Definition:
A variety of the English language that is used in Australia.
See also:
Examples and Observations:
- Australian English is strikingly homogeneous from coast to coast, largely lacking the differences in accent and dialect found in the British, Irish, American, and Canadian varieties. A single speech continuum runs through the nation, within which however three areas have been identified . . .:
- Cultivated Australian
A minority accent and style so closely--and determinedly--patterned on RP that some phoneticians call it 'Near-RP.' However, for many Australians it is a snobbish, effete, and subservient form of speech long associated with high status, or pretensions in such status. - Broad Australian
At the other end of the spectrum, an accent and style with features often identified internationally as Australian, as when outsiders hear (or claim that they hear) such a question as 'Did you come here today?' as 'Did you come here to die?' It is especially associated with mateship and the no-nonsense values of the traditional Australian working-class and lower middle-class male. - General Australian
The wide band between 'cultivated' and 'broad,' a majority usage, especially in the cities, where it receives the same kind of middle-class approval as General American and General Canadian in North America. There is no equivalent in the United Kingdom.
- Cultivated Australian
- Australian English Vocabulary
"Distinctively Australian vocabulary developed in response to the new social and physical environment. . . . Some of it came from standard English (e.g. block, bush, squatter, emancipist), and some (e.g. barrack, billy, fossick) from English dialects. Convict slang drawn from the British underworld provided other words such as swag."
(Pam Peters, The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004) - "'Waltzing Matilda' is a perfect case to highlight some of the expressions that are owed to contact, add local colour amd enhance the Australian setting (Leitner 1990). I will just look at the first stanzas (italicized words mark contact outcomes):
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
The most obvious effects are loans or expressions from another language or variety of English. Thus, billabong 'waterhole' is from indigenous languages, jumbuck 'small sheep' from a contact language, waltzing (< walzen) and Matilda (< Matilde) 'carry one's swag' from German. Squatter is from AmE, and bill 'tea pot'--now also used to mean 'joint'--from northern EngE and ScotE. The only hybrid is coolibah tree from an indigenous language and English. There can be other effects, witness loan translations like dreamtime 'alcheringa' to express an indigenous concept. There can be semantic shift of English words, such as language to refer to an 'indigenous language,' or new fixed expressions and collocations, such as to speak language 'to speak one's native indigenous language.' Temporary hut 'a roof-like construction with a tree trunk to provide shelter' was to be replaced by the loan gunyah. Finally, there can be new concepts expressed in English, such as women's business 'secret knowledge confined to (selected indigenous) women.' The word a-waltzing is, however, not a gerundive that was common English throughout the 19th century. It has survived in AmE and mAusE [mainstream Australian English]; in AmE varieties it has a literary flavour, in mAusE is is extremely rare.
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited till his billy boiled
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me
Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag
"'Dissecting' the ballad does not, of course, do justice to the role of these expressions in the lyrics, which is to create a local Australian setting and to highlight the socio-cultural allusions."
(Gerhard Leitner, Australia's Many Voices: Australian English--The National Language. Mouton de Gruyter, 2004)
