Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
While English speakers in Britain will use whole words, Australian English speakers will use words in the diminutive. These words, often shortened from British words, are often added with a vowel at the end. This is the case with afternoon, which is British English. Arvo is Australian English for the afternoon.
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.
Australian English is most similar to British English in spelling and sentence construction, although its accent and vocabulary are very distinct from the UK.
A few historians believe that the slight 'drool' or 'slurring' which with Australians speak can be traced back to the fact that so many of the first Englishmen, colonizers, sailors and prisoners were drunk often, and that the children, upon hearing this garbled, mushy type of speaking, picked it up and passed it along.
The English accent is the one that is victorious, with the latest survey showing that 17 per cent of people have it at the top of their list. French came in next at 13 per cent, which is unsurprising considering that this is the language spoken in the city of love.
The results revealed that women and men find different accents attractive, and the only common accents on both lists were Australian and Southern.
In Australia, Australian/British spelling is preferred. The letter 's' is used, rather than the letter 'z' (American spelling).
The New Zealand and Australian accent are close, but mistaking one for the other is a big faux pas. Here's how to keep them straight.
What does it mean? Another word for friend. Common in Britain as well, but used even more enthusiastically by Aussies, who pepper the ends of their sentences with a longer, stretched out “maaaaate” that conveys friendliness and establishes a relaxed bond between the speakers.
American ranchers loved Australian Shepherds because they were great herders, but Aussies rose to fame among the general population because of their frequent appearances in rodeos. Not only could Aussies help herd the bulls, they could also perform tricks.
Yeah nah yeah = yes. No wonder you're confused! A commonly-used word here is mate, which normally means friend.
Australian English uses '-ae' with some words (paediatrician, anaesthetic) and '-e' with others (encyclopedia, medieval). American English uses '-e' (pediatrician). Australian English uses a single 'l' for some words (instil, enrol, enthral, dispel), but two for others, such as forestall and install.
Despite many people thinking Australians are of British origin they are not so a different gene pool, different patterns of migration and different indigenous people will gradually create different looks but, in the main, Australians do not look radically different from the British people.
Australian English is a non-rhotic dialect. The Australian accent is most similar to that of New Zealand and is also similar to accents from the South-East of Britain, particularly those of Cockney and Received Pronunciation. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.
Before discussing their language, it's important to know what people from Australia and New Zealand call themselves and their countries. People from Australia call their homeland “Oz;” a phonetic abbreviation of the country's name, which also harkens to the magical land from L.
When Aus or Aussie, the short form for an Australian, is pronounced for fun with a hissing sound at the end, it sounds as though the word being pronounced has the spelling Oz. Hence Australia in informal language is referred to as Oz.
Aussie = Australian
It simply means Australian, someone from Australia. So when Australian people refer to themselves, they say Aussies do so and so.
Fanny is an extremely offensive Australasian slang term for the female genitalia, so announcing to an Australasian that you ``patted your friend on the fanny'' can can leave him or her with decidedly the wrong impression.
Cheeky: Used widely in Aboriginal Australia, the word cheeky isn't only used to refer to insolence but also behaviour that is dangerous. A dog prone to biting people, for example, would be described as “cheeky”.
Here's how foreign accents rank, according to our survey: British: 69% Australian: 54%
Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
While some Australian speakers would pronounce “no” as a diphthong, starting on “oh” as in dog and ending on “oo” as in put, others begin with an unstressed “a” (the sound at the end of the word “sofa”), then move to the “oh” and then “oo”.