is particularly associated with Queensland.
There are some notable regional variations in the pronunciations of certain words. The trap‑bath split is more complete in South Australia, which had later direct settlement from the British Isles than other parts of the country, which were settled while the trap-bath split was more substantially incomplete. Words such as dance, advance, plant, graph, example and answer are pronounced with far more frequently in South Australia while elsewhere in Australia the older is more common. L-vocalisation is also more common in South Australia than other states. In Western Australian and Queensland English, the vowels in near and square are typically realised as centring diphthongs, whereas in the other states they may also be realised as monophthongs. A feature common in Victorian English is salary–celery merger, whereby a Victorian pronunciation of Ellen may sound like Alan and Victoria's capital city Melbourne may sound like Malbourne to speakers from other states. There is also regional variation in before .
Vocabulary
Intrinsic traits
Australian English has many words and idioms which are unique to the dialect and have been written on extensively, with the Macquarie Dictionary 4th Edition incorporating numerous Australian terms.Internationally well-known examples of Australian terminology include outback, meaning a remote, sparsely populated area, the bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general, and g'day, a greeting. Dinkum, or fair dinkum means "true" or "is that true?", among other things, depending on context and inflection. The derivative dinky-di means "true" or devoted: a "dinky-di Aussie" is a "true Australian".
Australian poetry, such as "The Man from Snowy River", as well as folk songs such as "Waltzing Matilda", contain many historical Australian words and phrases that are understood by Australians even though some are not in common usage today.
Australian English, in common with British English, uses the word mate.
Several words used by Australians were at one time used in the United Kingdom but have since fallen out of usage or changed in meaning there. For example, creek in Australia, as in North America, means a stream or small river, whereas in the UK it means a small watercourse flowing into the sea; paddock in Australia means field, whereas in the UK it means a small enclosure for livestock; bush or scrub in Australia, as in North America, means a wooded area, whereas in England they are commonly used only in proper names.
Litotes, such as "not bad", "not much" and "you're not wrong", are also used, as are diminutives, which are commonly used and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some common examples are arvo, barbie, smoko, Aussie, Straya and pressie. This may also be done with people's names to create nicknames. For example, "Gazza" from Gary, or "Smitty" from John Smith. The use of the suffix -o originates in ó, which is both a postclitic and a suffix with much the same meaning as in Australian English.
In informal speech, incomplete comparisons are sometimes used, such as "sweet as". "Full", "fully" or "heaps" may precede a word to act as an intensifier. This was more common in regional Australia and South Australia but has been in common usage in urban Australia for decades. The suffix "-ly" is sometimes omitted in broader Australian English. For instance, "really good" can become "real good".
Australia's switch to the metric system in the 1970s changed most of the country's vocabulary of measurement from imperial to metric measures. Since the switch to metric, heights of individuals are listed in centimetres on official documents such as a driver's licence and distances by road on signs are listed in terms of kilometres and metres.
Comparison with other varieties
Where British and American English vocabulary differs, in different circumstances Australian English favours:- A usage which is different from both varieties, as with footpath ; capsicum ; lollies ; doona ; or ice block/icy pole
- A usage which is shared with British English, as with mobile phone ; or bonnet
- A usage which is shared with American English, as with truck ; or eggplant
In addition to the large number of uniquely Australian idioms in common use, there are instances of idioms taking different forms in Australian English than in other varieties, for instance:
- A drop in the ocean as opposed to US a drop in the bucket
- A way to go as opposed to US a ways to go
- Home away from home as opposed to UK home from home
- Take with a grain of salt as opposed to UK take with a pinch of salt
- Touch wood as opposed to US knock on wood
- Wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole as opposed to UK wouldn't touch with a barge pole
Terms ascribed different meanings in Australian English
- Asian in Australian and US usage commonly refers to people of East Asian ancestry, while in British English it commonly refers to people of South Asian ancestry
- Biscuit in Australian and UK usage refers to both US cookie and cracker, while in American English it refers to a leavened bread product
- Chips refers both to UK crisps and to US French fries
- Football in Australian English refers to Australian rules football, Rugby league or Rugby union. UK football is commonly referred to as soccer, while US football is referred to as gridiron
- Gammon in both forms ostensibly refers to a cut of pork, but in British English slang it is synonymous with a middle aged redneck; in Australian English slang it is used to indicate irony or sarcasm.
- Pants in Australian and US usage refers to UK trousers, but in British English refer to Australian English underpants
- Public school in Australian and US usage refers to a state school. Australian English uses private school to mean a non-government or independent school, in contrast with British English which uses public school to refer to the same thing.
- Pudding in Australian and US usage refers to a particular sweet dessert, while in British English it can refer to dessert in general
- Prawn in Australian English refers both to large and small crustaceans, while in British English it refers to large crustaceans and in American English the term shrimp is used universally for large and small crustaceans
- Thong in both US and UK usage refers to Australian English G-string, while in Australian English it refers to US and UK flip-flop
- Vest in Australian and US usage refers to UK waistcoat but in British English refers to Australian English singlet
British English terms not commonly used in Australian English
American English terms not commonly used in Australian English
A non-exhaustive list of American English terms not commonly found in Australian English include:Grammar
As with American English, but unlike British English, collective nouns are almost always singular in construction, e.g., the government was unable to decide as opposed to the government were unable to decide. Shan't, the negation of shall as in I shan't be happy if..., the use of haven't any instead of haven't got any and the use of don't let's in place of let's not, common in upper-register British English, are almost never encountered in Australian English. River generally follows the name of the river in question as in North America, i.e., Darling River, rather than the British convention of coming before the name, e.g., River Thames. In South Australia however, the British convention applies—for example, the River Murray or the River Torrens. As with American English, on the weekend and studied medicine are used rather than the British at the weekend and read medicine. Similarly, around is more commonly used in constructions such as running around, stomping around or messing around in contrast with the British convention of using about.In common with British English, the past tense and past participles of the verbs learn, spell and smell are often irregular. Similarly, in Australian usage, the to in I'll write to you is retained, as opposed to US usage where it may be dropped. While prepositions before days may be omitted in American English, i.e., She resigned Thursday, they are retained in Australian English, as in British English: She resigned on Thursday. Ranges of dates use to, i.e., Monday to Friday, as with British English, rather than Monday through Friday in American English. When saying or writing out numbers, and is inserted before the tens, i.e., one hundred and sixty-two, as with British practice. However Australians, like Americans, are more likely to pronounce numbers such as 1,200 as twelve hundred, rather than one thousand two hundred. When referring to time, Australians will refer to 10:30 as half past ten and do not use the British half ten. Similarly, a quarter to ten is used for 9:45 rather than the American quarter of ten.
Spelling and style
As in most English-speaking countries, there is no official governmental regulator or overseer of normative spelling and grammar. The Macquarie Dictionary is used by some universities and some other organisations as a standard for Australian English spelling. The Style Manual: For Authors, Editors and Printers, the Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage and the Australian Guide to Legal Citation are prominent style guides.Australian spelling is closer to British than American spelling. As with British spelling, the u is retained in words such as colour, honour, labour and favour. While the Macquarie Dictionary lists the -our ending and follows it with the -or ending as an acceptable variant, the latter is rarely found in actual use today. Australian print media, including digital media, today strongly favour -our endings. A notable exception to this rule is the Australian Labor Party, which officially adopted the -or spelling in its name in 1912, after a period where both spellings seem to have been used indiscriminately. Consistent with British spellings, -re, rather than -er, is the only listed variant in Australian dictionaries in words such as theatre, centre and manoeuvre. Unlike British English, which is split between -ise and -ize in words such as organise and realise, with -ize favoured by the Oxford English Dictionary and -ise listed as a variant, -ize is rare in Australian English and designated as a variant by the Macquarie Dictionary. Ae and oe are often maintained in words such as manoeuvre and paedophilia ; however, the Macquarie Dictionary lists forms with e as acceptable variants and notes a tendency within Australian English towards using only e.
Individual words where the preferred spelling is listed by the Macquarie Dictionary as being different from the British spellings include "program" as opposed to "programme", "analog" as opposed to "analogue", "livable" as opposed to "liveable", "guerilla" as opposed to "guerrilla", "verandah" as opposed to "veranda", "burqa" as opposed to "burka", "pastie" as opposed to "pasty". Unspaced forms such as "onto", "anytime", "alright" and "anymore" are also listed as being as acceptable as their spaced counterparts.
Different spellings have existed throughout Australia's history. A pamphlet entitled The So-Called "American Spelling", published in Sydney some time in the 19th century, argued that "there is no valid etymological reason for the preservation of the u in such words as honor, labor, etc." The pamphlet also claimed that "the tendency of people in Australasia is to excise the u, and one of the Sydney morning papers habitually does this, while the other generally follows the older form." What are today regarded as American spellings were popular in Australia throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the Victorian Department of Education endorsing them into the 1970s and The Age newspaper until the 1990s. This influence can be seen in the spelling of the Australian Labor Party and also in some place names such as Victor Harbor. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary has been attributed with re-establishing the dominance of the British spellings in the 1920s and 1930s. For a short time during the late 20th century, Harry Lindgren's 1969 spelling reform proposal gained some support in Australia: in 1975, the Australian Teachers' Federation adopted SR1 as a policy. SR1 calls for the short sound to be spelt with E.
Both single and double quotation marks are in use, with logical punctuation. Spaced and unspaced em-dashes remain in mainstream use, as with American and Canadian English. The DD/MM/YYYY date format is followed and the 12-hour clock is generally used in everyday life.