Australian English
Australian English refers to the variety of English spoken in Australia, characterized by its unique accent, vocabulary, and expressions. It has been influenced by British English, Aboriginal languages, and various immigrant languages. Australian English reflects the country's diverse cultural and linguistic heritage, and it continues to evolve through ongoing interactions with other English-speaking countries and global influences.
5 Key excerpts on "Australian English"
eBook - ePubEnglish in the World
History, Diversity, Change
- Philip Seargeant, Joan Swann, Philip Seargeant, Joan Swann(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...13). His basic premise is that if we know where the people came from, and in what proportions, and if we can discover what dialects they spoke, then we can actually predict what a dialect will look like in future years. Following migration and contact between speakers there is a levelling out of the variation in individual linguistic features in a number of stages. The selection of particular features to form a stable, focused new dialect is normally achieved by the second native-born generation. Trudgill suggests that the origins of Australian English lie in the language of settlers from London and areas to the north-east of London, such as Norfolk, around the beginning of the nineteenth century, with fully fledged new dialect formation occurring with children around the 1850s. Subsequent migrations between 1850 and 1900 due to the Gold Rush may have diluted the influence of settler dialects, but vestiges of this initial input can still be heard across a number of features. For New Zealand, Trudgill estimates that 50 per cent of British settlers were from England, 27 per cent from Scotland and 23 per cent from Ireland and he suggests that a distinct variety developed around 1840, with a fully fledged variety spoken by the first years of the twentieth century. The national standards, Australian English and New Zealand English, were recognised towards the end of the twentieth century. Not all researchers accept Trudgill’s argument. Some opposing views are discussed in Chapter 7. Australia and New Zealand share many linguistic features. In their grammar, they are virtually indistinguishable from each other, or from standard English in England, and this may result from the levelling that Trudgill proposes in the first generations of speakers. In terms of pronunciation, similarities include ‘linking r’ (so that ‘law and order’ becomes lawr and order); ‘l-vocalisation’; and the pronunciation of the /t/ sound between vowels so that ‘writer’ and ‘rider’ would sound the same...
eBook - ePubEnglish on Croker Island
The Synchronic and Diachronic Dynamics of Contact and Variation
- Robert Mailhammer(Author)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- De Gruyter Mouton(Publisher)
...This is especially so for vernacular varieties of English in rural areas or in work-environments, such as the buffalo industry in the Northern Territory (Mühlhäusler 1996c : 126), but also for contact-varieties, such as the so-called NSW Pidgin (Troy 1990), which was the main target language for Aboriginal people that proxied for English and has provided features for varieties of Aboriginal English by way of restructuring, as it became one of the early acquired languages of Aboriginal people (O’Shannessy and Meakins 2016 : 8–11; Meakins 2014 : 403–405), see also Map 2. In the context of this book, the influence of these varieties is particularly important, because often features that are found in English on Croker Island either originated in varieties of English or in contact languages, such as Kriol, or were filtered through them. In fact, one of the main arguments this book makes is that one of the reasons why Indigenous influence on the structure of English on Croker Island is often hard to pin down, is because they percolated up through an intermediate layer of contact. In spite of this, Indigenous languages have shaped English in Australia through restructuring in addition to considerable lexical transfer (see e.g. Leitner 2007 for an overview). First, shift to English has been an ongoing process since the beginning, and consequently continuing restructuring is to be expected. Second, in many cases the contact between Indigenous languages and English was in fact direct or Indigenous features can be clearly identified. 1.3 Aboriginal English Aboriginal English commonly describes contact varieties of English that are mainly spoken by Aboriginal people (Eades 2014 : 417; O’Shannessy and Meakins 2016 : 11). This definition categorises Aboriginal English as an ethnolect, i.e. a variety that is conditioned by ethnicity...
eBook - ePub- R.L. Trask(Author)
- 2003(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Like most other languages, English is spoken differently in different places: that is, it exhibits regional dialects. You will certainly be aware already of the existence of regional dialects, and you will probably be able to recognize some of them when you hear them, even if you’re occasionally surprised or puzzled by what you hear. (You may also have a strong emotional reaction to some of them, but that is a topic we will consider in Chapter 9.) And my examples? Well, (4.1), with its extra us, is typical of much of the south of the USA, and is occasionally heard elsewhere. Example (4.2) is, of course, Australian, and it means ‘She’s a typical Englishwoman’. Example (4.3), which means ‘I might be able to do it’, is quite normal in many parts of Scotland and also in parts of the Appalachian Mountain region of the USA. Example (4.4) you may recognize as ‘Geordie’—that is, as the speech of the Tyneside area of northeastern England; it means ‘The girl didn’t go to the cinema’. Example (4.5), which many British speakers find mysterious, is typical of a large part of the northeastern USA; it means, roughly, ‘They used to be a good team but now they’re lousy’—in other words, it means exactly the opposite of They’re not a lousy team any more. Finally, (4.6) is an example of the English spoken in India, and it means ‘I don’t know where to find a spare wheel’. These examples briefly illustrate some of the wide variation in grammar and vocabulary which can be found across the Englishspeaking world. Even more familiarly, perhaps, variation also affects pronunciation. You will certainly have noticed that other speakers of English often pronounce the language differently from the way you do. That is, different speakers have different accents. An accent is simply a particular way of pronouncing a language, and it is important to realize that every speaker has an accent...
eBook - ePubGlobal English Slang
Methodologies and Perspectives
- Julie Coleman(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...For example, Moore notes that while general Australian dictionaries do not tend to use slang as a usage label, popular dictionaries of Australian slang abound. This dichotomy results from the changing status of Australian English: while British English provided the standard, anything distinctively Australian was seen as slang. When Australians began to take pride in Australian English, slang was avoided by some because of its negative connotations, but embraced by others as a linguistic emblem of the social solidarity, irreverence and informality inherent in the conception of Australian national identity. Scott observes similar patterns in the use of the label ‘slang’ with reference to non-standard forms in Scottish English. In both of these contexts, a conflict of interests discourages the labelling of marginalized varieties as slang. Identifying slang usage emphasizes the differentiation found within Scottish and Australian English, demonstrating the richness of the local linguistic situation, but it might also play into the hands of those who want to dismiss all distinctively national forms as slang. There are a number of similarities between Moore’s chapter, on Australian slang, and Bardsley’s, on the slang of New Zealand, and these are in keeping with parallels between the history and development of English in these countries. Both chapters observe that the greater informality of everyday discourse in these contexts complicates the task of distinguishing between slang and colloquial language. Both also note that the group identity defined by this slang is on a national level, though Bardsley notes that New Zealand slang is receptive to Australian influence as well as to the influence of British and American slang...
eBook - ePubAustral English
A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia
- Edward Ellis Morris(Author)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Perlego(Publisher)
...Words new to the Language. (a) Aboriginal Australian. Many of the new Australasian words are taken from the languages of the aborigines, often with considerable alteration due to misunderstanding. Such words are either Australian or Maori. Whilst in New Zealand careful attention has been paid by competent scholars to the musical Maori language, it can hardly be claimed that the Australian family of languages has ever been scientifically studied, though there is a heap of printed material—small grammars and lists of words—<i>rudis indigestaque moles</i>. There is no doubt that the vocabularies used in different parts of Australia and Tasmania varied greatly, and equally little doubt that the languages, in structure and perhaps originally in vocabulary, were more or less connected. About the year 1883, Professor Sayce, of Oxford, wrote a letter, which was published in <i>The Argus</i>, pointing out the obligation that lay upon the Australian colonies to make a scientific study of a vanishing speech. The duty would be stronger were it not for the distressing lack of pence that now is vexing public men. Probably a sum of L300 a year would suffice for an educated inquirer, but his full time for several years would be needed. Such an one should be trained at the University as a linguist and an observer, paying especial attention to logic and to Comparative Philology. Whilst the colonies neglect their opportunities, and Sibylla year by year withdraws her offer, perhaps "the inevitable German" will intervene, and in a well-arranged book bring order out of the chaos of vocabularies and small pamphlets on the subject, all that we have to trust to now. The need of scientific accuracy is strong. For the purposes of this Dictionary I have been investigating the origin of words, more or less naturalised as English, that come from aboriginal Australian, in number between seventy and a hundred...
