Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Australian English shopping experience:

1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Australian English offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Australian English at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.

2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about

3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Australian English? Wrong! If the Australian English is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.

4. Questions - Got a question about Australian English then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....

5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Australian English? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Australian English and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.

6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Australian English wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.

7. Feedback - happy with your Australian English then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.

8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Australian English site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site

9. Contact - got a question about Australian English, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.

10. Payment - ready to pay for your Australian English, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.

Australian English (AuE, AusE, en-AU) is the form of the English language used in Australia.Mitchell, Alexander G., 1995, The Story of Australian English, Sydney: Dictionary Research Centre.

History Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales (NSW) in 1788. British convicts sent there, including the Cockneys of London, came mostly from large England cities; and they were joined by free settlers, military personnel, and administrators, who often brought their families.

In 1827, Peter Cunningham, in his book Two Years in New South Wales, reported that native-born white Australians of the time — known as "Holey dollar#Australia lads and lasses"Hughes, Robert. The Fatal Shore. London: Harvill (1986). — spoke with a distinctive accent and vocabulary, with a strong Cockney influence. The deportation of convicts to Australia ended in 1868, but immigration of free settlers from Britain, Ireland and elsewhere continued.

The first of the Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, began a much larger wave of immigration, which would significantly influence the language. During the 1850s, when Great Britain and Ireland were under economic hardship, about two per cent of their combined population emigrated to the Colony of NSW and the Victoria (Australia) . Geoffrey Blainey, 1993, The Rush That Never Ended (4th ed.) Melbourne University Press.

Among the changes wrought by the goldrushes was "Americanization" of the language — 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 dirt and digger.Bell, R. Americanization and Australia. UNSW Press (1998). Bonzer, which was once a common Australian slang word meaning "great", "superb" or "beautiful", is thought to have been a corruption (linguistics) of the American mining term bonanza,Robert J. Menner, "The Australian Language" American Speech, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr., 1946), pp. 120 which means a rich vein of gold or silver and is itself a loanword from Spanish language. The influx of American military personnel in World War II brought further American influence; though most words were short-lived;Ibid. and only okay, you guys, and gee have persisted.Ibid.

Since the 1950s, American influence has mostly arrived via pop culture, the mass media — books, magazines, television programs, and computer software — and the World Wide Web. Some words, such as freeway and truck, have even naturalised so completely that few Australians recognise their origin.Ibid.

Some American and British English variants exist side-by-side, as TV and telly (an abbreviation of television). British words predominate, however: as mobile or mobile phone instead of cell or cellphone, and lift instead of elevator. In many cases — telly versus TV and SMS versus text, freeway and motorway, for instance — regional, social and ethnic variation within Australia typically defines word usage.Oliver, Mackay and Rochecouste. 'The Acquisition of Colloquial Terms by Western Australian Primary School Children from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds' in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 24:5 (2003), 413-430.

Australian English is most similar to New Zealand English, each having a shared history and geographical promiximity.

Phonology

Australian English is a Rhotic and non-rhotic accents dialect. It is most similar to New Zealand English and bears some resemblance to dialects from the South-East of England, particularly those of Cockney and Received Pronunciation. Like most dialects of English it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

The vowels of Australian English can be divided into two categories: long and short vowels. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, mostly correspond to the lax vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation. The long vowels, consisting of both monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to its tense vowels and centring diphthongs. Unlike most varieties of English it has a vowel length: that is, certain vowels differ only by length.

Australian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. In comparison to other varieties, it has a flapping variant of and in similar environments, as in American English. Many speakers have also English consonant cluster reductions#Yod-coalescence and into and , producing standard pronunciations such as .

==Vocabulary==Australian English has many words that Australians consider unique to their language. One of the best-known is outback, meaning a remote, sparsely-populated area. Another is bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general. However, both terms have been widely used in many English-speaking countries. Other similar words, phrases and usages were brought by the convicts to Australia. Many words used frequently by country Australians are, or were, also used in all or part of England, with variations in meaning. For example, creek in Australia, as in North America, means a stream or small river, whereas in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 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 (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs). Australian English and several British English dialects (for example, Cockney, Scouse, Glaswegian and Geordie) both use the word mate for a close friend of the same sex and increasingly for a platonic friend of the opposite sex (rather than the conventional meaning of "a spouse"), but this usage has also become common in some other varieties of English.

Dinkum (or "fair dinkum") means "true", or when used in speech: "is that true?", "this is the truth!", among other things, depending on context and inflection. It is often claimed that dinkum dates back to the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s, and that it is derived from the Cantonese (linguistics) (or Hokkien) ding kam, meaning "top gold". But scholars give greater credence to the conjecture that it originated from the East Midlands dialect in England, where dinkum (or dincum) meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English (though it is now extinct in the original dialect). The derivative dinky-di means 'true' or devoted: a 'dinky-di Aussie' is a 'true Australian'. However, this expression is limited to describing objects or actions that are characteristically Australian. The words dinkum or dinky-di and phrases like true blue are widely purported to be typical Australian sayings, even though they are more commonly used in jest or parody than as authentic slang.

Similarly, g'day, a stereotypical Australian greeting, is no longer synonymous with "good day" in other varieties of English (it can be used at night time) and is never used as an expression for "farewell", as "good day" is in other countries.

Some elements of Australian Aboriginal languages have been included into Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo). Beyond that, little has been adopted into the wider language, except for some localised terms and slang. Some 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 Yagara/Jagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region. Also from there is the word bung, meaning broken or pretending to be hurt. A failed piece of equipment may be described as having bunged up or as "on the bung" or "gone bung". A person pretending to be hurt is said to be "bunging it on". A hurt person could say "I've got a bung knee".

Though often thought of as an Aboriginal word, didgeridoo (a well known wooden ceremonial musical instrument) is probably an onomatopoeia word of Western invention. It has also been suggested that it may have an Irish language derivation.

==Spelling==Australian spelling is almost always the same as British spelling, with only a few exceptions. The Macquarie Dictionary is generally used by publishers, schools, universities and governments as the standard spelling reference. Well-known differences to British spelling include:

There is a widely-held belief in Australia that controversies over spelling result from the "Americanization" of Australian English; the influence of American English in the late 20th century, but the debate over spelling is much older. For example, a pamphlet entitled The So-Called "American Spelling", published in Sydney some time before 1901, argued that "there is no valid etymological reason for the preservation of the u in such words as honor, labor, etc.",The So Called "American Spelling." Its Consistency Examined. pre-1901 pamphlet, Sydney, E. J. Forbes. Quoted by Annie Potts in this article alluding to older British spellings which also used the -or ending. 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". The Australian Labor Party retains the -or ending it officially adopted in 1912. However, while many Australian newspapers did formerly "excise the u", in words like colour, this is no longer the case. The town of Victor Harbor has the Victor Harbour Railway Station and the municipality's official website speculates that excising the u from the town's name was originally a "spelling error".http://www.victor.sa.gov.au It appears that the spelling of Victor Harbor without the 'u' started in the early days of the Colony. It was around the turn of the century that the u crept into the spelling of Harbor with new businesses spelling it including the u (which is the way most people would have been taught to spell harbour. The Victor Harbour Railway Station is still signposted today with the spelling including the u. Victor Harbor was declared a legal Port on the 28th June 1838 and was officially known to the Harbour's Board as Port Victor until 1921. In 1921 due to the similarity of the name to Port Victoria on the Yorke Peninsula and the confusion it caused, it was decided by the Harbour's Board to change the name back by proclamation to its original name of Victor Harbor. The local newspaper the 'Victor Harbor Times' has always been published without the u since it started in 1912. It was gazetted in 1914 that the township was named as the 'Municipal Town of Victor Harbor'. It can be surmised from the above spelling of all South Australian Harbour's without the u that it originated probably from a spelling error made by an early Surveyor General of South Australia. This continues to cause confusion in how the town is named in official and unofficial documents.http://www.smh.com.au/news/south-australia/victor-harbor/2005/02/17/1108500204729.html There were suggestions at the time that Victor Harbor would make an ideal harbour for the whole South Australian colony. Colonel Light was so convinced that Adelaide was the ideal spot that he looked at Victor Harbor and dismissed it.

Varieties of Australian English Most linguists consider there to be three main varieties of Australian English: Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They often, but not always, reflect the social class or educational background of the speaker.

Broad Australian English is the most recognisable variety. It is familiar to English speakers around the world because it identifies Australian characters in non-Australian films and television programs. Examples are television/film personalities Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. Slang terms Ocker, for a speaker, and Strine, for the dialect, are used in Australia.

General Australian English is the stereotype variety of Australian English. It is the variety that the majority of Australians use and predominates among modern Australian films and television programs. Examples are actors Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe (who, although born and partly-raised in New Zealand, does not speak New Zealand English).

Cultivated Australian English has many similarities to British English Received Pronunciation, and is often mistaken for it. Cultivated Australian English is now spoken by less than 10% of the population. Examples are actors Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.

There is significant variation in Australian English vocabulary between different regions; perhaps the most prominent example being the many Australian English vocabulary#Processed pork products, generally known in other countries as "baloney" or "luncheon meat".

It is sometimes claimed that there are variations in accent and pronunciation among people of different states and territories. However, these are small in comparison to those of the British and American English, and Australian pronunciation is determined less by region than by social, cultural and educational influences. But there are some well-documented regional preferences. For example, in Tasmania, words such as "dance", "grant" and "branch" are usually heard with the Phonological history of English short A#Trap-bath split of these words, using , whereas in South Australia, is preferred. Crystal, D. (1995). Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. Both pronunciations are common in other parts of Australia, although when people sing the national anthem, "Advance Australia Fair", they often use where they might otherwise use .

Use of words by Australians Australian English makes frequent use of diminutives. They are formed in various ways and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some examples are arvo (afternoon), servo (Filling station#service stations), bottle-o (liquor store), barbie (barbecue), cozzie (swimming costume), footy (Rugby League or Australian rules football) and mozzie (mosquito). Similar diminutives are commonly used for personal nicknames (Johnno, Fitzy). Occasionally a -za diminutive is used, usually for personal names where the first of multiple syllables ends in an "r": so Barry becomes Bazza and Sharon Shazza.

Many phrases once common to Australian English have become stereotypes and caricaturised exaggerations, and have largely disappeared from everyday use. Among the words less used are cobber, strewth, you beaut and crikey; and stereotypical phrases like flat out like a lizard drinking are rarely used without irony.

The phrase put a shrimp on the barbie is a misquotation from a phrase made famous by Paul Hogan in tourism advertisements that aired in America. Australians use the word prawn rather than shrimp, which means something quite different, and do not commonly barbecue them. Many people trying to impersonate or mock an Australian use this line, though it is generally only used by Australians, ironically, when mocking Americans making fun of Australians.

Australian patriotic song Waltzing Matilda, written by bush poet Banjo Paterson, contains many obsolete Australian words and phrases that appeal to a rural ideal and are understood by Australians even though they are not in common usage outside the song. One example is the title, which means travelling (particularly with a type of bed roll called a swag).

Samples of Australian English One of the first writers to attempt renditions of Australian accents and vernacular was the novelist Joseph Furphy (a.k.a. Tom Collins), who wrote a popular account of rural New South Wales and Victoria during the 1880s, Such is Life (1903). C. J. Dennis wrote poems about working class life in Melbourne, such as The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915), which was extremely popular and was made into a popular silent film (The Sentimental Bloke; 1919). John O'Grady's novel They're a Weird Mob has many examples of pseudo-phonetically written Australian speech in Sydney during the 1950s, such as "owyergoinmateorright?" ("How are you going, mate? All right?") Thomas Keneally's novels set in Australia, particularly The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, frequently use vernacular such as "yair" for "yes" and "noth-think" for "nothing". Other books of note are "Let's Talk Strine" by Afferbeck Lauder—where "Strine" is "Australian" and "Afferbeck Lauder" is "alphabetical order" (the book is in alphabetical order)—and "How to be Normal in Australia".

Some Australian actors use their natural accents in international films and television programs. But Australian actors in non-Australian productions generally use non-Australian accents, or adjust their natural accent to make it broader and closer to the archetypal modern Australian accent. One example of an internationally-popular film containing several characters with Australian accents is Finding Nemo, a 2003 computer-animated film. These characters include Nigel the Pelican (played by Geoffrey Rush), the three sharks, the sewage-eating crab, the dentist and his niece.

See also

References

External links

Australian English (AuE, AusE, en-AU) is the form of the English language used in Australia.Mitchell, Alexander G., 1995, The Story of Australian English, Sydney: Dictionary Research Centre.

History Australian English began diverging from British English shortly after the foundation of the Australian penal colony of New South Wales (NSW) in 1788. British convicts sent there, including the Cockneys of London, came mostly from large England cities; and they were joined by free settlers, military personnel, and administrators, who often brought their families.

In 1827, Peter Cunningham, in his book Two Years in New South Wales, reported that native-born white Australians of the time — known as "Holey dollar#Australia lads and lasses"Hughes, Robert. The Fatal Shore. London: Harvill (1986). — spoke with a distinctive accent and vocabulary, with a strong Cockney influence. The deportation of convicts to Australia ended in 1868, but immigration of free settlers from Britain, Ireland and elsewhere continued.

The first of the Australian gold rushes, in the 1850s, began a much larger wave of immigration, which would significantly influence the language. During the 1850s, when Great Britain and Ireland were under economic hardship, about two per cent of their combined population emigrated to the Colony of NSW and the Victoria (Australia) . Geoffrey Blainey, 1993, The Rush That Never Ended (4th ed.) Melbourne University Press.

Among the changes wrought by the goldrushes was "Americanization" of the language — 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 dirt and digger.Bell, R. Americanization and Australia. UNSW Press (1998). Bonzer, which was once a common Australian slang word meaning "great", "superb" or "beautiful", is thought to have been a corruption (linguistics) of the American mining term bonanza,Robert J. Menner, "The Australian Language" American Speech, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Apr., 1946), pp. 120 which means a rich vein of gold or silver and is itself a loanword from Spanish language. The influx of American military personnel in World War II brought further American influence; though most words were short-lived;Ibid. and only okay, you guys, and gee have persisted.Ibid.

Since the 1950s, American influence has mostly arrived via pop culture, the mass media — books, magazines, television programs, and computer software — and the World Wide Web. Some words, such as freeway and truck, have even naturalised so completely that few Australians recognise their origin.Ibid.

Some American and British English variants exist side-by-side, as TV and telly (an abbreviation of television). British words predominate, however: as mobile or mobile phone instead of cell or cellphone, and lift instead of elevator. In many cases — telly versus TV and SMS versus text, freeway and motorway, for instance — regional, social and ethnic variation within Australia typically defines word usage.Oliver, Mackay and Rochecouste. 'The Acquisition of Colloquial Terms by Western Australian Primary School Children from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds' in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 24:5 (2003), 413-430.

Australian English is most similar to New Zealand English, each having a shared history and geographical promiximity.

Phonology

Australian English is a Rhotic and non-rhotic accents dialect. It is most similar to New Zealand English and bears some resemblance to dialects from the South-East of England, particularly those of Cockney and Received Pronunciation. Like most dialects of English it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

The vowels of Australian English can be divided into two categories: long and short vowels. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, mostly correspond to the lax vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation. The long vowels, consisting of both monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to its tense vowels and centring diphthongs. Unlike most varieties of English it has a vowel length: that is, certain vowels differ only by length.

Australian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. In comparison to other varieties, it has a flapping variant of and in similar environments, as in American English. Many speakers have also English consonant cluster reductions#Yod-coalescence and into and , producing standard pronunciations such as .

==Vocabulary==Australian English has many words that Australians consider unique to their language. One of the best-known is outback, meaning a remote, sparsely-populated area. Another is bush, meaning either a native forest or a country area in general. However, both terms have been widely used in many English-speaking countries. Other similar words, phrases and usages were brought by the convicts to Australia. Many words used frequently by country Australians are, or were, also used in all or part of England, with variations in meaning. For example, creek in Australia, as in North America, means a stream or small river, whereas in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 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 (such as Shepherd's Bush and Wormwood Scrubs). Australian English and several British English dialects (for example, Cockney, Scouse, Glaswegian and Geordie) both use the word mate for a close friend of the same sex and increasingly for a platonic friend of the opposite sex (rather than the conventional meaning of "a spouse"), but this usage has also become common in some other varieties of English.

Dinkum (or "fair dinkum") means "true", or when used in speech: "is that true?", "this is the truth!", among other things, depending on context and inflection. It is often claimed that dinkum dates back to the Australian goldrushes of the 1850s, and that it is derived from the Cantonese (linguistics) (or Hokkien) ding kam, meaning "top gold". But scholars give greater credence to the conjecture that it originated from the East Midlands dialect in England, where dinkum (or dincum) meant "hard work" or "fair work", which was also the original meaning in Australian English (though it is now extinct in the original dialect). The derivative dinky-di means 'true' or devoted: a 'dinky-di Aussie' is a 'true Australian'. However, this expression is limited to describing objects or actions that are characteristically Australian. The words dinkum or dinky-di and phrases like true blue are widely purported to be typical Australian sayings, even though they are more commonly used in jest or parody than as authentic slang.

Similarly, g'day, a stereotypical Australian greeting, is no longer synonymous with "good day" in other varieties of English (it can be used at night time) and is never used as an expression for "farewell", as "good day" is in other countries.

Some elements of Australian Aboriginal languages have been included into Australian English—mainly as names for places, flora and fauna (for example dingo). Beyond that, little has been adopted into the wider language, except for some localised terms and slang. Some 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 Yagara/Jagara language once spoken in the Brisbane region. Also from there is the word bung, meaning broken or pretending to be hurt. A failed piece of equipment may be described as having bunged up or as "on the bung" or "gone bung". A person pretending to be hurt is said to be "bunging it on". A hurt person could say "I've got a bung knee".

Though often thought of as an Aboriginal word, didgeridoo (a well known wooden ceremonial musical instrument) is probably an onomatopoeia word of Western invention. It has also been suggested that it may have an Irish language derivation.

==Spelling==Australian spelling is almost always the same as British spelling, with only a few exceptions. The Macquarie Dictionary is generally used by publishers, schools, universities and governments as the standard spelling reference. Well-known differences to British spelling include:

There is a widely-held belief in Australia that controversies over spelling result from the "Americanization" of Australian English; the influence of American English in the late 20th century, but the debate over spelling is much older. For example, a pamphlet entitled The So-Called "American Spelling", published in Sydney some time before 1901, argued that "there is no valid etymological reason for the preservation of the u in such words as honor, labor, etc.",The So Called "American Spelling." Its Consistency Examined. pre-1901 pamphlet, Sydney, E. J. Forbes. Quoted by Annie Potts in this article alluding to older British spellings which also used the -or ending. 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". The Australian Labor Party retains the -or ending it officially adopted in 1912. However, while many Australian newspapers did formerly "excise the u", in words like colour, this is no longer the case. The town of Victor Harbor has the Victor Harbour Railway Station and the municipality's official website speculates that excising the u from the town's name was originally a "spelling error".http://www.victor.sa.gov.au It appears that the spelling of Victor Harbor without the 'u' started in the early days of the Colony. It was around the turn of the century that the u crept into the spelling of Harbor with new businesses spelling it including the u (which is the way most people would have been taught to spell harbour. The Victor Harbour Railway Station is still signposted today with the spelling including the u. Victor Harbor was declared a legal Port on the 28th June 1838 and was officially known to the Harbour's Board as Port Victor until 1921. In 1921 due to the similarity of the name to Port Victoria on the Yorke Peninsula and the confusion it caused, it was decided by the Harbour's Board to change the name back by proclamation to its original name of Victor Harbor. The local newspaper the 'Victor Harbor Times' has always been published without the u since it started in 1912. It was gazetted in 1914 that the township was named as the 'Municipal Town of Victor Harbor'. It can be surmised from the above spelling of all South Australian Harbour's without the u that it originated probably from a spelling error made by an early Surveyor General of South Australia. This continues to cause confusion in how the town is named in official and unofficial documents.http://www.smh.com.au/news/south-australia/victor-harbor/2005/02/17/1108500204729.html There were suggestions at the time that Victor Harbor would make an ideal harbour for the whole South Australian colony. Colonel Light was so convinced that Adelaide was the ideal spot that he looked at Victor Harbor and dismissed it.

Varieties of Australian English Most linguists consider there to be three main varieties of Australian English: Broad, General and Cultivated Australian English. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They often, but not always, reflect the social class or educational background of the speaker.

Broad Australian English is the most recognisable variety. It is familiar to English speakers around the world because it identifies Australian characters in non-Australian films and television programs. Examples are television/film personalities Steve Irwin and Paul Hogan. Slang terms Ocker, for a speaker, and Strine, for the dialect, are used in Australia.

General Australian English is the stereotype variety of Australian English. It is the variety that the majority of Australians use and predominates among modern Australian films and television programs. Examples are actors Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe (who, although born and partly-raised in New Zealand, does not speak New Zealand English).

Cultivated Australian English has many similarities to British English Received Pronunciation, and is often mistaken for it. Cultivated Australian English is now spoken by less than 10% of the population. Examples are actors Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.

There is significant variation in Australian English vocabulary between different regions; perhaps the most prominent example being the many Australian English vocabulary#Processed pork products, generally known in other countries as "baloney" or "luncheon meat".

It is sometimes claimed that there are variations in accent and pronunciation among people of different states and territories. However, these are small in comparison to those of the British and American English, and Australian pronunciation is determined less by region than by social, cultural and educational influences. But there are some well-documented regional preferences. For example, in Tasmania, words such as "dance", "grant" and "branch" are usually heard with the Phonological history of English short A#Trap-bath split of these words, using , whereas in South Australia, is preferred. Crystal, D. (1995). Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. Both pronunciations are common in other parts of Australia, although when people sing the national anthem, "Advance Australia Fair", they often use where they might otherwise use .

Use of words by Australians Australian English makes frequent use of diminutives. They are formed in various ways and are often used to indicate familiarity. Some examples are arvo (afternoon), servo (Filling station#service stations), bottle-o (liquor store), barbie (barbecue), cozzie (swimming costume), footy (Rugby League or Australian rules football) and mozzie (mosquito). Similar diminutives are commonly used for personal nicknames (Johnno, Fitzy). Occasionally a -za diminutive is used, usually for personal names where the first of multiple syllables ends in an "r": so Barry becomes Bazza and Sharon Shazza.

Many phrases once common to Australian English have become stereotypes and caricaturised exaggerations, and have largely disappeared from everyday use. Among the words less used are cobber, strewth, you beaut and crikey; and stereotypical phrases like flat out like a lizard drinking are rarely used without irony.

The phrase put a shrimp on the barbie is a misquotation from a phrase made famous by Paul Hogan in tourism advertisements that aired in America. Australians use the word prawn rather than shrimp, which means something quite different, and do not commonly barbecue them. Many people trying to impersonate or mock an Australian use this line, though it is generally only used by Australians, ironically, when mocking Americans making fun of Australians.

Australian patriotic song Waltzing Matilda, written by bush poet Banjo Paterson, contains many obsolete Australian words and phrases that appeal to a rural ideal and are understood by Australians even though they are not in common usage outside the song. One example is the title, which means travelling (particularly with a type of bed roll called a swag).

Samples of Australian English One of the first writers to attempt renditions of Australian accents and vernacular was the novelist Joseph Furphy (a.k.a. Tom Collins), who wrote a popular account of rural New South Wales and Victoria during the 1880s, Such is Life (1903). C. J. Dennis wrote poems about working class life in Melbourne, such as The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke (1915), which was extremely popular and was made into a popular silent film (The Sentimental Bloke; 1919). John O'Grady's novel They're a Weird Mob has many examples of pseudo-phonetically written Australian speech in Sydney during the 1950s, such as "owyergoinmateorright?" ("How are you going, mate? All right?") Thomas Keneally's novels set in Australia, particularly The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, frequently use vernacular such as "yair" for "yes" and "noth-think" for "nothing". Other books of note are "Let's Talk Strine" by Afferbeck Lauder—where "Strine" is "Australian" and "Afferbeck Lauder" is "alphabetical order" (the book is in alphabetical order)—and "How to be Normal in Australia".

Some Australian actors use their natural accents in international films and television programs. But Australian actors in non-Australian productions generally use non-Australian accents, or adjust their natural accent to make it broader and closer to the archetypal modern Australian accent. One example of an internationally-popular film containing several characters with Australian accents is Finding Nemo, a 2003 computer-animated film. These characters include Nigel the Pelican (played by Geoffrey Rush), the three sharks, the sewage-eating crab, the dentist and his niece.

See also

References

External links



Australian English - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Australian English (AuE, AusE, en-AU [1]) is the form of the English language used in Australia.

Australian English phonology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Australian English is a non-rhotic variety of English spoken by most native-born Australians. Phonologically, it is one of the most regionally homogeneous language varieties in the ...

Overview of Australian English Accent
1.2 Overview of Australian English Accent Australian English is a very distinctive accent from American and British English. A general view in ...

Australian Translation Service - English to Australian Translation
Australian Translation services company offering high quality professional Australian Translation at excellent prices. Australian Translation to or from English ... Australian ...

Australian-English/English-Australian: Michael Ellison - Phrasebooks ...
Simple introduction to Australian phrases and words. ... 2.50. To catch the essence of a country it is helpful to know what the natives are talking about.

Australian-English Dictionary - Uncyclopedia, the content-free ...
Fuck, mate! Some fucka fackin' facked up my fackin' facked up piss an' iz' dingeu oite moi boibee. ... WARNING! This article is designed to offend. If you are not offended by it ...

Amazon.co.uk: Australian English: Books
What's this? Search Inside! allows you to search millions of pages to find exactly the book you want to buy.

DreamaScript - Australian English Screenplay Software Dictionary
Screenplay Software Australian English dictionary ... Use DreamaScript Screenplay Software to write your screenplay in Australian English.

The Aussie Dictionary
Learn how to speak English, the Australian way! Travelling to Australia? English not your first language? Then you have come to the right place.

Translations from Australian English to English and all other language ...
Translators of all language combinations. Translations from Australian English to English, Translations from English to Australian English, Australian English tranlations ...

 

Australian English



 
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