Australian English
Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and "de facto" national language; while Australia has no official language, English is the first language of the majority of the population, being the only language spoken in the home for about 72.7% of Australians. It is also the main language used in compulsory education, as well as federal, state and territorial legislatures and courts. Australian English began to diverge from British and Irish English after the First Fleet established the  Colony of New South Wales in 1788. Australian English arose from a dialectal 'melting pot' created by the intermingling of early settlers who were from a variety of dialectal regions of Great Britain and Ireland, though its most significant influences were the dialects of Southeast England. By the 1820s, the native-born colonists' speech was recognisably distinct from speakers in Britain and Ireland. Australian English differs from other varieties in its phonology, pronunciation, lexicon, idiom, grammar and spelling. Australian English is relatively consistent across the continent, however it encompasses numerous regional and sociocultural varieties. 'General Australian' describes the "de-facto  standard dialect, which is perceived to be free of pronounced regional or sociocultural markers and that is often used in the media. History. The earliest Australian English was spoken by the first generation of native-born colonists in the Colony of New South Wales from the end of the 18th century. These native-born children were exposed to a wide range of dialects from across the British Isles. The process of dialect levelling and koineisation which ensued produced a relatively homogenous new variety of English which was easily understood by all. Peter Miller Cunningham's 1827 book Two Years in  New South Wales" described the distinctive accent and vocabulary that had developed among the native-born colonists. The dialects of South East England, including most notably the traditional Cockney dialect of London, were particularly influential on the development of the new variety and constituted 'the major input of the various sounds that went into constructing' Australian English. All the other regions of England were represented among the early colonists. A large proportion of early convicts and colonists were from Ireland, and spoke Irish as a sole or first language. They were joined by other non-native speakers of English from  Scotland and Wales. The first of the Australian gold rushes in the 1850s began a large wave of immigration, during which about two percent of the population of the United Kingdom emigrated to the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria. The Gold Rushes brought immigrants and linguistic influences from many parts of the world. An example was the introduction of vocabulary from American English, including some terms later considered to be typically Australian, such as "bushwhacker" and "squatter". This American influence was continued with the popularity of American films from the early 20th century and the influx of American  military personnel during World War II; seen in the enduring persistence of such universally-accepted terms as "okay" and "guys". The publication of Edward Ellis Morris's "Austral English: A Dictionary Of Australasian Words, Phrases And Usages" in 1898, which extensively catalogued Australian English vocabulary, started a wave of academic interest and codification during the 20th century which resulted in Australian English becoming established as an endonormative variety with its own internal norms and standards. This culminated in publications such as the 1981 first edition of the Macquarie Dictionary, a major English language dictionary based on Australian usage, and the  1988 first edition of The Australian National Dictionary, a historical dictionary documenting the history of Australian English vocabulary and idiom. 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 (RP) 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 also present in some regional south-eastern dialects of the UK and eastern seaboard dialects in the US. An example of this feature is the distinction between "ferry" and "fairy" . As with New Zealand English and General American English, the weak-vowel merger is complete in Australian English: unstressed is merged into (schwa), unless it is followed by a velar consonant. Examples of this  feature are the following pairings, which are pronounced identically in Australian English: "Rosa's" and "roses", as well as "Lennon" and "Lenin". Other examples are the following pairs, which rhyme in Australian English: "abbott" with "rabbit", and "dig it" with "bigot". Most varieties of Australian English exhibit only a partial trap-bath split. The words "bath", "grass" and "can't" are always pronounced with the "long" of "father". Throughout the majority of the country, the "flat" of "man" is the dominant pronunciation for the "a" vowel in the following words: "dance", "advance", "plant", "example" and "answer". The exception is the  state of South Australia, where a more advanced trap-bath split has taken place, and where the dominant pronunciation of all the preceding words incorporates the "long" of "father". 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 uniformly non-rhotic; that is, the sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. As with many non-rhotic dialects, linking can occur when a word that has a final in  the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. An intrusive may similarly be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have in the spelling in certain environments, namely after the long vowel and after word final . This can be heard in "law-r-and order," where an intrusive R is voiced after the W and before the A. 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. Examples of this feature are that the following pairs are pronounced similarly or identically: "latter" and "ladder", as well as "rated" and "raided". "Yod"-dropping generally occurs after , , , but not after , and . Accordingly, "suit" is pronounced as , "lute" as , "Zeus" as and "enthusiasm" as . Other cases of and , as well as 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" (velarised) "l" () in almost all positions, unlike other dialects  such as Received Pronunciation and Hiberno (Irish) English, where a light "l" (i.e. a non-velarised "l") is used in many positions. The wine–whine merger is complete in Australian English. 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" (seen in words such as "necessary, mulberry" and "matrimony") 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" sounds like "fur tile" rather than rhyming with "turtle". In addition, miscellaneous pronunciation differences exist when compared with other varieties of English in relation to various isolated words. For example, as with American English, the vowel in "yoghurt" and the prefix "homo-" (as in "homosexual" or "homophobic") is pronounced as ("long o") rather  than ("short o"); "vitamin", "migraine" and "privacy" are pronounced with (as in "mine") rather than , and respectively; the prefix "paedo-" (as in "paedophile") is pronounced with /e/ (as in "red") rather than ; many loanwords with in British English (e.g. "pasta") are pronounced with ; "urinal" is stressed on the first syllable and pronounced with schwa rather than the second syllable and ("long i"); "harass" and "harassment" are pronounced with the stress on the second, rather than the first syllable; and the suffix "-sia" (as in "Malaysia", "Indonesia" and "Polynesia") is pronounced rather than , and the word "foyer" is pronounced /ˈfoɪə/, rather  than /ˈfoɪæɪ/. As with British English, "advertisement" is stressed on the second syllable and pronounced with ; "tomato" and "vase" are pronounced with (as in "father") instead of ; "zebra" is pronounced with (as in "red") rather than ; "basil" is pronounced with ("short a") rather than ("long a"); "buoy" is pronounced as (as in "boy") rather than ; "e" in "congress" and "progress" is also pronounced with rather than the schwa; and the "on" in both "silicon" and "phenomenon" are pronounced with the schwa rather than the short o. Examples of miscellaneous pronunciations which contrast with both standard American and British usages are  data, which is pronounced with ("dah") instead of ("day"); "maroon" (colour), pronounced with ("own") as opposed to ("oon"); and "cache", pronounced with as opposed to . For many Australians, "(un)precedent(ed)" is mainly pronounced with (the vowel in "priest"), in addition to ("press"), regardless of their specific accent. Variation. Relative to many other national dialect groupings, Australian English is relatively homogenous across the country. Some relatively minor regional differences in pronunciation exist. A limited range of word choices is strongly regional in nature. Consequently, the geographical background of individuals may 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. Academic research has also identified notable sociocultural variation within Australian English, which is mostly evident in phonology. Regional variation. Although Australian English is relatively homogeneous, there are some regional variations. The dialects of English spoken in the various states and territories of Australia differ slightly in vocabulary and phonology. Most regional differences are in word usage. Swimming clothes are known as "cossies" (pronounced "cozzies") or "swimmers" in New South Wales , "togs" in Queensland, and "bathers" in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. What Queensland calls a "stroller" is usually called a "pram" in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, and Tasmania. Preference for some synonymous words also differ between states. "Garbage" (i.e., garbage bin, garbage truck) dominates over "rubbish" in New South Wales and Queensland, while "rubbish" is more popular in Victoria, Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia. Additionally, 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. In some pockets of Melbourne & Western Sydney it will refer to Association football. Beer glasses are also named differently in different states. Distinctive grammatical patterns exist such as the use of the interrogative "eh" (also spelled "ay" or "aye"), which is particularly associated with Queensland. "Secret Santa" () and "Kris Kringle" are used in all states, with the former being more common in Queensland. The most pronounced variation in phonology is between South Australia and the other states and territories. The trap–bath split is more complete in South Australia , in contrast to the other states. Accordingly, words such as "dance", "advance", "plant", "example" and "answer" are pronounced with (as in "father") far more frequently in South Australia while the older (as in "mad") is dominant elsewhere in Australia. "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 ("nee-ya"), 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 (as in "school" and "pool"). In some parts of Australia, notably Victoria, a fully backed allophone of , transcribed , is common before . As a result, the pairs full/fool and pull/pool differ phonetically only in vowel length for those speakers. The usual allophone for is further forward in Queensland and New South Wales than Victoria and the aforementioned pairs do not rhyme. Sociocultural variation. The General Australian accent serves as the standard variety of English across  the country. According to linguists, it emerged during the 19th century. General Australian is the dominant variety across the continent, and is particularly so in urban areas. The increasing dominance of General Australian reflects its prominence on radio and television since the latter half of the 20th century. Recent generations have seen a comparatively smaller proportion of the population speaking with the "Broad" sociocultural variant, which differs from General Australian in its phonology. The Broad variant is also found across the continent and is relatively more prominent in rural and outer-suburban areas. A largely historical "Cultivated" sociocultural variant, which  adopted features of British Received Pronunciation and which was commonplace in official media during the early 20th century, had become largely extinct by the onset of the 21st 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. Academics have also noted the emergence of numerous ethnocultural dialects of Australian English that are spoken by  people from some minority non-English speaking backgrounds. 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. Samoan English is also influencing Australian English. Vocabulary. Intrinsic traits. Australian English has many words and idioms which are unique to the dialect and have been written on extensively. 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" to mean "friend", as well as the word "bloody" as a mild expletive or intensifier . 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 is typically a watercourse in a marshy area; "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 (such as Shepherd's Bush and  Wormwood Scrubs). Some elements of Aboriginal languages have been adopted by Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo) 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, (pronounced ) 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 (and ultimately from the Sydney Aboriginal language), 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". Litotes, such as "not bad", "not much" and "you're not wrong", are also used. Diminutives and hypocorisms are common and are often used  to indicate familiarity. Some common examples are "arvo" (afternoon), "barbie" (barbecue), "smoko" (cigarette break), "Aussie" (Australian) and "Straya" (Australia). This may also be done with people's names to create nicknames (other English speaking countries create similar diminutives). For example, "Gazza" from Gary, or "Smitty" from John Smith. The use of the suffix "-o" originates in , 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" (as in "That car is sweet as."). "Full", "fully" or "heaps" may precede a word  to act as an intensifier (as in "The waves at the beach were heaps good."). 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 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, sometimes Australian English shares a usage with one of those varieties, as with petrol (AmE: "gasoline") and mobile phone (AmE: "cellular phone") which are shared with British English, or truck (BrE: "lorry") and eggplant (BrE: "aubergine") which are shared with American English. In other circumstances, Australian English sometimes favours a usage with is different from both British and American English as with: Differences exist between Australian English and other varieties of English, where different terms can be used for the same subject  or the same term can be ascribed different meanings. Non-exhaustive examples of terminology associated with food, transport and clothing is used below to demonstrate the variations which exist between Australian English and other varieties: Terms with different meanings in Australian English. There also exist words which in Australian English are ascribed different meanings from those ascribed in other varieties of English, for instance: Idioms taking different forms in Australian English. 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: British and American English terms not commonly used in Australian English. There are extensive terms used in other varieties of English which are not widely used in Australian English. These terms usually do not result in Australian English speakers failing to comprehend speakers of other varieties of English, as Australian English speakers will often be familiar with such terms through exposure to media or may ascertain the meaning using context. Non-exhaustive selections of British English and American English terms not commonly used in Australian English together with their definitions or Australian English equivalents are found in the collapsible  table below: Grammar. The general rules of English Grammar which apply to Australian English are described at English grammar. Grammatical differences between varieties of English are minor relative to differences in phonology and vocabulary and do not generally affect intelligibility. Examples of grammatical differences between Australian English and other varieties include: Spelling and style. As in all English-speaking countries, there is no central authority that prescribes official usage with respect to matters of spelling, grammar, punctuation or style. Spelling. There are several dictionaries of Australian English which adopt a descriptive approach. The "Macquarie Dictionary" is most commonly used by  universities, governments and courts as the standard for Australian English spelling. The Australian Oxford Dictionary is another commonly-used dictionary of Australian English. Australian spelling is significantly closer to British than American spelling, as it did not adopt the systematic reforms promulgated in Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary. Notwithstanding, the Macquarie Dictionary often lists most American spellings as acceptable secondary variants. The minor systematic differences which occur between Australian and American spelling are summarised below: Minor systematic difference which occur between Australian and British spelling are as follows: Other examples of individual words where the preferred spelling is listed by  the "Macquarie Dictionary" as being different from current British spellings include "analog as opposed to "analogue, "guerilla" as opposed to "guerrilla", "verandah as opposed to "veranda, "burqa" as opposed to "burka", "pastie (noun) as opposed to "pasty, "neuron as opposed to "neurone, "hicup as opposed to "hicough, "annex as opposed to "annexe, "raccoon" as opposed to "racoon" etc. Unspaced forms such as "onto", "anytime", "alright" and "anymore" are also listed as being equally as acceptable as their spaced counterparts. There is variation between and within varieties of English in the treatment of -t and -ed endings for past tense verbs . The Macquarie Dictionary does not favour either, but it suggests that "leaped, "leaned or "learned (with -ed endings) are more common but "spelt and "burnt" (with -t endings) are more common. Different spellings have existed throughout Australia's history. 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 ("Spelling Reform 1" or "SR1") gained some support in Australia and was adopted by the Australian Teachers' Federation. Punctuation and style. Prominent general style guides for Australian English include the "Cambridge Guide to Australian English Usage", the "Australian Government Style Manual" (formerly the ""), the "Australian Handbook for Writers and Editors" and the "Complete Guide to English Usage for Australian Students". Both single and  double quotation marks are in use, with single quotation marks preferred for use in the first instance, with double quotation marks reserved for quotes of speech within speech. Logical (as opposed to typesetter's) punctuation is preferred for punctuation marks at the end of quotations. For instance, "Sam said he 'wasn't happy when Jane told David to "go away"'." is used in preference to "Sam said he "wasn't happy when Jane told David to 'go away.'"" The DD/MM/YYYY date format is followed and the 12-hour clock is generally used in everyday life (as opposed to  service, police, and airline applications). With the exception of screen sizes, metric system units are used in everyday life, having supplanted imperial units upon the country's switch to the metric system in the 1970s. In betting, decimal odds are used in favour of fractional odds, used in the United Kingdom, or moneyline odds, used in the United States. Keyboard layout. There are two major English language keyboard layouts, the United States layout and the United Kingdom layout. Keyboards and keyboard software for the Australian market universally uses the US keyboard layout, which lacks the pound sterling, euro and negation  symbols and uses a different layout for punctuation symbols than the UK keyboard layout.